History here and there

In America we spend an inordinate amount of time beating the crap out of ourselves and our history.  I had a friend from Nigeria who once told me, “It’s like you want America to be worse than it was.”  Yeah, that’s about it.  There’s no lack of books, movies, shows, documentaries, classes, textbooks, courses, reenactments, news series, proclamations, and memorials that remind us of the seedier times in America’s past.

Europe is the same, with the caveat that many Europeans reserve the right to push America into the crosshairs if they can.  Otherwise, it’s that civilization of genocide, racism, bigotry, wars, religious wars, imperialism, slavery, and on and on.  Thus says the European.  The reasons for this are legion, for they are many.  But it’s enough to point out the fact that they are what they are.

This, however, is not universal.  Believe it or not, many nations and cultures don’t spend their time hashing and rehashing the rehashed trash of their own histories.  They might acknowledge the bad they quickly wrap up the bad with a reminder of how awesome things ended up.  I’ve often mentioned a PBS special on Islam that was released shortly after the 9/11 attacks.  It almost made me want to convert.  And it wasn’t even produced in a Muslim country.  Sure there were times when Islamic forces smashed into a region and brutally conquered it, some slavery here, a massacre there … but look at how awesome things turned out!   Imagine us teaching that in schools.  Sure we threw Native Americans off their lands, killed a few, but look how great things turned out!  Well, that’s how we used to teach it.  We acknowledge the bad but believed that good ultimately prevailed.  Based on the textbooks my sons had in school, that isn’t the point today.

I remember the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.  During several segments showing us life in China, the celebration of Mao Zedong was mentioned.  Various individuals spent entire interviews discussing how wonderful Chairman Mao was, how much good he did, and how beloved he remains to this day.  Imagine someone saying that in Germany about Hitler.  Heck, imagine someone saying that about Andrew Jackson.

Which puts us at a disadvantage when it comes to asking other cultures, nations and civilizations to own up to their past.  So in Australia, there is a memorial statue being unveiled to commemorate the suffering of the Comfort Women of the Japanese Empire.  Now you’d think no problem, correct?  I mean, there are still people who haven’t heard of them.  It isn’t as if this is all books and movies focus on, with endless museums and memorials focusing on their plight, and this is just one more drop in the ocean.  It’s one of few such memorials trying to remind people that Nazi Germany wasn’t the only nasty place to live in WWII.

And guess what?  The Japanese are none to happy about it.  Why?  Because they aren’t Americans or Europeans, that’s why.  Talk about Hiroshima all you want.  Focus on the betrayal of promises made to Japan by the allied powers after WWI.  Don’t forget to mention the Japanese Internment camps in the United States.   But mentioning something like this?  Japan already apologized, time to put this behind us.  There’s no reason to offend sensibilities by drudging up this unfortunate episode.  Try saying that about Hiroshima and see how long you last.

Defenders of Western Civilization, or Christian heritage in general, are at a definite disadvantage in the modern historical discourse.   Just look at the reaction of historians to the remarks of Sen. King on MSNBC.   Now it was the Post, and perhaps other responses were more nuanced or balanced. And it isn’t as if there was no answer to give King.  Sure there are.  But based on what the WP chose to publish, it was basically historians answering King with ‘I know you are, but what am I.’  Nothing but terror and war and colonialism and racism and genocide for the West; beautiful people doing beautiful things in the Islamic world and everywhere else by contrast.  Nothing unusual of course, just the way it is in a progressive culture that only wants to focus on the bad of its own heritage, and the rest of the world more than happy to let it.