The means by which Trouillot first
found out about debates on how history is created - by power - was
family ideas belonging to his father and uncle, this was thought
provoking to me. The closeness they exhibited in talking of
historical figures – as if they were people they knew personally
through “intimate details”, shows how, as we discussed in class,
our recollection of what happened in a memory can be open to
different interpretations from others.
If those who we are remembering an
event with have diverging ideas as to what actually occurred,
different interpretations of major historical events arise. These, in
time, have caused shifts and rifts between nations (for example who
started …. war?). History making is at its most powerful when such
conversations become heated, in the hands of powerful leaders and
historians - 'who did what?', and 'how did that affected the other
group?' become crucial to the creation of history. When one 'truth'
is 'preferred' over another, if a nation is powerful enough, they can
have the capacity to try to silence the other from having any claim –
and it can be years till this other historicity is heard. Silencing
of history, like the Haitian Revolution by Western historians; Alamo,
the truth about Columbus' 'discovery', or the Katyn massacre of 1943,
only
acknowledged by the Russian government in 1991, demonstrate
how power changes dynamics in recording history.
Trouillot's
family example shows how personal inter/national/family history can
become – as if “history sat at the dinner table” with you. And
how, for me, this shows how disagreements in family recollections,
although not as crucial to the world overall, can be seen as a
microcosm of the production and recording of history.
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