Remembrance

— Sappho, 600 BC

George Orwell once wrote that victims of socialism would not merely be eradicated in life, but would be completely wiped out from the very memory of humanity. They would cease to have ever existed. Indeed, for most of recent history, his prediction has come close to the truth.

Regrettably, much of the lack of attention stems from sheer denial among some in the West to acknowledge the failures of their socialist dreams. They have been far too willing to overlook anything, however preposterous, disregard everything, however heinous, and turn the other cheek to crimes against humanity, however brutal, to chase their paradise. While they excuse the ultimate in human depravity in pursuit of the brotherhood of man, they desecrate the memories of those who succumbed to the false ideologies they espouse.

The all-pervasive air of secrecy of communist governments created the initial obstacle in the outside world knowing of the struggles of the victims of communism. But even after the regimes fell, their stories have largely been ignored. Their memoirs have been written mostly in languages other than English, not always published. There have been no movies from Hollywood, no documentaries on their behalf, and no mentions in our school's textbooks. There are no museums of communism, no monuments in their name, and no UN resolutions in their honor. Any commemoration on their behalf has to come from those of us who desire to make their struggle known.

For the more than hundred million who were murdered by communist governments during the last century—

For the countless who were steamrolled under the heavy-handed machinery of blind ideology—

For all those who perished in re-education camps in Vietnam, in Cominformists prisons in Yugoslavia, on the pavement at Tiananmen Square, in the bowels of the slave archipelagos, along the death path of the Sendero Luminoso—

For the voiceless victims lying buried beneath the permafrost of Siberia, in mass graves of Cambodia, under the soil of a former Chinese collective farm, under the weight of a Himalayan mountain in Tibet, at the bottom of the ocean off the coast of Cuba—

For the millions more who bleed today in North Korea, Cuba, China, Laos, and Vietnam—

Let us remember their suffering, chronicle their bravery, and honor their memory.

On this May Day, let us remind the world, so it may never forget.