It is important to be aware of history, not only in the sense of
"those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it", but also in the 1984
sense of "Those who control the past control the present". The meaning of the
present is shaped by what happened in the past. World War II has a huge
effect on the present, and perceptions of the present. People tell us
that we should heed the lessons of Munich, 1938 and be wary of negotiating with
megalomaniacs. People tell us how the occupations of Germany and Japan contain
lessons on how we should handle the occupation of Iraq. We are told that the
Ba'athist parties of Syria and Iraq are offshoots of the Nazi party, fascist
seeds that fell close to the tree. We are told that the roots of the present
conflicts are anchored in the stripping of empires at the end of WWII. We are
told all this and more by people who want to influence our thinking today.
But sound bites are not history. History is immensely complicated. I am
reading Robert K Massey's Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the coming of
the Great War. The book explores why the Great War (known as World War I
generally) started. The preface opens with the
Battle of Trafalgar.
This battle took place in 1805, more than a century before the Great War,
between two powers that were allied in the later conflict. But Trafalgar sits
under the surface of the rest of the book, which is a detailed treatment of the
major prime driver of the Great War. The "World
History" view of WWI is of a war started because a Serbian anarchist/patriot
shot the heir to the throne of Austria. But without knowing the past
half-century (at least) history of interaction between Germany, Austria, France, England
and Russia, you don't know how an assassination in Serbia that was a major
diplomatic incident between Austria and Serbia in June leads to the declarations of war in August
between Germany and England. And
without knowing the importance of Trafalgar, you can't understand why the very
existence of the Kaiserliche Marine leads England to an alliance with
France, her historic enemy. Nor why that alliance leads England into a land war
on the Continent against a country whose leader is the cousin of the King of
England.
Terry Pratchett typically opens his Discworld books with a warning to the
effect that "we can't say where the story begins", and then proceeds to begin
the story. But he often points out that it could easily have started at a
different place, depending on your point of view. Terry Pratchett has the luxury
of working in fiction, however. So he really can determine where the best place
to start is. History is a lot more complicated; large events rarely happen for a
single reason. If you want to understand current events, you have to
understand what has gone before.
The "World History" of World War II is that it happened because Germany
wanted revenge for World War I. This is closer to the truth than the "World
History" view of WWI, to be sure. But it has difficulty explaining why Italy (a
member of the victorious Alliance in WWI) fought on the side of the Axis in
WWII. It holds no explanation for the Japanese membership in the Axis, or
even the pacific war in general. It can't explain why an attack on the US Navy's
primary fleet base in the pacific in december 1941 leads the US Army Air Force
to bomb Germany in 1942.
I'm pulling examples from World War I and World War II because those are the
periods I am most familiar with right now - but the same kind of history lessons
need to be applied to the current mess in the Middle East.If you don't know the
background of events, the events themselves can be spun to mean whatever the
spinner wants.
It all boils down to being able to think for yourself. Without knowing the
history behind an event, and preferably knowing the history of that
history, you can't understand the current event. The why matters, and the
why causes the what. And history should be more than the study of
the what, it shoudl be the study of the why. Otherwise, we have
always been at war with Eurasia...