When Toad Wanted to Rewrite the History

"Breaking News!" suddenly Swara exclaimed when she appeared after saying Basmalah and Salaam. "What happen Swara?" asked the Owl. "Frog came to Toad's house, and Toad's library was a mess. 'Toad, your library is shambling!' While writing down something on a paper, Toad snapped, 'Let it go! I'm just pissed off!' The frog asked, 'With whom?'

'Landlady!' Toad replied curtly, 'Just imagine, I'm asking for a contract extension for the third time...'

'And then?' Frog curioused.

'Instead of being extended, I was given a lecture. The landlady said, if it's been extended, that's it, twice is enough.'

'And so?" Frog was even more curioused.

'So, in order to extend my contract, I wanna change the History," replied Frog.

'Frog, listen!' Said Frog, 'History is important, you know!'

The frog stopped writing, 'Why, why it's so matter?'

Frog was silent for a moment, then he philosophized, 'Sometimes, history can show us some deep, fundamental insights into the human condition; that sifting through the past we may discover some intrinsic thread to our lives. Historians have long been charged with the job of divining ‘essences’, to human nature, God, situations, laws, and so on. But are ‘essences’ of any use to us now? Do we believe in any ‘essential’ links between different peoples and times? If we do, it is because we wish to present universal human rights, we wish to hang on to decency and hope. And as well we should. But the historian is not, and should not be, of much use here: the historian can remind us that ‘human rights’ are a historical invention—no less ‘real’ for all that—just as are ‘natural law’, ‘property’, ‘family’, and so on.

‘Essences’ can get us into trouble, as when we come to believe that the term ‘man’ can always stand in for ‘woman’ also; or when we think that different ‘races’ have intrinsic characteristics; or when we imagine that our mode of politics and government is the only proper pattern of behaviour. So the historian might take on another job: as reminder to those who seek ‘essences’ of the price that might be exacted.

Newspapers talk daily of how ‘History’ will judge politicians or events; politicians argue for foreign policy on the basis of ‘what History shows us’; warring factions across the globe justify their killing on the basis of ‘their History’. This is History with the people left out—for whatever has happened in the past, and whatever it is made to mean in the present, depends upon human beings, their choices, judgements, actions, and ideas. To label the true stories of the past ‘History’ is to present them as having happened independent of human interaction and agency.

None of this, however, means that historians should abandon the ‘truth’ and concentrate simply on telling ‘stories’. Historians must stick with what the sources make possible, and accept what they do not. They cannot invent new accounts, or suppress evidence that does not fit with their narratives. But, as we have seen, even abiding by these rules does not solve every puzzle left by the past, and cannot produce a single, uncomplicated version of events. If we can accept that ‘truth’ does not require a capital ‘T’, does not happen outside human lives and actions, we can try to present truth–or rather truths–in their contingent complexity. To do any less is both to let down ourselves, and the voices of the past.

If history is so complex, so difficult, and not totally secure, why do it? Why does history matter? It is sometimes suggested that we should study history to learn lessons for the present. This maybe problematic. If we mean by this that history (or History) presents us with lessons to be learnt, maybe no one is interested. Apart from anything else, were patterns, structures, necessary outcomes to exist, they would allow us to predict the future. But they do not; the future remains as opaque and exciting as ever it did. If, however, we mean that the past presents us with an opportunity to draw lessons for consideration, I am more persuaded. Thinking about what human beings have done in the past–the bad and the good–provides us with examples through which we might contemplate our future actions, just as does the study of novels, films, and television. But to imagine that there are concrete patterns to past events, which can provide templates for our lives and decisions, is to project onto history a hope for certainty which it cannot fulfil.

History provides us with an identity, just as memory does for an individual. We can lay claim to the past for part of our identity, but to become imprisoned by the past is to lose something of our humanity, our capacity for making different choices and choosing different ways of seeing ourselves.

Historians as belonging to various different tribes: political, social, cultural. But we also noted that, although these labels are given and accepted by historians—used, for example, when advertising academic jobs—they are not hard and fast boundaries. There is, however, one core difference that divides all historians into two groups: those who believe that people in the past were essentially the same as us; and those who believe that they were essentially different. You might remember David Hume thought that all ‘men’ were so much the same in every age; L. P. Hartley suggested that the past is a foreign country where they do things differently from us. Given that the death of felines does not normally cause hilarity in our present day, an account of eighteenth-century apprentices finding humour in killing cats can provide us with a good example to think through this dichotomy.

The killing of cats has a history. That is to say, it is an activity that has changed over time, and hence can be described and analysed by historians, as can activities such as marriage, religion, eating, navigation, genocide, catching fish, cross-dressing, smelling things, and sex. A very brief history of cat killing would read something like this: in Ancient Egypt, cats were revered and honoured, and so when their masters and mistresses died, the felines were walled up in their tombs to keep them company, and thus asphyxiated.

In the early Middle Ages of Europe (c.400–1000), cats were much less respected, and mostly died natural deaths, such as from starvation. In the later Middle Ages (c.1000–1450) the feline passed to the other end of the spectrum, and became associated with the devil. Kissing a cat on the anus was understood to be a common habit amongst Cathars and other heretics–or, at least, that is what their persecutors alleged. Some Cathars also believed in the demonic connection. One man claimed that when the inquisitor Geoffroi d’Ablis died, black cats appeared on his coffin, indicating that the devil had come to reclaim his own. So, in medieval times, cats were killed because they were feared, despatched by, for example, having stones thrown at them.

By the seventeenth century, the public image of the cat had further deteriorated: it was understood to be the familiar of witches, and was therefore executed along with its mistress or master. In eighteenth century France, on occasion, large numbers of cats were massacred in mock rituals by apprentices and others, who thought the killing very funny.

In our own enlightened twentieth century we do not, of course, kill cats; except by neglect, over-feeding, and when it is for their own good.

And finally, in bank robberies there are also historical events. A guy walks into a bank, points gun at the teller and says, 'Give me all your money, lady, or you’re geography.'

'Don’t you mean ‘history’?' the teller asks.

'Hey, lady,' the thug replies. 'Don’t change the subject.'"

Toad, who had been listening, stood up to get a camera, then went outside to get his bicycle. Frog asked, 'Where are you going?'

'Go out!' said Toad.

'Going where?' said Frog.

'To look at the broken embankment,' Toad added.

'Well, that's good,' Frog gave his thumb, 'You're going to the embankment to calculate how much it'll cost to rebuild, right?'

'Nope,' said the Frog.

'So, what are you going to do then?'

'Play Tiktok!' said Frog as he pedaled his bike and singing,

I've been reading books of old

The legends and the myths

Achilles and his gold

Hercules and his gifts

Spiderman's control

And Batman with his fists

And clearly, I don't see myself upon that list *)

Before her echoes stopped, Swara said, "Dan Brown wrote in his thriller novel, the Da Vinci Code, 'History is always written by the winners. When two cultures clash, the loser is obliterated, and the winner writes the history books—books which glorify their own cause and disparage the conquered foe. As Napoleon once said, 'What is history, but a fable agreed upon?'"

"And Allah knows best."

Citations & References:
- John H. Arnold, History: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press
- Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code, Doubleday
*) "Something Just Like This" written by Chris Martin, Will Champion, Guy Berryman, Andrew Taggart, and Johnny Buckland

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