Dominique Moïsi on the past that won't go away

Many nations are endlessly haunted by their past. The French politician Dominique Moïsi reflects in the left-liberal weekly Heti Világgazdaság on how a nation's way of dealing with its history can condition its future development: "A nation's relationship with its past is crucial to its present and its future, to its ability to 'move on' with its life, or to learn from its past errors, not to repeat them. ... There is a major difference between the search for historical truth, which is an absolute must for a society at large and the search for the settling of scores and the punishment of those found and declared guilty. One must know the past, not to risk repeating it, but also in order to transcend it. But between a history that paralyzes a nation's ability to 'move on' collectively and an absolute unwillingness to face the past, which can lead to criticism of the present, there is ample room for maneuver. Healthy nations use that room to bury the pain of the past, if not the past itself."

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