{"id":40549,"date":"2025-02-10T14:57:57","date_gmt":"2025-02-10T22:57:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=40549"},"modified":"2025-02-10T14:57:57","modified_gmt":"2025-02-10T22:57:57","slug":"which-history-whose-past-matters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/which-history-whose-past-matters\/","title":{"rendered":"Which History? Whose Past Matters?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before Reading:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Colonialism \u2013 the rapid spread of colonies, throughout America but also throughout the world, as demonstrated by England so prevalently. America originally had 13 colonies (which became states) in which the settlers pushed out the Indigenous peoples who were already residing along the East Coast. Currently, we see colonialism throughout the Holy Land as well as settlers have moved back to the area to establish their nation.<\/p>\n

Overall, I think that colonialism spawns from a scarcity mindset. When populations grow there is a need for more resources and so leaders and nations determine the need to gather more resources. So, they take what they want, pushing away anyone that might stand in their way. I do think that colonialism was painted with a rose-colored lens when I was in school, but I certainly question what I had been taught. So much of our education is white-washed and made to represent our history as the victim or the hero, but never the oppressor.<\/p>\n

I bought a book at the African American History Museum when we were in Washington D.C. Due to February being black history month, I thought that I would read it this week. One quote I want to highlight, “The great evil of American slavery wasn’t involuntary servitude and forced labor. The true evil of American slavery was the narrative we created to justify it… Slavery didn’t end in 1865, it just evolved…the North won the Civil War, but the South won the narrative war.”[1]<\/a> I look at colonialism from the same perspective. The narrative I have been told about it is not fully accurate.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

After the reading:<\/strong><\/p>\n

First, I will address one thing that I learned that was new and how it challenged my understanding of the topic. I had never heard about, or at least it never stuck out to me, the idea of Year Zero. Furedi writes, \u201cYear Zero ideology is driven by twin objectives: both breaking with the past and denouncing the historical memory associated with it.\u201d[2]<\/a> It makes sense how people are trying to rewrite the past by injecting modern ideas and cultural beliefs into past characters. However, I never had thought about it as a restart of history. This was a new concept, and it stretched my mind a little bit. One thing that Furedi highlights about this ideology is that it is not focused on making things better but rather on rectifying past objections. \u201cToday\u2019s advocates of Year Zero ideology are much more preoccupied with the project of exacting vengeance on the past than with assisting the birth of a new world.\u201d[3]<\/a><\/p>\n

Now let me address some of the points of contention with Furedi\u2019s book. Whose history matters? Whose history should be retold? Usually, the history that is remembered and documented is the history of the victor, not the loser. For example, we can simply look at the different stories of the American Revolution as told by America or England.<\/p>\n

Furedi highlights, \u201cSome historians are intent on recovering experiences of people marginalized in their own times and since, women and peasants, those conquered, enchained or silenced.\u201d[4]<\/a> His argument is that these historians are re-writing history based on their position in the Culture Wars or based on their identity. Yet might it be that these marginalized people never had a voice to challenge the narrative that was written into past? Had they had a voice might history have been written differently?<\/p>\n

He further cites Marie Moran who wrote Identity and Capitalism<\/em>, \u201cShe points out that \u2018until the 1950\u2019s or even the 1960\u2019s and 1970\u2019s there was no discussion of sexual identity, ethnic identity, political identity, national identity, corporate identity, brand identity, identity crisis or \u2018losing\u2019 or \u2018finding\u2019 one\u2019s identity.\u2019\u201d[5]<\/a> This certainly is not true. One might look at the apostle Paul and his considering his Roman identity when deemed necessary. More recently, in the book by Gates Jr. mentioned above he writes, “The roots of antiblack racism extend much further back beyond the nineteenth century, of course; but it’s fair to say that white supremacist ideology, which evolved to justify the enslavement of black human beings, assumed new forms, and changed in tune and timbre almost as soon as the Civil war.”[6]<\/a> Gates Jr. supplements these statements with a variety of old artwork depicting very racial undertones based on supposed \u201cscientific\u201d data.[7]<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Our political world is full of people trying to rewrite history and who gets to take the moral high ground. While it is important to understand that there are voices from the past who have not had a chance to share their perspective, it is also true that we can\u2019t try to rewrite history based on our new cultural momentums. We must understand George Washington for who he is said to be with our best understanding of the times. We can\u2019t try to judge him with our 2025 lenses. Yet, we also must be honest about the shortcomings he might have had. We can do this without erasing him or cancelling him. This is also true regarding our understanding of Scripture. As we encounter Scripture, we seek to understand who the author was, who he was writing to and the context in which he was writing. This helps give us a better understanding of how that scripture might apply in today\u2019s world.<\/p>\n

It is imperative that we seek an honest history, and we use the good and the bad to help our society move forward into the future. I will end with a reminder from Yascha Mounk who wrote, “It is possible to recognize these injustices and fight against them without subscribing to the identity synthesis.”[8]<\/a><\/p>\n

_________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Henry Louis Gates Jr, Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow<\/em>, Reprint edition (New York: Penguin Books, 2020), 1.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Frank Furedi, The War Against the Past: Why the West Must Fight for Its History<\/em> (Hoboken: Polity, 2024), 62.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Furedi, 64.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Furedi, 113.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Furedi, 124.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Jr, 14.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Jr, 80.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Yascha Mounk, The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time<\/em> (New York NY: Penguin Press, 2023), 11.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before Reading: Colonialism \u2013 the rapid spread of colonies, throughout America but also throughout the world, as demonstrated by England so prevalently. America originally had 13 colonies (which became states) in which the settlers pushed out the Indigenous peoples who were already residing along the East Coast. Currently, we see colonialism throughout the Holy Land […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":205,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2967,1890],"class_list":["post-40549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dlgp03","tag-furedi","cohort-dlgp03"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/205"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40549"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40551,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40549\/revisions\/40551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}