The Past and How We Think It Was…

The Past and How We Think It Was…

By: Erreh Svaia

“Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

George Santayana

There's something really strange going on in the world these days, as again we seem to be getting absorbed by our nostalgia foray, yes, Guns n Roses are back, but are they as good as they used to be? They were not able to make a record as good as Appetite for Destruction, and their current reunion tour looks like nothing but a quick cash in strategy, neither classic line up members Izzy Stradlin nor Steven Adler appeared for the tour, and most of all, I don't think they will be able to follow up with a decent record, Axl Rose's megalomania peaked on Chinese Democracy recording process, and now, his confirmed status as the new singer in AC/DC doesn't seem to make things better.

And talking about nostalgia and Chinese Democracy, it looks like that authoritarian Mao type of government is being reactivated in China thanks to president Xi Jinping concentration of power, what we saw in past years, as a process of openness and democratization in China, recent economic crises revealed the truth, China is not open and transparent enough to gain foreign investors trust as economic growth statistics doesn't look so trustworthy, and repression seems to be hurting deeply the heart of Hong Kong, one of the big motors of the Chinese economy, whether Chinese leaders want to admit it, the iron fist on HK is causing more damage and it will backlash on the rest of the country, but democracy perceived as a sign of weakness is not something the Chinese government seems close to show, even if it could sank even more the boat, in a crucial time for South Asia to be seen as the world's next big growing regional economy.

There's nostalgia for Stalin, and I think Putin is hesitant about being a Tsar or the next Stalin, and it gets a little confusing as Stalin was a big admirer of the Tsars, and for some reason yet unknown, Stalin's popularity in Russia is starting to grow lately o it's time for Putin to ride the wave and apply some iron fist and muscle to the Russian country.

And if that wasn't enough, think about the Peruvian wanting back Fujimori's "Fujishock" tactics back thanks to Alberto Fujimori's daughter Keiko close to becoming the country next president, either we are sick of nostalgia or we want our past, no matter how bad it was, back, or like fish, we have a very short memory span, what worries me the most here is do we really want our past back? Do we know well our past? Or we are been tricked into thinking that the past was better? Are we nostalgic for a past that we ignore and that perhaps never really happened as we were told?