Many people say that we must learn from history so that we do not repeat the same past mistakes. While I would certainly agree with this, I would add that we must also work to heal from our histories as well as to know them, as preparation for and prevention against repeating the detrimental parts, the ones where we hurt others and got hurt ourselves. This includes our societal histories, cultural histories, family histories, and individual histories. We may better learn from our ancestors by studying what they lived through, particularly the battles they fought, while also understanding how they dealt or did not deal with the aftermath. It is imperative for us to know that so much trauma from our collective histories has been passed down intergenerationally, leaving many individuals, groups, communities, and even nations to feel angry, vulnerable, scared and even frozen, lacking the ability to process their trauma and begin to move forward from it, versus reactively acting out past wounds.

After World War II and the Holocaust, the former Soviet Union took over eastern Europe, which then became known as the Eastern Bloc. Communism ruled, and it was an authoritarian system. The losses, death, and destruction from WWII were not openly discussed other than identifying the West, Others, and anyone who appeared ‘other than’ as the enemy. The Holocaust was not taught or discussed in schools. It was not until the fall of the Berlin Wall that whispers and later discussions about the six million Jews targeted and killed was acknowledged. And I doubt that the additional five million deaths by and of Russians, Poles, Germans and many others were thoughtfully addressed. People’s emotional lives and the pain they and their families endured could not be a point of connection and exchange for fear of their government’s retaliation.

Next Tuesday, we will vote for the next American president as we do every four years. However, since 2016 or earlier this process has been tampered with by domestic and foreign agents who do not want to see free and open elections. Clearly, we have seen dictatorships rising around the world. What are people so afraid of? In this country, we have worked for the past almost 250 years toward a more inclusive, fair, and egalitarian society which has always been open to a path toward immigration at least for some, priding itself on this. And yes, there is no doubt we need to do better. Today, there is so much anxiety, disinformation, and outright hatred- an ‘us against them’ way of viewing things.

We, in the United States, have never felt a complete lack of choice. We have not had to live under a regime of fear. The closest example I can think of occurred in the decade before I was born, under McCarthyism. The name and term alone put the fear of God into so many, especially those targeted as potential “communists,” especially government employees, prominent figures in the entertainment industry, academics, left-wing politicians, and labor union activists, all who were in jeopardy of losing their livelihood or possibly being jailed. We must not go backward. Today we are on the brink of recognizing just how fragile our democracy actually is. We must believe it can and will be taken from us if we elect a fascist dictator, and instead, learn how to have meaningful and honest conversations with one another rather than choose divisiveness. In order to do so, we need to work toward processing our past trauma, so that we can build a more peaceful, cooperative, and welcoming democracy.