Intro 2: Why History?

The future of Iraq seems very uncertain at the moment, and everyone, from politicians to activists to ordinary civilians, is eager to weigh in on whether to pull the troops out of Iraq and when to do so, whether or not the U.S. was ever justified in invading Iraq in the first place, which nations we should be concerned about next, and the list goes on. Amidst all the talk of what to do and what not to do, what may happen and what may not happen, one thing seems to be missing from the discussion—history. Apart from a few anecdotes here and there to Vietnam, Abraham Lincoln, and Korea, a thorough discussion about the potential insights historical events can give to our current situation with Iraq has not occurred. Yet societies everywhere recognize the importance of history: “You can’t know where you’re going unless you know where you came from,” they say. I am here today because my parents were here yesterday and their parents were there 40 years ago and so on. After all, most of the decisions we make and much of our intelligence is based on our past experiences—history. In other words, history cannot be separated from the present because the present arrives through the past.

Just as history guides and shapes our personal lives, it can also be very telling in public, political, and economic spheres, and its relevance to current events cannot be denied. For example, the country of Iraq as we know it has the boundaries it possesses largely because of the British occupation of the region from 1920 to 1932 and again from 1941 to 1945. These historical events have influenced the politics, conflicts, and economy of Iraq today. Likewise, the U.S.’s present position as an international superpower is partly a result of the outcome of World War II. Harvard University, arguably the most renowned academic institution in the world, recognized the importance of historical events to current events and created an area of study known as Historical-Study A as part of its long-standing general education or “Core” requirements. The courses in Historical Study A were

designed to help the student understand, through historical study, the background and development of major issues of the contemporary world. These courses illustrate the way in which historical study helps make sense of some of the great issues—often problematic policy issues—of our own world. The courses focus on the sequential development of issues whose origins may be quite distant from the present but whose significance is still profound in the world in which students live today.[1]

In these courses, students learned about such topics as colonialism and its role in the formation of present-day Africa or “The Making of Modern South Asia,” et cetera.

Not only does history explain why we are where we are now, it might also be used to predict what the consequences of certain actions may be. By examining events and situations of the past and their aftermaths, one may get an idea of how current decisions made under similar circumstances may impact the world in the future, much the way weather forecasters and climatologists incorporate past climate, geological, and weather trends to predict weather events, or the way epidemiologists use past data and patterns to make predictions about disease outbreaks. In plainer terms, “Nothing is new in the universe.” However it seems that few of our leaders and economists are educated in the important historical issues that may help them make decent decisions.

What this series of blog entries sets out to do is to compare the current media and political discourse on major present-day U.S. foreign policy issues, particularly the “War on Terrorism,” with media, political discourse, and historical information from other times and other places. Our brief study of colonial history while at Harvard has revealed many parallels between the rhetoric of the Iraq war and the rhetoric of the European colonial period. This has prompted us to do an analysis using primary and secondary sources, including newspaper articles and news broadcasts, political speeches, statements, and reports, to compare the two eras and other historical periods in order to see what similarities exist. The hope is that with such comparisons, if parallels are found, the past can be used to advise future directions the U.S. takes.

[1] Courses of Instruction 2006-2007 Harvard University: Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard College, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.