Topic for
August 2008
The dilemma posed in the writing of history is how to pass on the historical experience of one generation to the next in a balanced way - without the myth-making, biases and distortions. Transmission of the historical ‘raw material’ is a delicate process fraught with pitfalls. The task has been traditionally assumed by the ruling elites and their institutions of higher learning. The exploits of the elites may be exaggerated and awkward facts played down while the struggles of the ordinary people for justice may be barely acknowledged.
In particular, colonial history
written by imperial scholars tends to glorify the colonial intervention as a
civilising mission and leave out the atrocities on the colonised, plunder of
their resources and the resistance offered by the natives.
For example:
AP Newton in his "A Hundred Years of the British Empire" (1940)
claimed that "other empires were founded by military force but the British
empire has expanded by wholly peaceful means."
By distorting the real history of colonialism and writing black people out of
British history, the official historians have marginalised and further oppressed
the subjects of colonialism. The method, choice of materials and interpretation
are clearly aimed at maintaining the existing power structure.
N Chomsky,
Chronicles of Dissent
(Common Courage Press, 1992)
"History is owned by the educated classes. These
custodians of history are to be found in universities and are engaged in
constructing and presenting to us the past as they want it to be seen. These
groups are closely associated with power – they themselves have a high degree of
privilege and access to power. They share class interests with those who control
and in fact own the economic system. They are the cultural commissars of the
system of domination and control."
Raw materials & methodology
Europeans write on Asian region
but ignore native materials (eg Godinho, Boxer or Thomaz on Portuguese Asia); written archives, oral
histories, old traditions (see Teo pg `83 in Borges' book on Goa & Portugal.
Most historians rely mostly on
archival sources for their research productions, and only exceptionally on
oral sources which they view as methodologically weak and of doubtful value.
Written texts are the usual sources, widely used in the western
tradition.
Sanjay Subrahmanyam
in
his introduction to his Portuguese Empire in Asia 1500-1700 refers to a
Malay text of the late 17th/early 19th century to
illustrate the internal logic and utility of such texts based on local native
traditions as a source of historical evidence. He demonstrates how, despite the
lack of chronological precision or even factual inaccuracies, it succeeds in
conveying the native perspective on the Portuguese entry into Malacca. He goes
further and draws parallel with the myths accepted in Portugal as historical
facts, and concludes: “Separating myth from reality is of course a task that
any historian must approach with trepidation, for while history is the stuff
from which myth is made, myth-making too is part of the historical process.”
The problem with oral
traditions and in particular folk traditions is that of determining
their origin in time and of collating the various versions. Utilisation of
folk evidence requires advanced linguistic ability and appreciation of the
pertinent culture. A foreigner is unlikely to possess these requirements,
and in the case of the European, the interest in or respect for the native view
of events. As a result, Europeans have discounted fold evidence in historical
interpretation. Yet in India at least the rules for oral transmission were quite
demanding, assuming even a sacred character that would minimise the chances of
corrupting the original.
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