A few months ago, I participated in a forum on the uses of history. I began my presentation with some cases of persecution undertaken by the governments of various countries against historians. I referred, among others, to the "Memorial" Institute of History and Education, founded by the Russian historian Arseny Roginsky, and to the harassment suffered by the historian Allia Mossallam in Egypt.
In recent weeks, I have heard of those cases that I mentioned. "Memorial" was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Immediately, the Russian government intensified its attacks against the files collected by that organization. At the origins of "Memorial" is the investigation that showed how the Smolensk massacre, which Soviet textbooks dated back to 1941 and was attributed to the Nazis, actually took place in 1940 and was carried out by Soviet troops. . Currently, the Russian government commits massacres of the civilian population in Ukraine, which it attributes to the Ukrainian government. That is why Putin has decided to persecute historians.
Today is one of the many meetings of world leaders focused on climate change. The meeting is held in Cairo while many organizations denounce the Egyptian army's human rights violations. When Allia was detained at the airport in that city, the Minister of Immigration and Internal Affairs declared that the narratives about the military's role in Egypt's history were false and damaged the country's honor. She assured that Egyptian people, like Allia, who studied in a foreign county, were dangerous since they introduced these false versions among the Egyptians.
Throughout the world, authoritarian politicians accuse historians of "causing shame" to citizens and of damaging the national "honor." We must constantly remember that we should not feel proud of our past; instead, we must explain it and learn to feel pride in what we do in the present.