The Right Side of History Doesn’t Exist

Are we all heroes or hypocrites?

Photo by Emily Crawford on Unsplash

History always looks different from afar than when you’re in the middle of living it.

From a distance, it looks like people were faced with life-changing choices every day. Like you could make a decision between oppression and freedom every time you step out the door.

And it looks like their choices were easy and well-informed. We think people had the same knowledge of what was happening in the past as we do now.

How could Germans not understand who Hitler was, before it was too late? How could people approve of the actions of military dictatorships in Latin America? Why have people, on so many occasions, let genocide happen?

But from up close, times of great societal change look an awful lot like grocery shopping, paying the bills and wathing TV. Like right now.

And knowing what the right side of history is is not always easy.

Patriots or Fascists?

Here’s one thing US Americans and Finns have in common: we all love to pretend we’re the good guys.

Especially when it comes to WWII history, nobody wants to admit their side also had some bad people.