Trauma:
History Remembers
The consideration of and the treatment of 9/11 and Gaza are not meant to exclude historical issues which serve as causation and correlated to them. To exclude and not remember would be an injustice.
The historical persecution of Jews, the worst occurring during the Holocaust – in particular the Final Solution – under Hitler and National Socialism must be remembered. That 6 million Jews were by far the largest single group of the 11 million killed, must be remembered. The terror of Hitler’s implementation of “Lebensraum”, enactment of the Nuremberg Laws of Citizenship, being forcibly removed to ghettoes and camps and forcibly living in deplorably horrific conditions must never be forgotten. The terror and trauma must never be forgotten.
The establishment of Israel in 1948 and the migration of Jews seeking refuge from persecution from across the world displacing some 750,000 Arab Palestinians should not be forgotten either. As well, the wars of 1948, 1967 and 1973 should be remembered. It also needs to be remembered that anti-Zionism does not equate to nor does it define anti-Semitism.
History remembers.
In 1609, James I monarchy initiated a plan to deal with the most disorderly, disruptive and disobedient of Ireland’s provinces. The plan involved establishing twenty-five new towns which were to serve as the focus of government authority, trade and industry and Protestantism. The goal was to civilize Ulster because the existing population of Irish Catholics, were barbarous. The settlers of the “plantation” were loyal to Britain. The Irish lost their homes, land and leaders while being forced to live under customs foreign to them. The era of the establishment of the “Ulster plantation” was the beginning of the spread of the Irish diaspora to continental Europe.
From 1755-1764, more than 100 years before Canada was confederated, 11,5000 Acadians were expelled from the Maritimes, primarily Nova Scotia, for refusing to sign unconditional oaths of allegiance to the British Crown. Although they were French people originally from France, they no longer held any allegiance to their mother country. This made them neutral when it came to the conflict between Britain and France during the French-Indian War, the North American theatre of the 7 Years War in Europe. The expelled land was to be settled by loyal British Subjects. The forcible expulsion caused many families to be separated with thousands of deaths from disease, starvation or shipwrecks during their deportation.
In 1879 the government of Sir John A. Macdonald invoked its National Policy in order to expand the interests of Canada via the policy’s triumvirate of; railroad building, immigration and tariffs to protect and grow Canada’s industrial manufacturing and farming capacity. In order to acquire the lands necessary to build railroads and increase farming capacity, Indigenous people had to be removed. As a result of a series of “Numbered Treaties” and the passage of the Indian Act (1879), the land was acquired, Indigenous Peoples were moved to reserves to take up a way of life foreign to them, being a “status Indian” was codified, and eventually, Indigenous children would be mandated to go to residential schools with the goal of having the Indian taught out of them to eradicate their culture. Yes, cultural genocide was part of the policy to grow and develop Canada’s productive capacities.
How many siblings and their families and friends suffered horrendous trauma from the terror of such policies of “civilizing the barbarous”?
Trump 2.0’s arrogant hubris filled hegemonic peace plan for Gaza involved the development of Gaza into a “Riviera of the Middle East”; the “Gaza Riviera”. According to CNBC (September 1, 2025) a document detailed the following re: Trump’s plan:
*use of mass displacement to relocate Gaza’s population, use of artificial intelligence, and at least a decade of U.S. trusteeship over the war-ravaged enclave.
*“voluntary” relocation of Gaza’s population in exchange for digital tokens, six to eight “AI-powered smart cities,” and a manufacturing hub named after Elon Musk.
*the entirety of Gaza’s population of two million to be relocated, at least temporarily, through either what it calls voluntary departures to another country, or the moving of residents into temporary housing areas within the Strip during reconstruction.
History remembers.
On June 24. 2022, the Trump 2.0 loaded Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Not only women but doctors, nurses and other health care practitioners in the great free and democratic United States can be fined and/or imprisoned for providing what used to be an important part of maternal health. For some 300 years, women across Europe who were healers, midwives, property owners, and important and revered leaders/decision makers were accused were persecuted as a result of the rise and spread of the patriarchal Christian church. Women were charged, prosecuted, tortured and/or killed as a result. Oft referred to as the “Women’s Holocaust”, the Church used “The Malleus Maleficarum” – the church’s witch hunt persecution handbook in its campaign of terror and trauma against women. If a line can be drawn from the Witch Hunts to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, it wouldn’t be as straight as an arrow because it meanders here and there, what does it say about the march of the history of women? What does it say about the ongoing imposition of mostly patriarchal dogmatic religious fundamentalism across the globe?
History remembers.
Since December 2025, ICE agents have been deployed in Minneapolis. The news, social media and more importantly, the streets are filled with terror and the trauma. 5-year-old Liam Ramos ended up in custody and was detained. Renee Good and Alex Pretti were murdered. Such terror and trauma being experienced as Trump, Vance, Hesgeth, Rubio, Noem et al stand by seemingly revelling in delight as they cast aspersions on humanity while the march toward making America great again continues.
History will remember.
John Irving wrote in A Prayer for Owen Meany, “Your memory is a monster; you forget - it doesn’t. It simply files things away. It keeps things for you, or hides things from you - summons them to your recall with will of its own. You think you have a memory but it has you!”
As horrifically monstrous as the memories are, history remembers. It always does and so should we.
It’s personal.