David Aaronovitch: The lessons of history? That’s a lot of bunk
[David Aaronovitch is a writer, broadcaster and commentator on international politics and the media.]
... Every now and again, since it became known that I was working on a television history of the Blair years, someone will tell me that Tony Blair had “no sense of history”, and that this accounted for his mistakes. One or two have advised me to look at the writings of David Marquand, who last year castigated the former Prime Minister and his “appallingly dangerous” ignorance of history, for exaggerating the threat from terrorism. “No one,” Professor Marquand declared, “with any knowledge of 20th-century history could possibly believe that the attack on the twin towers ‘changed everything’ ” and “no one with a sense of history could possibly have thought that 9/11 marked a historic turning point”.
Professor Marquand’s suspiciously contemptuous anger seemed on the surface to have two barely related causes: the first that terrorism should be regarded as being an existential threat, as was the threat from Hitler or even from Khrushchev, and the second that Blair should “demean the memory” of Churchill and the fight against Nazism. It was an interesting elision, suggesting that the professor was complaining as much about his generation’s history being superseded, as he was about an interpretation of facts.
But is it so preposterous to suggest that a global ideology that justifies the use of limitless violence against civilians, and whose adherents are immensely inventive (if not always competent) in discerning methods of delivering that violence, could present an “existential” threat? Suppose for a moment that we had a run of bad luck, and that the various unsuccessful plots to bomb Britain, including July 21, 2005, had in fact succeeded. Suppose Glasgow airport had had a queue of travellers obliterated, that several nightclubs full of youngsters had been destroyed, that every brown doctor and driver had become, in the eyes of their fellow citizens, a potent menace. What does Professor Marquand imagine might have happened then?
Another objection to Mr Blair’s historicism was that he didn’t know enough history to understand the context in which he sought to fight terror. He only saw the present, and couldn’t comprehend why everyone in the Middle East (barring the Israelis, who don’t count) would have good cause to hate us. “History would have told him,” wrote Edward Pearce, “that bossed and humiliated people rebel . . . He would know more generally that occupied countries take to the experience very badly.”
Except, of course, where they don’t. He would know (circa October 2001) that you cannot fight a successful war in Afghanistan, except when you can. He should have understood – as he was advised – that the problems of Northern Ireland, rooted in historical antagonism, were intractable, and that the people of the Balkans were unhelpable. In 2001 he should have bet all his money on Spurs winning the Premiership, because the year ended in a “one”.
No one who knows anything about history should ever talk about “the lessons of history”. It may be safer that some of our politicians are spending their summers learning how to liberate house elfs.
Read entire article at Times (UK)
... Every now and again, since it became known that I was working on a television history of the Blair years, someone will tell me that Tony Blair had “no sense of history”, and that this accounted for his mistakes. One or two have advised me to look at the writings of David Marquand, who last year castigated the former Prime Minister and his “appallingly dangerous” ignorance of history, for exaggerating the threat from terrorism. “No one,” Professor Marquand declared, “with any knowledge of 20th-century history could possibly believe that the attack on the twin towers ‘changed everything’ ” and “no one with a sense of history could possibly have thought that 9/11 marked a historic turning point”.
Professor Marquand’s suspiciously contemptuous anger seemed on the surface to have two barely related causes: the first that terrorism should be regarded as being an existential threat, as was the threat from Hitler or even from Khrushchev, and the second that Blair should “demean the memory” of Churchill and the fight against Nazism. It was an interesting elision, suggesting that the professor was complaining as much about his generation’s history being superseded, as he was about an interpretation of facts.
But is it so preposterous to suggest that a global ideology that justifies the use of limitless violence against civilians, and whose adherents are immensely inventive (if not always competent) in discerning methods of delivering that violence, could present an “existential” threat? Suppose for a moment that we had a run of bad luck, and that the various unsuccessful plots to bomb Britain, including July 21, 2005, had in fact succeeded. Suppose Glasgow airport had had a queue of travellers obliterated, that several nightclubs full of youngsters had been destroyed, that every brown doctor and driver had become, in the eyes of their fellow citizens, a potent menace. What does Professor Marquand imagine might have happened then?
Another objection to Mr Blair’s historicism was that he didn’t know enough history to understand the context in which he sought to fight terror. He only saw the present, and couldn’t comprehend why everyone in the Middle East (barring the Israelis, who don’t count) would have good cause to hate us. “History would have told him,” wrote Edward Pearce, “that bossed and humiliated people rebel . . . He would know more generally that occupied countries take to the experience very badly.”
Except, of course, where they don’t. He would know (circa October 2001) that you cannot fight a successful war in Afghanistan, except when you can. He should have understood – as he was advised – that the problems of Northern Ireland, rooted in historical antagonism, were intractable, and that the people of the Balkans were unhelpable. In 2001 he should have bet all his money on Spurs winning the Premiership, because the year ended in a “one”.
No one who knows anything about history should ever talk about “the lessons of history”. It may be safer that some of our politicians are spending their summers learning how to liberate house elfs.