Professor Niyi Osundare has warned that societies must be careful about how they remember their history, saying memory can be manipulated and exploited to serve political and ideological interests.
Osundare made the submission during a conversation with Gbénró Adégbolá at an Ibadan event organised around the presentation of his new book, Truth Is Trouble.
The book, a collection of Osundare’s essays, speeches, tributes, farewells and interviews, examines issues ranging from literature and culture to politics, identity and the responsibilities of intellectuals in society.
The poet said memory was indispensable to human existence, noting that people could not live without remembering.
“We can’t live for one moment without memory,” he said.
However, he warned that memory alone could become dangerous if it was not accompanied by critical reflection and an active understanding of the past, adding, “Memory is static, and remembrance is dynamic.”
According to him, while memory preserves what happened, remembrance determines how societies interpret and use what they remember.
“Memory without remembrance is useless and it could also be dangerous,” arguing that people often remember history differently because their experiences are different.
He said, “We remember differently. We laugh differently because we cry differently. We die differently because we live differently,” maintaining that truth and beauty should not be viewed from a single perspective.
“Truth is not monochromatic. Beauty is not monochromatic,” he said.
The scholar also warned against the manipulation of historical memory for political purposes, saying some groups could use selective remembrance to justify claims over land, identity and historical grievances.
He cited debates over historical ownership of land as an example, asking what about the memories of other communities that had occupied or lived on such land over generations.
Osundare also linked the manipulation of memory to contemporary debates over what children should be taught in schools, particularly concerning slavery, race and Critical Race Theory in the United States.
He criticised attempts to sanitise history by removing uncomfortable facts from educational curricula, affirming, “Slavery actually happened.”
The poet warned that societies could not build a truthful future by deliberately forgetting or distorting uncomfortable aspects of their past.
He maintained that this was one reason why tyrants and powerful interests often sought to control history.
“This is why tyrants want to control history,” he said.
For Osundare, confronting history honestly is essential to preventing societies from becoming permanent prisoners of manipulated memory.
