History is Written by the Winners

“History is written by the winners.” – Napoleon

When you think about what this quote says, it’s really quite amazing. History will always be written by the winners. History books are written by the ones that were left on top. All we have now is what was written of things that happen 200 yrs ago. And if there are two different stories, which one do you believe?

All the teachers know are what they read in the books that they use to teach their students. What if the books they are using is wrong? How can you really know what happened?

One of the big ones that stick out in my head, is the slave trade. In all the history books I was given in high school the basic story was that Europeans went to Africa rounded up a whole lot of Africans, threw them on a ship and took them to America. Isn’t that what yours said?

I’m not saying that there weren’t Africans hauled off by Europeans, however what I never read was that there were a lot of Africans bought from other African tribes. Slavery had existed well before Europeans got the idea, and slave trading was part of the way of life in Africa. Africans sold other African slaves to go to America.

I’m not saying that slavery was an ok thing to do, it wasn’t, it was horrible. But to tell students that people went into that country to steal Africans and sell them as slaves is part truth part lie, and they leave out the blame on Africans themselves for selling fellow Africans off in the first place. I had NEVER heard in school that Africans were partly to blame for slavery. I mean can you imagine if you could look into your lineage and as a black person find out that your ancestor sold other Africans into slavery? That’s not in the books, and it never will be. What is in our books is really only a half truth but for many people it is the truth.

I thought it pretty interesting while I was in England to see British people come out to the base (which allowed an open base on the fourth of July) and celebrated July 4th with the military personnel. Why would they do that? I mean they are celebrating a MAJOR defeat right? Well in British schools they are taught that they did not lose the war, they decided to end the war and give us the land. That was why they had no problem celebrating that holiday with us.

Now knowing who is right or wrong isn’t the point of this because obviously neither side is going to believe they are wrong, but the bottom line is, what you are told is what the “truth” becomes. It might not be what really happend, but it is your truth. If you watch a news station here and a news station in another country on the same event, you will see discrepencies. Even though England is friend to us concerning the war there were differences in their coverage. Then of course the coverage from the people who we are against. Whether that be in war or not. Unless you actually go and see an event yourself you don’t know and will never know what actually happend. The truth is what you are told, not necessarily what happens. Just one more thing to think about today when you are told what is going on in the world.