Like any human endeavor, the process of recording historical occurrences is not flawless – it's fallible, subject to interpretation and misinterpretation. However, the purpose of creating histories should be to promote the acknowledgment that facts exist outside our own desires. History, as a discipline, recognizes that past actions not only happened but also have consequences. History is the record of those reverberations rippling through time. Whether on a personal or national level, history asserts: I (we) did this…that happened…and something developed from it. History is the ultimate accountability – the record of human choices.
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Written history, since its medium (writing) doesn't create a direct record of events, is more prone to construal. Nevertheless, history (individual or societal) is the best thing we've got for determining what, in terms of actions, is true. One can argue that truth is, by its very nature, subjective, but hey: things happen. The invasion of Iraq was planned well in advance of 9/11. The Khmer Rouge murdered millions of people. Bill Clinton did have sex with "that woman." Wishing won't make it not so.
One motivation for altering history is to deny that something in fact occurred. ...Who didn't shudder when Iran's Mahmūd Ahmadinezhād (who seriously needs a personal shopper) called the Holocaust a "lie" and a "hoax"?
In a book just out by Marc A. Thiessen, this former Bush speechwriter makes a number of claims against an overwhelming body of evidence to the contrary. In his eagerness to portray Obama as weak and naïve, and to serve as apologist for the Bush agenda, he asserts that not only was the Bush Administration uninformed about Al Qaeda prior to 9/11, but that "enhanced interrogation techniques" (which, BTW, are NOT torture) provided information that thwarted a host of post-9/11 attacks.
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The consequences of being in denial can range from the personal – that lump is just a cyst – to who we are as human beings – the Holocaust didn’t really happen. To be in denial about something that presents itself as a moral imperative is an act of spiritual cowardice.
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Of course some history needs revising. The Caucasian-male-centric version of our own national trajectory not only neglects many of the contributions of minority groups, including women and African Americans, but, perhaps worse, whitewashes atrocities like slavery, the ethnic/cultural cleansing of native peoples, war crimes, the exploitation of the environment, to name but a few. Realizing that the winners write history can be the first step toward reinterpreting facts through the lens of wisdom and a more inclusive perspective. However, such reconsideration of scope or meaning doesn't transpire into permission to twist facts to suit an agenda. There's a better word for that: it's called lying.
I wouldn't use the word "lying" -- rather I would say that everyone has an agenda and this makes them neither a hero nor a traitor. What complicates things is when the agenda is secret (serving the neocolonizer) and is masked as a different agenda (nationalism). This is called fooling the people. In our case, the majority accepted the political showmanship, and those who did not want to stop fighting retreated to strongholds in the mountains or in Mindanao. And this has continued for over a hundred years.
In my essays on the problem of the Lost Centuries of Hispanic Filipino historical memory and identity, I pointed out the added complexity of our history: the forced change of language and transculturation (re-engineering of our identity) that began in 1901, following the genocide of Hispanic Filipinos who resisted the U.S. invasion. This was never explicitly stated in our history books. Nor were the consequences acknowledged and analyzed by our historians, trained during the era of U.S. control over our national life, which continues up until the present.
It's true that there was also a "forced" change of language and transculturation in the 16th century, by the Spanish. But it was "forced" because the Visayan settlements were besieged by piracy and agreed to exchange allegiance to the Spanish king for protection.
It shows that perhaps we already, from way back then, had a problematic tendency to exchange one tyrant for another, instead of uniting and forging our own destiny.
But maybe today we are more prepared to take that challenge. The Katipunan was inspired by the image of brother and sisterhood, the yearning for freedom for the Inang Bayan, and the recovery of the mythic state of ginhawa.
Good weekend.
Isabel
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