The following is the text of a lecture delivered by Richard Rogers on the 16th anniversary of the Liberation War Museum.
I feel extremely honoured to speak to you today as we celebrate the 16th anniversary of the Liberation War Museum. The Museum is a testament to a people’s desire to know and understand the difficult and painful episodes of its own history. Few communities around the globe can claim to have a history devoid of conflict or tragedy and dealing with the post-war situation has always been a challenge. Embarrassed or afraid of the truths that may rise to the surface, some call to forgive and forget the past, to ‘turn a page’, to leave the skeletons in the closet. Yet, time and again, this philosophy of repression has left too many questions unanswered, too much misunderstood, and has led history to repeat itself. In the former Yugoslavia, grievances hundreds of years old re-surfaced in the 1990s to result in one of the greatest tragedies in modern European history. In Rwanda, the echoes of colonial rule fuelled a divide that ended in a slaughter of almost a million people. Two decades after the First World War left Europe in ruins, Adolf Hitler managed to garner support for a second and even more devastating war. In 1971, Bangladesh was scarred by a terrible conflict that has not been put to rest. The way in which the people of Bangladesh approach this past will undoubtedly shape its future.
