“The Balkans produces more history than it can consume”, Winston Churchill
In the Balkans and beyond, teaching about difficult histories can often be controversial, but does it have merit? As an educator, I sometimes encounter the sentiment that: “We should leave the past in the past and look towards the future, digging up painful history only causes more conflict.” In this article I wish to make the case that facing our history is of paramount importance when looking to the future.
There is no denying that the world we inhabit today is very much shaped by the events of the past. International relations, borders and prejudices all have their origin in past events. Understanding what led us to this point can have a profound impact on how we see the world and ourselves in it. At the same time history can also be a burden, a rich repository of reasons to keep old animosities alive. Merely knowing much about the past is not enough, if we do not wish to fall victim to bias we need to face uncomfortable truths about “our own group”. Falling to do so can lead us down a dark path because the past is so ripe with injustice and suffering that is can serve as an eternal justification for mistrust and hatred.
Political elites are no stranger to the potent power of historical narratives. It is often said that fear is the cheapest and most effective political tool, it can rally and motivate with ease because it draws on one of our most primal instincts – the need for self-preservation. Humans will do everything and anything if they believe they are acting to preserve their own well-being and the safety of the ones they love. This essentially noble instinct can unfortunately be easily exploited. The Romans were well aware of this and used fear, narrative and discord to spread the borders of their empire. “Divide et impera” a phrase famously used by Julius Caesar, refers to the act of first diving and then conquering a political group by means of creating or strengthening divisions within the group. A people united are a formidable opponent, both on the battlefield and in the political arena. That feuding smaller groups are easier to deal with and control is not lost to modern political elites.
Much of human society is based around incentives, and for politicians the core incentive is winning elections as a means of gaining and maintaining power. In simple terms, there are two main ways of winning elections.
The first is by creating meaningful positive change in society. A politician who can improve the education system, make healthcare more accessible to citizens, reduce unemployment and increase the standard of living is pretty much guaranteed to win the popular vote. Such goals, however, tend to be quite hard to achieve as they require dedication, hard work, compromise and going against powerful special interest groups. Furthermore, with the shifting sands of global economics and politics, sometimes even a well thought out plan will not lead to a significant short term improvement in the lives of voters. Given all the aforementioned limitations of this strategy it is small wonder that many politicians rather opt for a different approach.
The second way of galvanizing people to your side is the tried and true strategy of divide and rule. Rather than improving society, which can be a daunting task, the politician merely stokes the fires of old divisions and animosities and then places himself as the only thing standing between the people and their enemies. This strategy is used in the Balkans to great effect and has led to the creation of numerous political parties who base their identity on national pride but in practice do very little for the nation.
Given the difficult and brutal history of the Balkans it is not surprising that this strategy is so effective. One need look no further than the most recent conflict to find plenty of reasons for fear and mistrust and thus the suffering of the grandparent is used to steal the future of the grandchild.
If we hope to move past this destructive pattern we must take away one of the most important tools in the politicians’ arsenal – divisive historical narrative and we can only do so by becoming critically self-reflective students of history. As Churchill implied in his famous quote, “undigested” histories from the past still haunt the region and present a burden for present while being an obstacle for the future. Not to say that we should forget the suffering that our ancestors endured or refuse to learn from the injustices they faced, quite the contrary, those lesson are sacred and important if we wish to move forward as a society. But we must move past the endless back and forth that we are trapped in today, victimhood is not a competition nor should the suffering of those who came before us be used as excuse to create more suffering. There is no patriotism in defending war criminals, but there is bravery and integrity in acknowledging the mistakes of the past and demanding that we do better in the future. The time has come to take a long hard look in the mirror and acknowledge that most of the problems we face in the Balkans are problems we all face collectively, problems that if left unaddressed will lead to more and more of our youth leaving the region. As we are united in our pain and our hardship, so too should we be united in our striving to deal with the challenges we face.
Our ancestors fought, died and toiled for these lands, it is our duty to honour their legacy and we cannot do so by refusing to face up to uncomfortable truths. As long as we do not face the past we are opening ourselves up to manipulation by those of us who care very little about our people and very much about themselves.