Selective amnesia, historical revisionism
Selective amnesia and historical revisionism are among the latest accusations hurled against the Marcoses. And actually, it comes as no real surprise. Demonizing the Marcoses is the longest-running and most sustained slander campaign mounted against a single family on earth. All that is lacking is a recognition by Ripley's.
Even those who do not know a thing first-hand about the Marcoses pretend that they know. And nobody gives a damn. Nobody gives a damn because it is hip to do so. The Marcoses have become so vilified that even those who themselves also practice selective amnesia and historical revisionism can get away with it on the principle that such wrongdoings have already been appropriated by the Marcoses for themselves.
But selective amnesia and historical revisionism are not exclusive to the Marcoses. In fact, the Marcoses are as much the victims as most people think they are the perpetrators. History has been written for them with regard for only half the facts. When they beg for the other half, there being always two sides to a story, even with the Marcos story, they are promptly denied and charged with selective amnesia and historical revisionism.
But let me point out an example of selective amnesia and historical revisionism perpetrated not by the Marcoses but by very young students from a classy school in Metro Manila, students one would expect to have been given the best education and thus would act accordingly. But an art exhibit they put up betrays how they have been brainwashed by the hip and the all-knowing.
The art exhibit features portraits of three women the students idolize as modern heroines who ostensibly fought for their rights and freedoms. The three women are Maria Ressa, Leila de Lima, and Maria Lourdes Sereno. At this point please forgive me if I must pause and laugh. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! There, sorry for that, but I just can't help myself. The choice for heroines by these kids is just too funny.
Levity aside, it is scary how pretty skewed the perspectives of today's kids have become. Choosing these three women as inspiring icons of heroism is selective amnesia and historical revisionism at their worst. I will not even go so far as spoonfeeding these kids why I think they are terribly wrong. They can always google up independent sources for the true reasons why these three women have been in trouble with the government.
And by independent sources I mean almost any news source except Rappler, Inquirer, and ABS-CBN. For Rappler, Inquirer, and ABS-CBN are to media what Ressa, De Lima, and Sereno are to politics. If the kids are still recoverable, they should be redirected in their perspectives, reformed in their choices, and refreshed in their facts.
I am sure that as students in the arts, they have a fairly keen sense of what beauty is and just how incomparably and unfathomably beautiful our world is. There are so many things around them to inspire the unbridled flow of their artistic juices than, oh my God, Maria Ressa, Leila de Lima, and Maria Lourdes Sereno. Redeem yourselves, kids. Do not let your futures be swallowed up by your own selective amnesia and historical revisionism.
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