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| Old Panama City |
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| Panama City today |
It’s probably safe to
say—anthropologically, sociologically and archaeologically—that
every age is built upon the rubble of previous ages. Unearthing the
artifacts of the past contributes to a clearer understanding of the
world we experience today; “visiting the iniquity of fathers on the
children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth
generations.” (Exodus 34:7)
I’m currently deep into A
People’s History of the United States by
Howard Zinn, an American historian and political scientist. The book
was published in 1980 and according to a reviewer, it’s sales
continued to rise as more and more profs, students and the general
public became aware of it. Quoting copious letters, documents and
journals of the time, Zinn traces a history that’s enlightening on
the subject of a tumultuous USA today. Without going into detail (and
there’s lots of it for the history buff), Zinn unearths the
underbellies of slavery, of the dispossession and decimation of the
Amerindian population, the exploitation of workers in the factories
and plantations, the riots, murders, massacres and destruction that
accompanied, for instance, the American annexation of Texas.
Seen from the
viewpoint of the exploited and the dispossessed, the rubble left
behind by that history make the atrocities—horrible as they are—in
Syria and Iraq read a bit like a playground brawl. Russian annexation
of the Crimea and her adventures in Eastern Ukraine, Israel’s
illegal occupation of the West Bank could learn plenty from the
history of the politics and antics of US expansionism; all are
products of racial, religious, political or cultural chauvinism supporting
unstated doctrines of manifest destiny. And moneyed privilege is what
inevitably orchestrates the whole, turns humans into factory “parts,”
clears the deck of inhabitants for profit-making enterprise,
suppresses popular dissent violently, mercilessly.
There are two ways
of looking at the enormous gap in wealth and power in the USA today,
but any discussion of its precursors has to go back to a history
factually recorded. Zinn acknowledges that what we see today is
evolutionary as much as it is conspiratorial. It’s not surprising
that the dispossessed and the poor, the unemployed or unemployable, the labourers and minions that
keep the gears of business and industry humming might come to see
their lot as a direct consequence of the “elite’s” machinations
in the political and economic arenas. Obviously, manipulation in the
industrial, labour, banking, political spheres is only possible for
those who have power and means, and we have only to look back at 2008
to see that when the corporate banking/investment world faces
disaster, the paeans of the world are forced into rescuing their
overlords. And in America today, it’s become futile to attempt
access to political influence without wealth sufficient for election
campaigns.
I recently spent a
month in Panama where American and Canadian expats with the necessary
means have taken up residence in it’s more favourable climate. In
conversation, some claimed that their decision to move rested on
their disappointment with what the USA has become. I was never sure
what the specifics of their concerns were, but sensed a deep distrust
of liberalism as regards immigration, security, the constitutional
amendments granting the right to bear arms, free speech, etc. etc.
Some analysts have labeled the tense divide in American values and
fortunes a “culture war,” I see it more as a continuation of the
politics, economics, attitudes and opinions developed in a few
hundred years of its history.
There’s a distinct line between the
“ownership” and reluctant emancipation of slaves and the racial
turmoil of today; between the annexation of Texas and California and
the “wetback”/immigrant/refugee political adversity of today;
between the bloody revolutionary and civil wars and American
militarism, between the expulsion of the Cherokee from settlement
areas to the present-day sorry lot of the indigenous population.
Many have
apparently tried to stem the reading of Zinn’s history with cries
that it’s “full of lies.” I’m not in a position to judge that
definitively, but the sources on which much of this history is based
were archived documents pertaining to the events under discussion.
Cicero is supposed to have said that history would treat him kindly because he intended to write it, and Churchill is credited with the line, “the victors
write the histories.” Based on my own early education, I can
verify that the history of Canada I was taught was very much a
sanitized version of what really happened, a version that put the
explorers, the settlers, the early governments in artificial light so
that they would appear as heroes, statesmen and builders while
neglecting the injustices done in the name of progress.
If
anyone has an equivalent history of Canada to recommend, I’d be
happy to hear it. (g.epp@accesscomm.ca) Buffalo
Shout, Salmon Cry edited by
Steve Heinrichs presents a contribution in this direction. Also We
are all Treaty People by
Roger Epp. (If you’ll pardon a shameless plug for friends and
relations.)
