The problem comes in that history is very, very real to people in other countries. President Obama found this out again when assorted and sundry LatAm leaders berated him regarding the historical wrongs committed against their countries and people by the United States. Hugo Chavez, of course, upstaged all the others when he presented a Spanish language copy of Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent by the very able Uruguayan historian Eduardo Galeano.
President Obama responded to the ever-so-predictable historical diatribe of Daniel Ortega by remarking that it was nice that the Nicaraguan jefe refrained from blaming him (Obama) for purported wrongs committed by the US when he (Obama) was still wearing three cornered pants. Mr Obama had no comeback quip for the "present" from Chavez who had earlier bluntly stated that the new American president was an "ignoramus" regarding Latin American history. Apparently Obama didn't notice that the bulk of Galeano's monograph dealt with events that occurred before the US came into existence.
Perhaps that oversight came from the fact that for President Obama as for most Americans it matters not if something happened five, or fifty or five hundred years ago. It's all history. It's all the long-dead and thus completely irrelevant past.
This self-defeating rejection of the importance of the past is to be expected in a country where the teaching of history is relegated to a very low priority. All too often high school history is an added duty assigned to one coach or another. In the university, history is typically the captive of the agenda driven mavins of the politically correct who subscribe with few exceptions to the blame-America-first or all-bad-things-come-from-dead-white-guys schools of interpretation.
When such asininity rides supreme it is scarcely remarkable that We the People and the policy makers who allegedly represent us either ignore or discount the trajectories of history which produce contemporary events. The paradox in this understanding arises from the long standing American belief that history is something which happened to other people in other countries but not to us.
This distinctive American view of history as some sort of external force which operates on other societies, other polities but not our own brings with it a very dangerous corollary. We are prompted by this piece of absurd faith to conclude that when the US puts its collective will to the task, its policies will succeed regardless of how history has affected the target society (or, victim country, if you are of the Left.)
With sincerity oozing from every pore, we Americans take the position that given sufficient material inducements the recipient of our generosity will alter its policies or behaviors to meet our requirements. With similar protestations of excellent intentions we hector other countries to emulate us, to be like us, to embrace something called "progress" and leave their past in the dusty bin which is the proper natural habitat of that most impractical and non-utilitarian of creatures--the historian.
When the blandishments of "progress" or material inducements fail to persuade, we tend to chalk the rejection of our efforts to the sheer obstinacy of foreign leaders or the sinister effects of some hostile ideology. We fail to admit that there is even the slightest possibility that history has a very real presence, and an equally genuine power in the minds of the society whose leaders have spurned our good intentions and accompanying rewards.
As we decry the presence and power of history as an intellectual and cultural determinant in other societies, so also do we deny its existence within our own. Or, to err on the side of accuracy, we cherry pick our understandings of history so as to maximise the potency of the most desirable aspects of our past while kicking aside all the deficiencies and difficulties which have been met and overcome during our two plus centuries of corporate existence.
For example, we hawk "democracy" to the world as an instant, semi-magical anodyne for all human ills. By so doing we seem to believe that "democracy" is some sort of political commodity which can be air dropped on a target nation and instantly take effect.
We overlook just how long and hard we Americans have worked to bring democracy and all of the necessary accessories to their present, imperfect state of development. We fail to see and appreciate that democracy grows best when it grows slowly, adapting to the unique requirements of the local soil and climate.
Nearly a century ago President Woodrow Wilson played the role of school teacher to the Mexicans. With a determination to, as he put it, "teach the Mexicans to elect good men," this apostle of peace landed the Marines at Vera Cruz. The resulting several months of American military government did not--could not--teach the Mexicans to elect good men. It did teach a lesson which echoes down to right now: The gringos are interventionist imperialists who are behind everything bad which happens to poor Mexico, the country "so far from God; so close to the United States."
The power of the historical myth built over generations by the Mexican society both elite and hoi polloi along with the longer standing and even more distorted myth of American imperialism in the Mexican War soldiers on today to inhibit effective collaboration for mutual benefit between these two countries fated to be tied by geography as they are separated by disjunctive understandings of common history.
It may be true that the US as portrayed by Cleveland's SecState Richard Olney in a Note to Her Majesty's Government over a century ago "is practically sovereign over this hemisphere." It is certainly true that upon occasion the US has acted as hegemon. From Theodore Roosevelt to H.W. Bush we have intervened at will in Central and South America as well as the Caribbean.
These interventions, whether as overt as landing the Marines or as semi-covert as the support for the "Contras," have been high and spiky mountains dotting a vast and arid plain. Most of the history of US relations with LatAm is one of total American indifference and non-involvement. With the exception of a very few US corporations such as ITT and Anaconda Copper, the US has been so low on the list of countries opening the veins of Latin America as to almost fly below Galeano's radar screen.
Of course, it is the high and spiky hills which attract the eye of historians--and the creators of historical myth. Thus the interventions of all sorts occupy the political landscape to the exclusion of the real history. The history of American disengagement with the Lands to the South.
This reality is precisely why the Obama administration should move rapidly--even without sufficient political cover--to reverse the half-century of the US imposed policy of Cuban isolation. Not only has it failed (which ought to be sufficient reason for its ending) but it feeds the myth of Yankee Imperialism which is the staff of life for Hugo Chavez, Daniel Ortega and their ilk.
There is a larger (and no doubt quite unintended) lesson from the History Teachers of The Summit of the Americas. History is alive and well as a day-to-day presence throughout the world. No matter how much the chattering folk of American academe and other fans of multi-culturalism may wish it otherwise, history and the mythic distortions based on history are part of the air breathed every day in every part of the world outside our borders.
Get a grip on this: It is impossible to formulate and execute effective policy without a well-founded understanding of the actual history as well as the operative historically derived myths at work in other countries.
One cannot, for example, address the conundrums presented by Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, the Mideast without a full appreciation of history and its myths in these regions. The (by Americans) dead hand of history rests very, very heavily upon the shoulder of today in each and every one of these nations.
One cannot, for example, address the threats presented by Islamism and its armed expression, jihadism, without a full and accurate appraisal of the Muslim experience over the past thousand years. Islamism and the conflicts it spawns both internecine and external cannot be countered by ripping it from the historical context which has produced it.
At the same time American policy to be effective must take into account the unique nature of American history and the defining mythology which it has produced. While there may well be no such critter as "American exceptionalism," there is American uniqueness. The uniqueness of our history, which means simply that no American institution can be uprooted and transplanted intact to foreign soil.
The brilliance of George Kennan's Containment Policy resided in its highly insightful understanding not only of Russian history but also that of the United States. It was this accurate foundation which allowed--no, insured--the success of Containment despite its perversion by the overly muscular military focus provided by Kennan's successors. Kennan knew something which has eluded the majority of Americans back then or today--history matters. It matters more than atomic bombs, troops in the field or any other facet of military calculus. It is the ultimate determinate of behavior as it is perceptions.
What is to be done?
Well, we might start by remembering a line from a World War II popular ditty. "We did it before. We can do it again."
To President Obama and the rest of his administration the Geek can only add from the words of the Wandering Sage and Healer, Jesus. "You who have two good ears better listen."
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