YOUR LETTERS Historical prejudice
A recent edition of the National Post contained an article about a group of history professors who deemed it necessary to rename the prize for the best Canadian history book. It was named the Sir John A. Macdonald prize but now this group determined that such was offensive as Sir John was racist in his view of First Nations peoples. A former winner of the prize stated that “it is incumbent on us as historians maybe to lead the way, to provide information for citizens and political leaders.”
By applying politically correct standards of today to events and people from our past, I ask?
I was pleased that one of UNBC’s historians, Jonathan Swainger, took exception to this move towards political correctness. He stated ““There is no question the man was, in our terms, racist, but the simple fact is he wasn’t living in 2017. For him to have behaved and thought otherwise would have made him a very anomalous character.”
Having studied history for decades, I cannot recall any notable person who did not have what in 2017 we regard as faults. Name any famous person from the world stage over the centuries and the sins often outweigh the positive qualities, even for revered saints. Nor is any group of the ages all good or all bad. Rather, individuals and groups are a mixture of both and our view of good and bad traits also changes as the years roll by.
For historians, the goal should not be to whitewash or eliminate a consideration of these notables but rather to learn why they wrote and acted as they did and thus to better understand the past times in which they lived. To do otherwise is to follow the path of Soviet historians who wrote people and events in and out of history as rulers and times changed. Stalin himself went from fawning praise to denunciation and now seems to be making a bit of a comeback. What he did has not changed but Russian leaders have.
I abhor the politically correct show trials that condemn those who lived in past times by applying what they assume to be the standards of today. It smacks of self-righteous elitism by those who preen their feathers in public while keeping their own prejudices well hidden from view.
Willow Arune, Prince George