Imposed Oblivion

I can still tthink that I was almost emotionally collapsed on one tutorial of Ian Holliday's, one of the professors whom I truly respect. I was fully prepared and actively participated in that tutorial talking about humanitarian intervention, and that session was a bit theoretical which Ian afraid would be difficult. But I like discussing theoretical issues.

I engaged myself in the discussion about cosmopolitanism and communitarianism and then the topic jumped on history issue, which is about how we see history influencing current debate. Ian suggested that certain argument on the issue was to trace back two generations time in order to square the debate with a clear framework and finite background. I felt excited then. I strongly opposed this sort of idea and Ian just saw through my uneasiness and invited me to speak. I shared my ideas and I said:

History is not only about yesterday, it's also about today and tomorrow. Past should not be forget just because it seems far far away from us generation. History will repeat itself sometimes, and turning it into oblivion, especially for those miseries, is blasphemy to humanity.

And then I felt collapsed. I remained silent. I thought about the Haitian revolution that was talked about on my another course. How many people know Haitian revolution now? We all know French revolution, America Revolution, Britain revolution... but how many ever noticed the struggle and sad stories full of tears in other side of the world? How many know that when we are moved by the spirit of French revolution and Enlightened movement, which they called upon "humanity awakening", the French people were brutality treating and abusing the Haitians? When the French struggled for freedom, equlity and fraternity within their nation, how they responsed the independent hopes of the people, oh no, in their eyes should be babarians, who lived in another continent? It was by killings, by brutality oppressing and by crushing.

We live in a Western-centric era. our knowledge of the past is seriously contorted in a way that the powerfuls wish to see. Just as the author of "Silencing the Past" say, this is an imposed oblivion. An oblivion of misery of the dark nations, an oblivion of the same awakening spirits of the colonized people who should have been treated equally.

We should not forget; yet how we memory, and how we know. Maybe like what the author say at the last chapter:

" History was alive and I heard its sounds elsewhere. From Rouen to Santa Fe, from Bangkok to Lisbon, I had touched ghosts suddenly real, I had engaged people far remote in tie and in space. Distance was no barrier. History did not need to be mine in order to engage me. It just needed to relate to someone, anyone. It coud not just be The Past, It had to be someone's past.

In my first trip to the Yucatan, I had failed to meet the peoples whose past chichen Itza was. I could not resuscitate a single mathematician viewing the skies from the Caracol, a single sacrificial victim pushed toward the green waters. I knew even less then how to relate the Mayas of today to the architects of the pyramids. That, no doubt, was my fault, my lack of imagination, or a shortfall erudition. At any rate, I had missed a vital connection to the present. I had honored the past, but the past was not history. "