Politics Opinion

History wars fought to avoid cultural amnesia

By | | comments |
Australian history includes dark chapters that should never be overlooked (Screenshot via YouTube0

Historians have a responsibility to preserve the story of our nation – the good and the bad – despite how many conservative feathers may get ruffled, writes Rosemary Sorensen.

WHEN HISTORIAN Geoffrey Blainey cleverly and effectively coined the expression, “black armband view of history” almost 30 years ago, he actually gave an enormous boost to the unflinching writing of Australian history, rather against his (and, later, John Howard’s) likely intentions.

We are blessed in this country with excellent historians, from the institutionally acclaimed to those who have worked away independently, writing books that enlighten us. Blainey’s grandiloquence did encourage some to shout abuse at those who “denigrated” Australia’s past (as a “story of violence, exploitation, repression, racism, sexism, capitalism, colonialism, and a few other -isms”, in Blainey’s sneering description of the black armband view).

But by taking the argument out of the university and into the wider public sphere (TV and radio just loved the nasty stoushes!), it stirred editors and publishers to seek out good writing on such subjects. And the historians delivered.

Blainey contrasted Black Armband history with what he called “Three Cheers” history. Focusing on the negative, according to this view, is unpatriotic. Sure, there were glitches in the story post-1788, but look at all the wondrous achievements — all that wool (yesterday’s equivalent of today’s gas) shipped back to the Old Country. And all those gold medals for swimming fast.

For Three Cheers proponents, looking back to understand who exactly is being cheered – and why – risks wallowing in regret. To acknowledge all that stuff – the violence, exploitation, repression, racism, sexism, capitalism and colonialism – is pessimism. Leave it in the archives; let it rest.

Unfortunately, not only does Three Cheers history tend towards the dull recitation of famous names and occasions, one after the other, but it’s also irresponsible. There’s a better-than-even-odds chance that, without critical analysis, all that stuff – the violence, exploitation, repression and a string of -isms – will continue.

It also fails to acknowledge that the work of those they denigrate as preachy leftist pessimists was necessary to rectify the mistakes in histories (whether deliberately falsified or flawed through ignorance) which Blainey whitewashed by calling them the ‘optimistic’ and ‘patriotic view of our past’.

While the so-called history (and culture) wars ignited by Blainey’s statements might have subsided in the wake of what could be described as a golden age of Australian history writing, the idea that history needs to be controlled lest the radicals destroy the establishment doesn’t originate, of course, with staunch Western conservatives.

What China’s Mao took from Stalin’s Russia was what Pulitzer-prize-winning writer Ian Johnson, in his must-read new book, Sparks: China’s Underground Historians and Their Battle for the Future, calls the imposition of cultural amnesia. Nasty and divisive as a so-called history war might be here, in China, it’s deadly.

Johnson gives us access to some of the recent events that have already been obliterated from Communist China’s official history, from the murderous disasters of Mao’s crackdowns on critical thinking to the cult rise of Xi Jinping.

In the display halls devoted to Xi’s rule in Beijing’s National Museum of China, along with videos of him delivering speeches and copies of his many books, preserved in a glass case, there’s even a receipt from a modest restaurant meal eaten by the great leader. Not even the Elvis museum has that kind of object-reverence.

It was in that museum that Xi announced his Chinese Dream policy, effectively rewriting the Communist Party history to ensure no criticism of what actually happened (including the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre) would trouble his plans to lead China back to (mythic) glory. Make China Great Again.

To read about Xi Jinping’s attitude towards history is like reading Blainey on steroids, pumped up and enormously dangerous.

Two years before he took over as Party President in 2012, Xi gave a keynote at a national meeting of historians — who were, in fact, functionaries tasked with (re)writing the official history to make sure it conformed to Xi’s idea of patriotism.

Johnson writes:

‘He laid out a five-point program that called for publicising the party’s history, including its “great victories and brilliant achievements”, and the “historical inevitability” of its rise to power. Especially young people, Xi said, had to be made to appreciate the party’s grand traditions and the heroism of its leaders, and must “resolutely oppose any wrong tendency to distort and vilify the party’s history”.’

