The Forgotten Issue

Volume 7 Issue 1, October 2007

The photo on the cover of this magazine is of a memorial to 9/11 – but it isn’t our memorial. Long before the planes struck the twin towers, September 11th resonated as the day the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende in Chile was toppled by a West-supported coup. Today, we remember 9/11/2001 ad nauseum. How often do we even think of 9/11/1973?

The creation, the deletion, and the manipulation of narratives defines how we see the world around us. People, ideas, whole eras disappear down the memory hole whenever they become too uncomfortable, unpopular, or inconvenient. At the same time, we get so absorbed in the negative that we forget all the beauty, the friendship, and the absolutely sublime world that surrounds us. For every one thing we remember, there’s far more that we must forget. The key is to be aware.

Open your eyes. Question everything, beginning with yourself. Question what you believe, what you care about, what you see, and what you hear. Be skeptical of simple plotlines, ideologies, and moral clarity. The forgotten are people all around us. They’re ideas in each of us. Looking for them is time well spent.

Josh Smyth
Editor-in-Chief