Selective Amnesia of war

The selective Amnésie of war is the implicit Amnésie that States, media, soldiers and public opinions adopt in “forgetting” unanimously the atrocities of a war last or in progress. It is the disavowal of the facts of atrocities.

The atrocities of its own camp often overlooked or charged to others (selective amnesia of war) while those of the opponent are freely denounced.

It is closely related to the point of view, in particular that of the winner, as with the ideas of “justice of the cause” and clean Guerre, making deaths only among the combatants, and during the combat.

Mechanism: to forget and charge to the “other”

In this amnesia, one notes the will to forget to continue to live, but also “transformations” of the facts, in particular to charge them to others what makes it possible to move away any responsibility from it.

To forget to continue:

One cannot deny a certain quality with this lapse of memory since it facilitates the reports/ratios: " One ceases speaking about it, that does not have existé". This amnesia and amnesties facilitating the reconciliation and the rebuilding according to war.

To charge to the other…

The release of the war, its atrocities, - but by facility - are often unanimously posed as being the only fact from abroad. The foreigner who can be an ideology (" communistes" , “Nazis”), a religion ( " the calvinisme" , " the judaïsme" ), of the men ( " Allemands" , “Americans” ) or of the external powers ( " USA" , " URSS" ). One moves away the responsibility and the culpability while trying to say: " The massacres were perpetrated by the others, us, we were the good côté."

Unanimous selective amnesia

This selective amnesia notes in many public opinions, the clean idea of Guerre is also dependant there: to accept this formula it is a selective amnesia accepting the belief which a war can be clean .

The State often has a big role, propagandist, directing the Média S, possibly using of the Censure, but also - since the revelation of the weight of the Média S in the Guerre of the Vietnam - other diverted means, such as the prohibition of access on the spot to the journalists, prohibitions of photographs, remote behavior of alleged zones at the risks in a preoccupation with a protection of the human life, who is as many measurements being able to be legitimate, like abusive.

The Soldier S, them, often tend to simply want to forget. But they are frequently shocked by the engagements and develop neuroses known as of war.

The Public opinion, in the case of an amnesia of war, often tends to be satisfied with the official version, of not to want to see the drifts of its army, to support it, like its State.

Revisionism vis-a-vis the amnesia of war

This revisionism appears often a long time after the facts, because of will not to see .

The revisionism tends to affirm another version of the conflict, with arbitrary settlings of score, executions, etc: together of drifts common to the wars whose consent is delicate, more still in a fratricidal war (Guerre of Korea).

This revisionism is often denounced like putting salt on the wound and blocking the reconciliation of the people, and attacked like antipatriotic. But it is defended like a sincerity necessary for the forgiveness and a healthy reconciliation of the parts.

NB: more enthusiastic revisionists are often soldiers themselves - pilot as actors of atrocities - which makes a point of avoiding the continuity or the repetition of what they saw, or made.

Dependant conflicts

Conflicts having generated a “selective amnesia of particularly virulent war”:

Second world war, amnesia of the crimes of Nazis and Collaborator S, then amnesia of the allied crimes.
Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) and Guerre of the Large Eastern Asia, Japanese amnesia of the crimes committed in China and in the whole of the the Far East at the time of the expansion showa. See also: Japanese Revisionism, War of the handbooks, diplomatic tension China - Japan of April 2005 due to a handbook of Japanese history.
War of Korea, amnesia of the fratricidal crimes between Korea NS and of those of the allied troops at the various edges (communist Chinese and Soviet, states-uniens).
War of Algeria: In Metropolitan France, amnesia of the French crimes on the Algerian populations (recognized Algerian crimes). In Algeria, amnesia of the Algerian crimes on the French populations and Harki (recognized French crimes).
War of Vietnam, amnesia of the crimes committed by the American army. Example
Rwandan genocide, amnesia of the crimes committed by the FPR at the time of the " libération" Rwanda in 1994

See too

Turbid behavioral of war
Amnesty

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