Burn Down The Mission
I've already been over this once and have no real desire to beat a dead horse but this story caught my eye. For some reason, it seems popular to compare NI with Spain in terms of conflict resolution (maybe its the vacation homes). I don't quite think this is the right way to go. Spain was a case in which one side came out on top only to find that while fascism won the battle it had definitely lost the war. And while the CNT (much to my chagrin) was never able to quite re-establish itself, the Republican narrative reigned supreme. Except in Spain. It is only recently that the Spanish government even came forward to formally condemn the Fascist regime. This in and of itself has not gone unopposed. Slugger has noted the Spanish attempt to come to terms with the past as has Malcolm. Interesting thoughts here on remembrance in general, especially in terms of victory versus tradegy in how events are remembered (or not).
I remember reading books such as Requiem for a German Past which essentially sought to answer the question thrown at so many Germans by their children during the post war years, "Where were you during that time?". More recently books like The Himmler Brothers have come out to explore those roots deeper. What I am struck by is not the success or failure of these books to come up with the answers, but the deeply personal nature of that search for truth and meaning.
Tim O'Brien's best book on Vietnam is easily The Things They Carried. Its been years since I picked it up but a particular chapter has always stuck with me. Its about How To Tell a True War Story. Truth, meaning, and memory are shown for what they are, which is woefully inadequate.
There has also been a very heated string of posts by WBS over Cedar Lounge over the shootings at Coolacrease. Well worth the read if you get a chance. Certainly blogging at its best. The latest post queries an interesting point,
"We could believe those [views] presented by the British Army correspondance, or the IRA inquiry, or alternatively the written testimony of one or other of the sisters. Or we could believe Muldowney, or we can believe Sammon or Harris. But that’s all we can do. We can have no degree of certainty. We cannot know"
My family tells the story of a small inn we used to own on the outskirts of Budapest where travellers could stop and rest and store livestock before going to sell them in the capitol. When the Russians came in they attempted to "requisition" the pigs for themselves. One of my family members attempted to protest that those were their pigs. He was summarily beaten unconscious and thrown into the sty where he was then trampled to death by his own pigs. My family is very proud of the fact that they "went out" in '56. When I was younger I had the audacity to ask,
"Well what did we do against the Nazi's?"
I was given a look that was clearly meant to shame me and informed,
"Why, nothing of course".
My family weren't members of the Arrow Cross Party or anything like it but were simply ordinary people who were all too fallible and probably too busy staying alive. I suspect something similar in Spain (and many other parts of the world).
I guess that most Spaniards won't be fawning over Carmen Polo or her father but neither will they all be lining up to lynch her either. Why? Because very few of them have probably ever been asked or able to answer, Where were you when...? But then again if things were different, could any of us?
3 comments:
That's a rather brilliant post. I think you get to the heart of just how difficult it is to deal with the circumstances you outline above and how people make the necessary, but difficult (and sometimes damning) compromises just to get through. I always think when considering this subject that what it boils down to - in history - modern, not so modern and so on is the way in which it is very much smallish groups which only rarely seriously engage with the larger society on a clear basis. Some historians in Ireland have noted how when looking at local history of a town or region in the 18th or 19th century that even during the most chaotic times there's little or no reference to the broader political context, as if it just passed by...
One of the effects of my lack of a more formal training is that posts often go in directions that I had not intended them to go.
In this case I didn't really want the post to go in the direction that it did but I find that if I try to force them you end up with posts such "We Hold These Truths pt. I & II" which I was particularly fond of at the time (simply because they took so long to write) but dislike them very much in retrospect.
Oddly enough I don't really buy into historical relativism or that we can't know the truth. (and I've said as much before). I am adament though that history and human experience are an intricate tapestry that should be taken in as a whole (ie context).
It has been my one overriding fear (aside from zombies) that I might one day be a "man of straw". I do not pray often though If I do send one God's way the one most often repeated is that I may have the courage of my convictions whatever the consequences may be.
Yes, relativism is a sort of cop out. I think that despite the fact we can't know everything it doesn't follow that we can't know anything which often seems to be the default position...
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