‘What is history but a fable agreed upon’ - Napoleon

REFLECTION


History is classified as a group of chronological factual events that affected humans. But is it really this? My initial classification is a little ambiguous. Breaking it down, two more questions arise. Is History based on facts? Do these events affect everyone?
Throughout ages history is moulded to suit the people’s need. Not just the common people but also needs of the people in power. A perfect example of how history is moulded is given by a history textbook. If we focus first on just Germany 70 years ago at the time of Hitler we would see a propaganda textbook by Hitler based on glorifying him and negating the Weimer Republic. The history textbooks would undermine all religions and especially Christianity. It would make it seem that the Führer (Hitler) was the God and one should only just worship him. The problems faced by Germany were mostly blamed on the Jews and Christianity. These “factually incorrect” information as a form of propaganda was instilled into every child during the Nazi period. This thus helped in the creation of a militarized society which would both purge the national spirit and promote views to accept the war as a path of struggle so as to achieve freedom from the injustice of the treaty of Versailles and crimes inflicted by Christianity and the November criminals.
1.
‘At the back of Hitler's anti-Semitism there is revealed an actual war of God.
This is so, of course, only for Hitler himself. His party comrades had no notion of
the fantastic perspectives in which their master saw their concrete struggle.’ 1

This history was on the perspective of Nazi. If we would compare it to a textbook in France of Britain we would see a completely opposite appearance of Hitler. This was apparent in a Disney movie we watched in TOK about Reason vs. Emotion. This too was a cartoon filled with propaganda. It showed Hitler as a vile character who uses emotions to get his work done and had no reason in him. On the other hand it showed Britain as the reasoning country and proclaimed how both reason and emotions were in the “driving seat” of their mind. This cartoon had moulded some historical facts to appear as if Britain was completely justified in fighting Germany. Even now after 70 years while Germans desire to forget Hitler and only mention him in their textbooks as a disgusting human being who no one supported. In France and UK, case studies are done on him and what he had done. This is proof of how history is different for a different group of people. What a history book may claim may be a fact but the context it is used in or the way it may be written in, may not be true. That history also may not affect that group of people directly.
Napoleon’s quote ‘What is history but a fable agreed upon’ summarizes what I have to say. Histories are fables. They are stories based facts that have been slightly manipulated to suit their cause. Going back to Hitler’s cause, who is to say that he was not right. Yes he was wrong in his mass murder of the Jews but the Treaty of Versailles was also a really unjust treaty that was based on just completing the aims of the victorious nations and that was mostly to gain as much money possible by crippling Germany. For example the reparations clause stated that Germany was to pay £6600 million however the damage of the war that Germany caused was estimated to just £200 million. How could anyone expect a country that was battered by a war to pay so much? Also how come this fact was not explored in that cartoon? This only proves to show that history is made up of micro-histories. History that suit or agree with one person’s or a small group’s beliefs. Thus what is History? Coming back to my first classification, History is classified as a few chronological factual events that affected a group of people. These various histories are what can be explored to give an ultimate unbiased history. Yet that is an ideal that people in power do not help to achieve.
1http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst;jsessionid=KxPTJx01f1JmyykGsJwzmGlJTpZG044qr1LZzNLcVPKJWCQLDRWH!-174482761!1579770234?docId=77520568