History, as I wrote in a previous blog
post, often plays a significant role in political rhetoric. This rhetorically nebulous concept supposedly
teaches us lessons, confirms the legitimacy of our nation states, and makes the
victorious outcomes of wars inevitable.
Too often in the political arena, history is used to camouflage broader
issues and avoid discussing problematic deeds.
This was a realisation I was reminded of again while reading the BBC
article ‘CIA interrogation report:
Battle lines being drawn’. The article discussed the tensions
surrounding the release of a 480-page summary of the Senate report detailing
the interrogation methods and results of the post 9/11 operations against
al-Quaeda. Referred to as “Rendition,
Detention, and Interrogation”, the CIA program has generated a huge amount of
criticism following the detention and harsh interrogation of terror
suspects.
There has been a considerable amount of
backlash against U.S. foreign policy surrounding this report. However, there continue to be individuals
including former president George Bush Jr. and former CIA Director Michael
Hayden who attempt to dismiss the contents of the report before its publication. Hayden’s statement that “We’re not here to
defend torture. We’re here to defend history,”[1]
is a misuse and misunderstanding of the role that history and historians play. His
passing reference to history as a larger than life, yet vague concept fails to
engage in any meaningful way with the potential implications of the
report. Additionally, the suggestion
that history is an inherently unassailable concept implies the defensibility of
any number of dubious past deeds. The
release of historic documents, or in this case a summary of those documents,
must be taken as an opportunity to critically engage with a country’s past
decisions, not the chance to dismiss uncomfortable information that reflects
poorly on a nation’s self-perceived image.
The recent agreement between the U.S. and
France to a compensation package for Holocaust victims who were transported to
concentration camps during the Second World War by the French state rail
company SNCF highlights the contradiction in the willingness to engage with
some historical ‘errors’ but not others.
The willingness of U.S. lawmakers to attempt to exclude SNCF from rail
contracts because of the role that it played highlights the lasting power and
memory of historical wrongs. That
discussions involving potentially painful parts of our national histories are
difficult is not at issue. It took years
for European memory to remember the Holocaust as a racial, rather than as a
more comfortable, political persecution.
Still, history is not a celebration of a nation’s best moments, but
should aim to be critical and unbiased.
The divulgence of historical documents and the questioning of national
memory and identity is sometimes a painful process. However, what is worse is
the stoking of a culture of national forgetfulness and the tendency to avoid
recent historical mistakes for the safe haven of history long passed.
[1] Anthony Zurcher, ‘CIA
interrogation report: Battle lines being drawn,’ BBC News, December 8, 2014, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-echochambers-30383600
