Human rights: Food for a thought to topple the status-quo ante ‘HR and history’
[TLDR (too long didn’t read): If you are reading this, chances are you care about HR. This Reader is about how what you learned in history class at school needs revising to open a window of understanding on how unfairly history has treated HR. For a quick overview, just read the bolded text]. Traducir/traduire los/les Readers; usar/utiliser deepl.com
–In his book ‘William Shakespeare’, Victor Hugo (1802-1885)
wrote a phrase that has not lost its relevance: “History has always courted the powerful” so, according to Henri Guillemin
–French journalist 1860-1941– “History must be rewritten, namely to cleanse it of lies”.
–One does not ask for permission to change history. (poster used in the marches of the social outburst, Chile 2019-2020)
1. People want to see in history a progression to something better. Nevertheless, not even the educated public is prepared to deal with the controversies of conventional history that tries to show such progression. (P. Weiss)
2. Conventional history has an illusory element that reflects the alienation of each epoch. In each epoch, the illusory element depicts reality only in appearance. Only a critical analysis can denounce this element perpetuated by many historians. (Henri Lefebvre, French philosopher, 1901-1991)
3. The greatest arguments distorting historical truths have been laid down in stone by historians. Fortunately, we have a good number of scholars of history who devote time to re-establishing the truth of what happened. (Louis Casado)
In all truth
4. Conventional history represents the history of factional strife and conflict to the exclusion of the (HR) consequences for the wretched of the earth. (Charles Wright Mills, US sociologist, 1916-1962)
5. In the name of history, it was necessary to recognize claim holders’ sovereignty throughout time. But no government, of whatever political denomination, really granted them their rights. Industrial development, whether capitalist or communist, inevitably meant their abuse/exploitation. Was there any exception anywhere in the world to this terrible inexorable fact afflicting the have-nots?
6. The historical record of the atrocities committed and the obvious personal responsibilities they entail do not require a court of justice to confirm them; they must remain as accepted historical truths. There will always be people, politicians* and even intellectuals (historians?), who for ideological reasons will deny or minimize such faults. [There have even been historians who have gone so far as to deny the existence of the Holocaust!] This is what has lately been called ‘denialism’ but, in reality, it has been around forever. Moreover, after traumatic periods or episodes in the life of peoples, there is a general propensity to greater or lesser degrees of ‘selective amnesia’ that can even last for many years.
*: Political leaders are lousy historians. Their repertoire of historical parallels is limited at best; they choose and apply analogies incorrectly and as convenient. (Yuen Foong Khong) Their analogies are made to be of advantage for them, allowing them to dispense with the general by extracting rules from the particular. But the method requires rigor and thoroughness, two qualities that should not be sought among regular politicians who tend to be media-hyperactive, but historically lazy. (Marc Bloch) They disqualify historically dissenting voices even when history often ends up proving these voices right; the propensity is to present any past crisis as ‘existential’ and to demonize the enemy, as well as sanction as ineffective past policies they dislike. (Christophe Jaffrelot)
7. Let us see: Historical truth can be defined as a certain consensus about what happened in the past based on multiple –essentially written– coincident testimonies that should, in general, refer to objective facts (since the subjective motivations of the actors involved and that of conventional historians always remain more or less hypothetical). Therefore, historical truth is a complex collective elaboration (triangulated?) in which the records of multiple historians, chroniclers and scholars from other disciplines complement each other.
8. In this sense, although a set of structures, episodes and unquestionable past social and political relations are certainly being chronicled, there always arise complements that will enrich this truth –and even, sometimes, questioning aspects that have been universally accepted.
9. But in addition, given the political relevance of the historical consciousness of peoples, it is very important to bear in mind that the accepted ‘historical truths’ are generally highly distorted by the official efforts of the ruling sectors of societies to ensure that –especially in school education– a very benevolent ‘history’ is taught favorable to the ruling sectors. Historical distortions are generally presented through the minimization or total (and underhanded) concealment of historical facts or processes whose knowledge would be detrimental to the consideration of the upper classes and traditionally revered historical leaders/heroes. Obviously, what are most often hidden are despicable facts or processes such as massacres, political executions, tortures, deceits or lies, corruptions, injustices or discriminations of any kind. That is, any policy or conduct by the holders of power and/or wealth that reveal serious damage or injustices of the past.
