Thinking Productively About History

Both the news and the history behind it can make for depressing reading. In a year dominated by repeated instances of racial unrest in the United States and religious conflict in the Middle East, the influence of history feels particularly burdensome both at home and abroad.

A recent editorial in the New York Times entitled “How Racism Doomed Baltimore” perfectly encapsulates this sense. When the Times’ editorial board writes “racism,” it is referring not only to an attitude, but also to a decades-long historical process by which cities like Baltimore became as segregated as they are today, with all the implications for educational and economic opportunity that segregation entails. The current conflicts tearing apart the Islamic world have far older antecedents, in bitter divisions from periods of religious ferment over a millennium ago.

This idea that events from long before the people in today’s headlines were born set the stage for current controversies clearly contains a significant element of truth. But it is also often incomplete, and runs the risk of making current problems appear hopelessly intractable. True, economic inequality in urban communities of color is a direct result of racist housing policies from the 1930s, '40s, '50s, and '60s; but it also has to do with the ongoing implementation of incarceration policies that have had their worst effects in the past three decades. Former President Bill Clinton, to his credit, has admitted that the sentencing law he signed in 1994 contributed to the phenomenon of “missing men” in some communities. An in-depth analysis of the Founding Fathers is not necessary to uncover these more proximate reasons for the persistence of urban poverty.

Similarly, in the Middle East, though the seventh century roots of the Sunni-Shia split are essential to understanding entrenched conflict, one also cannot ignore the intervening 1400 years, during which nomadic groups swept through the region, empires like the Ottoman and Safavid rose and fell, and European powers ruled and then withdrew. To reduce all of the Islamic world’s problems to its beginnings ignores the influence of more recent developments like the rise of the Saudi state after World War I and the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979.

The relevance of more recent history in no way means that a search for fundamental trends from the more distant past is not worthwhile. After all, those housing policies from the 1930s and those divisions from the seventh century are still critical to understanding the current state of America’s urban core and the violence occurring in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen.

But at every juncture from those events to the present, people had to make decisions about how to address the ideas and institutions they inherited. And while it may sometimes appear that our ancestors presided over an uninterrupted streak of poor choices, they occasionally got it right. A Congress in 1868 approved the 14th Amendment that then became the basis for future civil rights rulings in the 20th century; and, though the world has so far stood aside while ethnic slaughter takes place in Syria, it did intervene–albeit belatedly–in Bosnia.

Even the more depressing history of continued racism in urban housing policy offers clear lessons. After all, it shows how neighborhood organizations and municipalities have evaded federal laws, and suggests that seemingly innocuous policies like minimum sentencing can have enormous unintended consequences.

In short, while looking for root causes, we cannot ignore the role of contingency and choice. Consider the history of school segregation. In 1954, the Supreme Court made a great step towards ending the practice; twenty years later, in a five to four decision, it essentially undid any successful desegregation programs by quashing attempts to deal with the de facto segregation caused by white flight. One changed vote, and we might be having a different conversation about race and education in the United States.

The lessons of the Arab Spring are similar. In Tunisia, the movement’s originator, the success of a functioning, pluralist democracy is still a very real, if fragile, possibility, thanks largely to the good sense of the country’s major political movements. In Egypt, the incompetence of an Islamist President and the heavy-handedness of the military led to very different results. As always, the decisions of key players were crucial, seventh century legacies notwithstanding.

History gives us reason for cautious optimism. Long-standing prejudice and ancient dogma remain central to understanding current problems; but the role of individual and collective decision-making cannot be ignored. Baltimore may be reeling from nearly a century of bad housing and criminal justice policies, and the Middle East may appear to be in an endless cycle of violence, but neither place was, or is, “doomed” by its past.

This semester, the goal of this column has been to look at different ways that history can inform our perspective on the present. Sometimes, those lessons were clear: Rudy Giuliani clearly knows not whereof he speaks when he calls the President “anti-colonial.”  More often, looking back at the accumulation of prejudice and violence that makes up a good portion of human history can seem like an exercise in hopelessness. But it needn’t be. Today, choices are being made that have the potential to build on past successes and correct past mistakes. With an eye towards history, we can make sure those choices are for the better.

Nelson L. Barrette '17, a Crimson editorial executive, is a history concentrator in Winthrop House. His column appears on alternate Fridays.