Memories of nations

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By Pentti Sadeniemi
     
      New history textbooks were recently approved for use in Japanese schools, and in China, angry crowds went wild in front of Japanese offices and restaurants. In Europe, Russia has protested to the Finnish President, and the Balts have protested to Russia, because the various sides look at the history of the Second World War from very differing points of view.
      History can raise wrath within states as well. In recent years Germany experienced a so-called Historikerstreit (historians' conflict), in which professionals in the field argued bitterly about points of comparison between Stalin's Soviet Union and Hitler's Germany. In Israel "new" and traditional researchers have clashed over the shining moments and the darker periods of the history of the birth of their state. Even here in Finland we have not managed to leave behind disputes over the correct interpretations of the Civil War or the Continuation War.
      If history were a science in the same sense as biology and physics are, there would be fewer disputes, or at least they would not be as hot-tempered. However, history, and especially national history, is also the formation of identity, the buttressing of self-esteem, and the strengthening of a sense of community. National points of view alone make it necessary to write the same sequence of events of history in a different way. When national and political passions are added, science and simple respect for the facts are easily left behind.
     
French researcher Ernest Renan said that part of being a nation is to understand one's history wrong. Perhaps this would not be so dangerous if the political resumé of nationalism were not as long and evil as it is.
      Memoirs are considered to be the most untrustworthy sources in history, because the writers have a natural tendency to emphasise their own achievements and to forget their mistakes and crimes. National histories have generally been nothing more than memoirs of nations succumbing to the same sin of self-aggrandisement.
      As a science, history struggles to shake off that tradition, but the attempt has not succeeded, even in cultures that have a high regard for scientific precision in other respects. Besides, when it succeeds, it has come against the most bitter opposition from nationalist-minded people.
     
Crimes are generally not something that people want to build identities on, but many crimes have been committed in the names of nation-states. If people seek to amass self-esteem from acts of heroism that took place three or four generations ago, they should, in principle, also agree to remember injustices that took place at the same time. No point in wondering why this has generally not happened.
      The immediate reason for the most recent conflict between the Chinese and Japanese was the Japanese occupation in China, and especially the Nanking massacre in December 1937.
      Japan's newly-found nationalism seeks sustenance from the successes of its time as a great power. It does not care to keep the darker sides in view. The national feeling that has been whipped up in China, meanwhile, recalls suffering and humiliation which the Chinese have had to suffer at the hands of both the Western powers and Japanese imperialism. The emotions are not eased by the fact that few of the victims of the Nanking atrocities, or the perpetrators, are alive any more. Both the suffering and the guilt are allowed to pass on as a legacy from one generation to another.
     
What can be done? At the very least, the existence of cold hard facts should be respected. The Nanking massacre is one such indisputable fact. It is possible to argue about its details. It can be wiped out of some history books, but it cannot be purged from history.
      The Balts did not voluntarily join the Soviet Union in 1940. The Second World War did not begin with the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, but rather with the joint attack of Russia and Germany against Poland in 1939. Not all Arabs who fled when Israel was established in 1948 left of their own accord, and so on.
      If professional historians could sit together without pressure, a consensus might be reached about such facts.
      Matters become more complicated when we move to interpretations, comparisons, and moral evaluations.
      When the weak are overcome by the strong in crises, is the reason simply the unstoppable character of politics, or the criminal greed of the strong? Is the guilt of one party mitigated by the fact that the other has equally bad crimes on its record - even if they are slightly different?
      Are schoolbooks the wrong place, or actually the right place for national flagellation? With the celebrations of the end of the Second World War soon at hand, do the winners need to bring their own war crimes forward in connection with the celebration? Professional history-writing cannot easily answer such questions, no matter how cool and scientific it may be.
     
However, some kinds of answers need to be found in the name of international reconciliation. It would help if people would simply have the patience to demand the recognition of facts of history, and not worthless acts of contrition for deeds which cannot be undone, and whose perpetrators, witnesses, and victims are mostly dead.
      It is not possible to completely get rid of history as national memoir-writing; it is even beneficial, within reason, as a link between citizens. How about developing an unofficial agreement, under which the most blatant forms of incitement of nationalist fervour could be weeded out?
      Wars of conquest should not be allowed to slide, at least not before a very long time has elapsed. Equally, the suffering of an injustice should not be invoked for very long after those who were the immediate sufferers are gone.
      The task of historians would be to blow a whistle whenever they see that their field of expertise is being turned into a tool for demagogues. There would be plenty of use for such a whistle in the light of the history of the past century.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 13.4.2005


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Russia takes issue with President Halonen´s views on war (7.3.2005)

PENTTI SADENIEMI / Helsingin Sanomat
pentti.sadeniemi@hs.fi