Ah, yes. Young people must be “made to appreciate” their leaders’ heroism. And “wrong tendencies” must be stamped out. Including the tendency to demonstrate and wave banners that criticise those in power.

In the China described by Ian Johnson, standing between the brute strength of Xi’s government and the continuing trauma of repression are the “underground historians”, those who find ways to gather evidence, record testimony and disseminate information. The second half of his book and his conclusion express hope that the new technologies for communication are making it possible for these underground historians to connect with others and archive history.

Having worked for most of his life in China as a correspondent for influential American news outlets, Johnson is himself part of the networks he now considers crucial to the counter-history that challenges the official amnesia imposed by the Government.

Talking about the United States, Johnson points out that the lack of interest in China, the fact that fewer and fewer study the language, could be countered by bringing:

‘...inspiring people to come for residencies, to mentor, and to lecture – rather than as refugees when they are at the end of their rope – (which) would expose our societies to the living traditions of Chinese civilisation.’

That’s why the denigration of history that is critically engaged with the past is so dangerous; it cancels the curiosity, intelligence and commitment of those who write to help us understand history, calling it negativity, or, as Xi does, “nihilistic”.

It may well have been that old-school historians like the accomplished Geoffrey Blainey could sense they were fighting a losing battle against those who wanted more than a sanitised, partial, top-down story that trivialised the -isms and laurel-leafed the winners. As the history wars heated up here in Australia following some of Blainey’s most provocative pronouncements, there were unseemly attacks on writers, the aim of which was to discredit their reliability.

That appears to be the methodology behind an attack on historians who appeared in the American journal, The Atlantic, earlier this week (20 August).

American poet and critic Adam Kirsch, who wrote a book about the pessimism of “transhumanist thought”, claimed in his essay that responses to the 7 October Hamas attack in Israel included ‘a new tone of excitement and enthusiasm’. According to the truly repulsive conclusion, the writer draws from the avalanche of criticism against Israel’s disproportionate and escalating response, it’s all about an academic history war.

Kirsch writes:

Long before October 7, the Palestinian struggle against Israel had become widely understood by academic and progressive activists as the vanguard of a global battle against settler colonialism, a struggle also waged in the United States, Canada, Australia, and other countries created by European settlement. In these circles, Palestine was transformed into a standard reference point for every kind of social wrong, even those that seem to have no connection to the Middle East.

To suggest Palestine is merely a “standard reference point” for “progressives” – in other words, just a way to win the theoretical history war – will come as a surprise to the many people who are horrified by what’s happening in Gaza. Certainly, here in Australia, affinities with dispossessed people have built solidarity between activist groups, which this writer appears to want to denigrate as ideological, rather than moral and also historical.

But it’s a great leap forward to say all those people are just foot soldiers in an ideological army.

What may be behind such dismissive claims about the reasons for criticism of Israel is the fact that many of us are now much more aware of the recent history, from the 1948 Nakba, and the Intifadas that followed. It’s yet another battle for control of history and this one, again, is deadly.

Rosemary Sorensen is an IA columnist, journalist and founder of the Bendigo Writers Festival. You can follow Rosemary on Twitter/X @sorensen_rose.

Related Articles

Support independent journalism Subscribe to IA.

 
Recent articles by Rosemary Sorensen
Despite Murdoch media bashing, Steven Miles got the job done

Despite polls predicting a Labor loss in the upcoming Queensland Election, it's ...  
Robodebt response stirs Saturday Paper stoush

A very ugly stoush is playing out behind the scenes of The Saturday Paper.  
Colac Council creates chaos by controlling media criticism

Controversy has erupted after the CEO of a Victorian shire council shut out the ...  
Join the conversation
comments powered by Disqus

Support Fearless Journalism

If you got something from this article, please consider making a one-off donation to support fearless journalism.

Single Donation

$

Support IAIndependent Australia

Subscribe to IA and investigate Australia today.

Close Subscribe Donate