- "Negationism," the denial or suppression of
facts, is present in most societies/nations. India has its share of negationists
who love to deny Indian history. Strangely, to my utter surprise, I found
that the United States has its own brand of negationists. The nation as
a whole loves to deny certain facts, and if anyone tries to broach the
subject, its blasphemy at its worst and anti-American at best. Negating
that the European settlers and then the U.S. government killed the Native
Americans is such a standard that it's unfashionable to talk about it.
There are certain "zoos" where the aboriginals are kept, I am
told. But that is all that America has to offer them.
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- Similarly, that the world peacekeepers and brokers were
the ones who obliterated the populations of two Japanese cities - Hiroshima
and Nagasaki - is something that is just not discussed. People in Japan
died in hundreds of thousands, and generations suffered because of the
nuclear holocaust. Despite all of this, there is no sense of guilt, no
remorse among the average American.
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- The fallout of the nuclear attack by America is still
being felt in Japan. Incidences of premature deformed babies, cancer and
genetic defects have plagued the Japanese society. Yet average Americans
are blissfully unaware as to what their historical actions did to a people.
The sad part is that they do not want to hear about it and even if they
do they tend to justify the acts of their predecessors.
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- I would have thought that former President Harry Truman,
who ordered the bombing, must be a pariah in the annals of American history.
Yet he is regarded as a "strong president" who did not hesitate
to make "hard decisions"!
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- One would have expected the American media to be fair
to the Japanese people, but they just do not seem to appreciate the kind
of devastation that their country's actions had on this tiny island nation.
It is as if it did not happen at all - or worse, that the Japanese deserved
it. Why such apathy? Americans are supposed to be sensitive caring people,
so why can't they accept that as a nation they went wrong? Why can they
not accept that their predecessors made the wrong decision and its time
to accept these mistakes?
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- Hiroshima and Nagasaki are not isolated incidents. Vietnam
was another American blunder; however, it must be mentioned that this policy
decision was much debated and there was a public outcry in America against
it.
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- But what about all the tin-pot dictators that America
has propped up over the years for its own strategic interests, only to
pull them down later? What about the support of Saddam Hussein during the
seven year Iran-Iraq war?
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- The Carter administration's disastrous support of the
Shah of Iran is another one of these incidents that has been forgotten
by the average American. Or what about the Iran-Contra affair, where the
main culprits were hailed as saviors, people like Oliver North being treated
as heroes.
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- American conveniently forgot that their government used
depleted uranium ammunition in the Saddam/Kuwait affair in the Middle East
and then the subsequent Gulf War. Even when the butchering of hapless Iraqi
soldiers led to repercussions in the form of Timothy McVeigh, Americans
still have a blind spot for their foreign policy decisions.
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- The root cause of all these problems, and more unmentioned,
lies in the American belief that America can do no wrong. The freedom of
the American people and their fundamental rights are paramount and Americans
believe they have the right to "defend their freedom" in any
way or means necessary.
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- This belief is a great achievement, until it begins to
affect the freedom and fundamental rights of other people and other nations.
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- I once again go back to the example of Japan in World
War II. A war was being fought with conventional weapons, but the Americans
decided that their people's freedom to live was more important than the
freedom of innocent Japanese.
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- A nation made a mistake. We all do. But they must have
the heart to accept this mistake and apologize for it. That is how strong
men and strong nations conduct themselves.
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- Would it not be proper that the people of America apologize
for the wrong that they did to their Japanese counterparts a few decades
ago? Will that make America weak? I think America and Americans would be
more respected among the world community if they would admit their faults.
This would help erase the culture of negationism in America.
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- There is another side to the story. The culture of negationism
runs so deep in America that people have a tendency to deny or at least
to downplay their mistakes. The recent corporate disasters that have seen
at least two giants go under and a third having had to admit that the profits
were inflated by a couple of billion dollars is another fallout of the
culture of negationism in America.
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- Being a loser is frowned upon. A winner is loved, no
matter how the win was achieved. If the CEO's of these companies had the
guts to say sorry and show the red in the balance sheet, as was the truth,
then lots of jobs could have been saved and the nation would not have had
to face such embarrassment.
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- The President would not have had to come out and talk
about greater transparency in the accounting norms. America and Americans
would not be asking their leaders the kind of questions that they are asking
now. American companies would not have been looked at with suspicion, their
credibility at an all time low. The dollar would not have come down to
the level of the Euro; the world would have been saved a minor economic
upheaval.
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- Till the Americans learn to say 'sorry,' I would suggest
people invest in gold. ___
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- [Ullas Sharma writes on political and economic issues,
especially on South Asia. A post-graduate in marketing management, he is
a publisher of academic books on social sciences and humanities. He lives
with his wife, Aruna, and their five-year-old son, Utkarsh, in Varanasi,
India.]
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- Ullas Sharma encourages your comments: usharma@YellowTimes.org
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