Credit: By Benoit Aubry CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
Somewhere behind national pride, shared memory and a common sense of belonging, forgetfulness stands as one of the less-appreciated pillars of nation-building. As the French historian Ernest Renan famously observed in 1882, forgetfulness “is essential to the creation of a nation.” “Unity is always achieved by means of brutality,” he argued, and brutality is best forgotten.
