Using Memory to Fight Fascism in the Philippines

Fifty Years After Martial Law, Activists Are Combating Historical Revisionism to Hold Leaders Accountable

An altar with framed photos of martyrs and heroes who opposed martial law under Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr.’s and similar policies under Rodrigo Duterte. A black sign with golden yellow words "Remember Reflect RISE UP" leans against the table.

The numbers—70,000 detained, 35,000 tortured, 3,200 killed—represent the victims of President Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr.’s era of martial law, from 1972 to 1986. They serve as a reminder of one of the darkest periods in the Philippines’ history.

That darkness is enveloping the nation and its diaspora once again. In May 2022, 38 years after his family was exiled from the Philippines in the People Power Revolution, Bongbong Marcos Jr. was elected to a six-year presidential term alongside vice president Sara Duterte, daughter of former president and authoritarian Rodrigo Duterte.

Marcos and …

by Valmina May and Joy Sales | January 26, 2023

Unburying Franco and the Crimes of the Spanish Civil War

For Six Decades, Spain Told a Dictator’s Story. For the Past 22 Years, Citizens Have Been Creating a New Memory Landscape

by Tyler Goldberger | January 9, 2023

Provocatively deemed “The Spanish Holocaust” by historian Paul Preston, the Spanish Civil War—a conflict, extending from 1936 to 1939 that resulted in the repression, torture, and death of hundreds of …

How Germany Developed a ‘Policy on the Past’

A Constellation of Days Has Emerged to Remember the Holocaust and Its Victims

by Theo Schiller | November 28, 2022

Germany does not have a traditional, centuries-old national holiday, such as July 14 in France or July 4 in the United States.

But Germany is carefully attuned to dates, and how …

Uncovering a Life Deemed ‘Unworthy of Life’

Why the Story of Hans Heinrich Festersen—Gay, Disabled, and Murdered by the Nazis—Matters

by Kenny Fries | November 17, 2022

On September 8, 1943, Hans Heinrich Festersen was hanged at Berlin’s Plötzensee prison. Festersen, 35, had been arrested almost a year earlier, on October 12, 1942, for violating Paragraph 175, …

Sherman’s March Toward Reparations

A Little-Known Civil War Story Illuminates America’s Broken Promise to Black America

by Bennett Parten | October 31, 2022

Americans get Sherman’s March all wrong. Ask anyone who’s seen Gone with the Wind, and they’ll tell you that U.S. General William T. Sherman’s roughly 250-mile march from Atlanta to …

What We Miss When We See the Plight of the Refugee

In Bangladesh, the Resettled Rohingya in the World’s Largest Refugee Camp Lead Complicated Lives

by Mausumi Mahapatro | October 10, 2022

In 2015, the image of a Syrian child, drowned and washed ashore near the Turkish town of Bodram, went viral. This singular, visceral image of the hapless refugee victim spoke …

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