History is Present
This week in Liberation 101 we’re focused on “Understanding How We Got Here” (aka History). I naturally have been reflecting on my own relationship with history.
Young me with a baby goat.
I’ve loved history since I was a child. I was an early and avid reader, and both of my parents are huge fans of public television and radio. So, it was learning central, much of it focused on history, the arts, and culture. I was reading books, articles, watching tv/film about the various international tragedies happening in the 1990’s/early 2000’s - Milosevic’s genocide and reign of terror, the Rwandan genocide, South African apartheid, Gulf War I, Saddam Hussein’s reign of terror and weapons of mass destruction, the child soldiers of Uganda, and the list goes on. (Maybe not what your average kid does, but international relations and understanding and awareness of international events have always been a pull for me - Aquarius stellium, I’m looking at you:).)
That was all on top of learning about the Holocaust, US History towards Indigenous Americans and people of African descent, the Korean War, Vietnam War, and other previous (and ongoing) human-made tragedies. Then, 9/11 happened in 8th grade. Like many Millennials, I grew up with all of this and being raised by Boomers, the children of parents who lived through WWII and the Great Depression and the Cold War. We were also the generation raised with tv, partially raised by the internet, and then were older teens or young adults when smart phones came out. We remember what it was like to have the nightly news be a “thing” or the radio (I’m looking at you NPR) be a source of the state of the world at a specific time of day, not a constant barrage of news.
With all of this, too, I distinctly remember wanting to understand why humans were so intent on othering and then putting violence to force against the “other.” It seemed so immoral and inhumane and cut to my core values. It felt inherently wrong - war, genocide, crimes against humanity, racism, all of it.
Growing up in South Carolina from 1986-2004, history was also a constant presence. The treasonous flag of the confederacy was flown on SC’s statehouse capital. Then, after NAACP boycotts and legal battles, it was moved to the statehouse grounds until it finally disappeared. Not only that, I unfortunately knew kids whose parents flew this flag in their yards or wore various that symbol of hate on their clothes to school. Despite our public school district’s rules against profanity/inappropriate/offensive items on clothing, white kids wearing the confederate flag was not considered a part of this. I had neighbors who did Civil War reenactments, one of which had a cannon in his yard for years. I have always believed that this flag and any attempt to support, condone, or rationalize the Southern states’ position in the Civil War is a blatant belief in the superiority of one group of people over another. Period. It wasn’t about commerce or state’s rights. It was about the ability to own human beings to provide free labor to build wealth. It was about dehumanization, hatred, and greed.
I bring up my childhood experiences and memories to show how much history can be a part of our present reality, for better or worse, or as a neutral player. But, then again, can it be neutral? Is the telling of the history of a society or a country inherently political?
I’ve been to two museums in the past few years that focused on truth and reconciliation processes post human rights tragedies - South Africa’s Apartheid Museum and Chile’s Museum of Museum of Memory & Human Rights (recognizing the reign of terror that Pinochet had in the country and the lives lost). When history is told as it is - the oppression of a people by a person or group - that is the kind of history I want to learn and learn from. So much of history is told by the winners, yes, but also by states with an agenda of propaganda and patriotism. What if the state is responsible for the oppression? Then, how can we trust what they have to say about history? Just like the family member has a version of how things went down or the friend in the group has a version of how things went down, so does the state. It’s one view with a specific agenda. Should we believe this as the full truth?! I don’t know about you, but I’m learning to be more discerning and more curious.
Some reflections:
While I was able to read books and find content that offered more of a truthful lens to history, the fact is that “history is written by the winners” or the colonizers, right? So, when we learn about history, some questions I would ask are:
What are we really learning?
What source are we learning history from?
Is it the full truth or even the truth at all?
Where does power imbalance lie?
A simple example is the arrival of the Mayflower. How most of us (I’m assuming) learned it was: “The Mayflower was full of British people escaping tyranny in England and looking for a new home on a land that basically was for them. There was some strife the with native peoples, but it wasn’t so bad, and then everyone had a big meal and were friends.”
The Indigenous version of that Mayflower landing - is that how they would tell the story? A story of love and light? Um…no. In week five of Liberation 101, we dig into the United American Indians of New England sources that touch directly on this and Thanksgiving.
Next week:
Next week’s blog post is going to be a bit of a travel crossover, but not just the flashy fun stuff of Fiji and Vanuatu (like the previous blog post) - my favorite human rights’ related museums/historical sites in the world that I’ve been to as an adult (aka post college).
The two museums mentioned in this article will be featured, along with my favorite museum in the world located in…I’ll let you guess. Make sure to sign up for my newsletters to stay updated - I often share more there.
