History is a mystery

"Historical sense and poetic sense should not, in the end, be contradictory, for if poetry is the little myth we make, history is the big myth we live, and in our living, constantly remake."
~ Robert Penn Warren was an American poet, novelist, and literary critic.

Human history is never the tale of the defeated, the destroyed, or the silenced. It is, written more for what man had ruined than for what he created. Fluid prejudices are the very ink with which history is, set down. Hence, to know the truth of history is to realise its ultimate myth, its inevitable ambiguity; and for those with inability to apprehend this truth - history is a mystery. In the pages of history, as always, it is the version told by the victors; which lives on.

That perhaps is why Winston Churchill - that great optimist who saw opportunity in every difficulty - who led Britain to victory in the Second World War said, "History will be kind to me for I intend to write it." Thus, the voice of the vanquished remains lost in silence.

In the clash of two cultures, the loser is obliterated and the winner writes the history; glorifying their own and disparaging the conquered foe.

Therefore, history would always be different for different people; and will at best, remain a fable, agreed upon by the majority.

After all, it is the numberless acts of courage, cowardice, deceit, betrayal, and belief, which had shaped and fashioned human history.

It is forever about stories; of great men, their victories, their deeds, their life; and more often than not, it is the illusions of grandeur of such men that had made-up and created history. As a result, we believe in all sorts of things that are not true, and call it history.

Genius

That is why, any fool can make history, but it takes a genius to write it. Nevertheless, sans an iota of doubt and in spite of the accumulated imaginative inventions that make up history, we can confidently assert that history is useful in the sense that art and music, poetry and flowers, religion and philosophy are useful. Without it - as with these - life would be poorer and meaner; for men would be denied some of those intellectual and moral experiences that give meaning and richness to life. Surely, it is no accident that the study of history has been the solace of many of the noblest minds of every generation.

Remember, always remember, that all of us, you and I especially, are the descendants of history. Thus, not to possess knowledge of history means, we grow as bastards would whose parentage they know not.

The most important of all the lessons that history has to teach is that we do not learn very much from the lessons of history.

"Study the past if you would define the future" said Confucius the Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher of the Spring and Autumn period of Chinese history.

The reason being, the dreams of the future is, built on the history of the past. If you do not know history, then you do not know anything. You are like a leaf that does not know it is part of a tree.

As with a tree, where its kernel hides its tale of life from eternal life: history hides the spark of men, the deeds from eternal life, of noble as well as despicable men. It is the story of the attempts and the risks man took with himself and other men.

It is unique, unique as the form and veins in our skin because history is made to form, and reveals the eternal story of mankind: their greatness, their follies, in the smallest special detail.

The past may be full of lies, eager to irritate us, provoke, and insult us, tempt us to destroy or repaint it; but in the unlikely story of history, there has never been anything false about hope.

The study of history gives hope to the dreams of the future of humanity. Those unable to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it and remain in the turbulence of the present forever. "A country without a memory of the past is a country of madmen," said Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana, known as George Santayana, philosopher, poet, essayist, and novelist.

History, the teacher of everything including the future, though important, is something that is popular among people with a certain kind of temperament: a bent of mind to understand things through the observation of its beginning and its development.

They realise that imagination plays too important a role in the writing of history, and that imagination is but the projection of the author's personality.

Subjective

"Historical writing, even the most honest, is unconsciously subjective, since every age is bound, in spite of itself, to make the dead perform whatever tricks it finds necessary for its own peace of mind." - Carl L. Becker, in The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth Century Philosophers. Furthermore, during certain periods, history is distorted and manipulated to influence public opinion for propaganda purposes; giving an accurate description of what has never occurred becomes the inalienable privilege, and the proper occupation of the historian.

Thus, in rewriting history, historians become inclined to supernatural explanations, and addicted to its near equivalent: 'inevitability'.

Hence, at such times, writing of history becomes the bending of the truth to, effectively destroy people and to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their true history.

In so doing, historians repeat themselves; and history repeats itself. Knowledge of the past ought to be the key to understanding the present.

To enable this, a historian must be fearless, uncorrupted, free, the friend of truth and of liberty.

A just judge, never to give more than is due to any in his work; a stranger to all, of no country, bound only by his own laws, acknowledging no sovereign, never considering what this or that man may say of him, but relating faithfully everything as it happened.

"A historian ought to be exact, sincere and impartial; free from passion, unbiased by interest, fear, resentment or affection; and faithful to the truth, which is the mother of history, the preserver of great actions, the enemy of oblivion, the witness of the past, the director of the future." - B.R. Ambedkar, popularly also known as Babasaheb, was an Indian jurist, political leader, philosopher, anthropologist, historian, orator, economist, teacher, editor, a prolific writer, revolutionary, a revivalist for Buddhism in India, inspiring the Dalit Buddhist movement, and also the chief architect of the Indian Constitution.

The study of the past with one eye upon the present is the source of all sins. The historians who, write or rewrite history for propaganda to please their master, instead of understanding what happened, why it happened, what was the context, who did what, and what assumptions led them to act as they did; is only projecting his customary display of influencing events, and forgets that he opens the door to unanticipated developments and unintended consequences.

They forget what Mahatma Gandhi said: A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.

That is why, I say, history is a mystery: One never knows from where and when, this small body of determined spirits will sprout.

See you this day next week. Until then, keep thinking; keep laughing. Life is mostly about these two activities.

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