Silence about historical situations

The refusal to discuss particularly painful episodes in the life of a people.

Most countries, military establishments, and official religions maintain a careful silence concerning periods or incidents in the past when they have engaged in repressive or otherwise morally repugnant actions against some group. This leads to pressure to avoid mention of such events in history textbooks or other media. Examples include treatment of prisoners of war and wartime atrocities, forms of dirty war and use of death squads, as well as failures to respond to requests for assistance in emergencies.

After the replacement of the military regime in Argentinia in 1990, the president pardoned military leaders for the crimes they had authorized or committed during the dictatorship. The authorities have since then actively discouraged public discussion of the events.

1. Unethical practice in historical disciplines
2. Indifference to suffering
3. Historically determined concerns

1. Dismissal of past cultural achievements
2. Denial of the Holocaust
3. Denial by old people of the significance of the past

1. Unrecorded knowledge
2. Limited historical method
3. Historical misrepresentation
4. Historical humiliation
5. Commemoration of dishonourable historical events

1. Premature exoneration of human rights abuses
2. Presentism

1. Tragedy
2. Self-denial
3. Failure
4. Evasion
5. Denial