Sonja Margolina on misconceptions about confronting the past

Sonja Margolina responds to Richard Wagner's reflections on how Central Eastern Europe deals with the past and points out that the East and the West understand interpretation of the past differently: "Europe's teaching is that by confronting the past you can put it behind you. But it's deceptive because another truth belies it: history is politics projected into the past. This is why 'confronting the past' has exactly the opposite effect: it becomes an instrument of current politics. And this is also why in some countries of Central Eastern Europe, EU integration goes hand in hand with a strange and destructive policy. The Kaczynski brothers' approach is surprising enough, but the Baltic states have also come up with a few shockers."

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