10. Therefore, beyond the specific differences between these injustices, the ‘historical truths’ share the same threat: that of the established power that will always, even in the most democratic of societies, be tempted to subordinate the truth to its power. (Felipe Portales)
11. Again, a number of one-liners I found address my apprehensions about conventional history
- Memory is the only paradise from which we cannot be expelled. (Marcel Proust, 1871-1922)
- We have nothing to gain from a return to the status-quo ante.
- Colonialism, as much as the middle-ages, destroyed many knowledge systems and there certainly was no need for it. (Francine Mestrum) Where do we read about this fact in our school history books…?
- Believing in official history is to trust criminals with one’s eyes closed. (Simone Weil, 1909-1943)
- ‘Novelized’ versions of history have been more successful than the socially critical accounts of history. (Jose Eustasio Rivera, 1888-1928, La Voragine)
- Beware of the historians that have been in charge of writing farce. (François-René de Chateaubriand, 1768-1848)
- Since the French revolution, many barricades closed streets, but opened roads. (Politika)
- “To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace.” (Tacitus, Roman historian born circa ad 56)
- What distinguishes historical epochs from one another is not what was done, but how it was done. (Marta Harnercker, Chilean sociologist, 1937-2019)
- We are all subject to the laws of history and a transition to a socialist order of society can only be realized internationally with its reinterpretation. (Rosa Luxemburg, 1871-murdered 1915)
- Only by reinterpreting the past can the present be explained. The political Right shares a common background: their contempt for democracy. (Marcos Roitman)
- Correctly remembering history is not trivial, it is important; both the history of years ago and the recent one. (Luis Mesina)
- Over the ages, many minority groups have also been accused of the most abstruse crimes. (Alfred de Zayas)
- Even among demons (in history) there are some worse than others. (Don Quixote)
Bottom line
12. Only the winners in history consider the past as closed, because it ratifies their victory. (Hence the African proverb that the history of Africa has always been written by the hunter and not by the lion). Therefore, decolonizing history is fundamental, but not enough; it is necessary to decolonize minds and politics, the senses, imagination and praxis. What is at stake is to de-center ourselves from the Eurocentric world and the thousand proofs of civilizational superiority that were instilled in us in the South since we were children, and to begin to think that there were and still are other civilizations closer to us with different visions of the world and of life, and that being available for reciprocal learning will be a good start.
13. To open up the past is to transform it into a denunciation and a concrete task: the denunciation resides in knowing what really happened in the past and was not recorded by conventional history, because it was considered past and irrelevant –especially the most sinister part of that human rights past that is irremediably part of our present. This is a difficult task, because, more than a task of resistance, it is a task of re-existence. If we can question our past, we will be able to question our present. (Boaventura de Sousa y Santos)
14. We are living in the most difficult time in modern history. If you feel anxious and overwhelmed about what is going on, you are not alone. The extraordinary challenges we face are very real, but we can never let them become excuses for checking out the political struggles that have addressed and address these crises and will define our future. (Bernie Sanders)
15. If the future can be different and better, it will not be thanks to conformists in love with historical mimicry, but to those who always aim further and to those who demand historical truths and not just words. (adapted from Manu Levin)
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City
Your comments are welcome at schuftan@gmail.com
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Postscript/Marginalia
—If we examine the history of the United States, out of the 248 years of its independent life, it has spent more than 230 years at war. What does the United States seek with so much war? Freedom? No kidding. Unfortunately, empires do not magically disappear; nor do they disappear in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, we are left to decide what to do. (Louis Casado) [All previous empires fell and died due to the internal degradation of their social, economic, political and cultural life. Great generalizations in this subject must be avoided, prone to insensitive determinism to historical contingencies. (B. de Sousa Santos)
Note:
I repeat a footnote from many Readers ago: Are these Readers sometimes repetitive? Yes and No.
No, in the sense that they look at the many aspects of HR work, some new, some old, but the latter always from different perspectives and angles. Yes, in the sense that they always reinforce key concepts of the HR framework.
This deliberate duality is considered indispensable for the readers to progressively internalize the concepts in such a way that they can then comfortably use them in debates and in teaching HR.
In that sense, this is no apology. [Moreover, all the good and wise in these Readers has come from others; that of lesser importance has been mine].