REFLEXIONS

       The greatest challenge for historians and journalists is to maintain an unbiased view of events past and present.  Their professional ethic demands that their statements are based on information gathered from sources of the first order whenever possible.  However, such sources of information are rare and hard to reach.  Sometimes the source of information is incomplete or outdated, and sometimes it is so voluminous and scattered that it is practically impossible to examine thoroughly.  What's more, the evidence that might reveal the real actors pulling the strings behind the scenes is often destroyed, falsified or simply not recorded.  As the perpetrators tend to delete all traces of thier often infamous acts it is easy for the ruling parties to falsify or manipulate historical and political facts into politcal propaganda and myths.  Thus historians and journalists are misled into a biased interpretation of events.  Those who try to remain true to their professional ethic and attempt to re-examine facts in an unbiased fashion get dismissed as ‚revisionists‘ or followers of ‚conspiracy theories‘, labels that are ruinous to their professional status and career.  Their access to media is curtailed, and they are financially, if not even physically destroyed. The question is then, what to do?

 

The easiest way out is, of course, to remain silent.  But isn’t that precisely the aim of the ruling party which is undermining the freedom of speech and thought, a liberty that is the very foundation of democracy and human rights? Human society and science cannot progress when re-examination of official postulates and dogmas is punishable by law, or considered treason. Aplying taboo topics and political corectness is just another way the ruling class prevents the truth from being revealed to the public. 

Repression of academic and intelectual freedom stalls progress, and leads into a seroius cultural regression, akin to past eras of totalitarian regimes.  But society can resist this enforced fall into a new dark age.  One of the most powerful tools against repression is doubt.  Doubt helps to dismantle myth and dogma, and opens the way to unbiased understanding of events, their causes and consequences.  Doubt is resolved by sourcing and re-examining facts, considering circumstantial elements like location and political climate, reading between the lines of official statements and proclamations, consulting indicators, making analogies and data comparison from multiple sources.  Of course, erroneous conclusions are always possible, however, is it not better to explore all options than to abstain for the sake of respect for political taboos, myths and dogma?  Errors can be corrected, and the research can continue.  But progress is very much impeded by ideological postulates.  They must be suppressed because they impede free exploration and factual discovery.

 

For this very reason I decided to open this website as a platform that inspires readers to view current affairs from an unbiased perspective, with an understanding of past and contemporary history, unimpeded by the blinders of ideological and political propaganda.  I am also using this website to stay clear from editorial or ideological pressures in other academic or political websites.

 

The website title, Reflections, was chosen because the posts on this site are not limited to strictly academic historical analyses.  They are a compilation of articles originally published in other media and are posted in the original language.

Finally, I would like to thank my sister, Masha Marjanovich, for her help with the website design and English translation.