Illustration by Abro

Power over the present can easily translate into power over the past and even the future. This is because those who command power today can wield it to control and patronise historians to record events in their favour.

Often while constructing the past, historians either mention events which do not glorify the ruling classes in a perfunctory manner or instead ignore them entirely. In ancient Egypt, it was the practice of historians not to mention the Egyptian army’s defeats; only victories were documented.

Similarly, if a succeeding monarch did not like his predecessor, he made attempts to delete his or her name entirely from history. For example, Queen Hatshepsut (d.1457 BC), who ruled Egypt as a pharaoh, was a powerful personality who acquired a distinct status among the rulers of ancient Egypt. She acted like a male to assert herself and even wore a false beard like other rulers.

However, her successor Thutmose III began a campaign to obliterate Hatshepsut’s memory by destroying or defacing her monuments, erasing many of her inscriptions and constructing a wall around her obelisks. While some believe this was the result of a long-held grudge, it was more likely to have been a stringent political effort to emphasise his line of succession and ensure that no one challenged his son, Amenemhat, for the throne. Modern archaeologists retrieved her name and the period of her rule in the new kingdom through in-depth research.

“History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.” — Winston Churchill

There are many such examples where events and people were expunged from traditional history on the basis of prejudice, likes or dislikes of the ruling classes. Sometimes the forgotten past is retrieved and the events and people may be rehabilitated, but at other times their memory and their existence is lost forever.

One example is of the slave revolution in the French colony of Saint Domingo in 1791, inspired by the French revolution of 1789. This colony provided France with coffee and sugar as the French colonisers settled there owned huge plantations where a large number of African slaves worked as labourers.

During the revolutionary period, the national assembly of France debated on the issue of slavery; whether it should be retained or abolished. The majority of the members favoured abolition despite opposition by the colonisers.

However, when Napoleon assumed power in 1799 he restored slavery by changing the decision of the national assembly and sent a force to Saint Domingo to crush the revolution.

The revolution went through different stages but finally the French were defeated and Saint Domingo was declared as the Republic of Haiti. It was the first slave revolution which became successful against powerful enemies.

Michel-Rolph Trouillot in his book, Silencing the past, power and the production of history, points out how historians remained silent about this revolution because it involved three important elements: slavery, race and colonisation.

The event is neither mentioned in American or European textbooks. The French historians remain silent, although the French army, fighting against the slaves, lost Napoleon’s brother-in-law as well as 19 generals — a greater number than those lost in the battle of Waterloo.

The British intervened in the conflict to counter the French, but their historians are also reluctant to give details of the revolution. Trouillot laments that even Eric Hobsbawm, a distinguished historian of the left, who wrote The Age of revolution mentioning all major revolutions of Europe till 1848, devotes just a few lines for the Haitian Revolution. The reason for their silence is obvious as the revolution was about black slaves defeating their white masters. Therefore, historians are not in favour of giving any credit to people who they regard as inferior and hesitate to recognise the political consciousness, military skill and love for liberty and freedom for which the people sacrificed their lives.

The practice of silencing history continues. In case of Pakistan, we try to delete certain events from the nation’s history. Our history textbooks as well as our grand national narratives neither discuss nor answer questions regarding Bangladesh, in the name of national interest. It is evident that when selective history is written and all aspects are not included, the society cannot achieve true historical consciousness and hence fails to understand its past. Silencing history is not a solution for hiding the truth. If truth is bitter it should be recognised so as not to repeat the mistakes made in the past.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, May 3rd, 2015

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