Nothing New in the World
Renato Redentor Constantino, The Poverty of Memory: Essays on History and Empire (FNS-2006), p. 52-55
Nothing New in the World
The winding path the United States took to September 11th.
“Memory says, ‘I did that,’” Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote. “Pride replies, ‘I could not have done that.’ Eventually, memory yields.”
Three years ago in America, on September 11, airplanes fell from the sky and thousands died. Countless numbers mourned the mass murder. Countless mourn still. On the same day 31 years ago, the sky fell in Chile when the democratically-elected Allende government was overthrown in a bloody coup staged by the American government. Who mourns the Chilean sky?
Remembering is a political act, wrote Boston Globe columnist James Carroll. “Forgetfulness is the handmaiden of tyranny.”
In 1953, the United States engineered a coup in Iran which ousted the government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh — an Iranian colossus who happened to live in a frail [READ]

