When I was in Berkeley recently, I picked up a book at Cody’s called Silencing the Past by Michel-Rolph Trouillot. Of course the title attracted me. “Silencing” is one of the words used in feminist theory in a technical sense to describe the way the words and writings of women are ignored and lost, giving the false impression that women have not said or written important things or things worth saving.
In a similar way, people and places that are designated “Third World” find their history “disappeared,” as the West (Europe and North America) chooses which historical events fit into its worldview of righteous dominance. Trouillot has a wonderful way of writing simply about these very complex historiographical matters, which I appreciate a lot after fighting my way through too many tomes on social history and critical theory.
Trouillot discusses how the current global westernized hegemony treats specific historical events, events chosen for their relevance to the text of western dominance. The accidental “discovery” of America and its attendant sordid details went unheralded in their own time. However, the story of the conquest of the New World demanded a date, so October 12, 1492 became a historical beacon.
On the other hand, the only successful revolt against enslavement in history, which led to Haitian independence in 1804, hardly registers in the Western consciousness. In its time, this cataclysmic event was recognized as a serious threat to the institution of slavery in the New World. Haiti has paid the price for its self-liberation ever since, in ostracism as a Black and poor society, in a sense “disappeared.” After all, wasn’t it the beneficent whites who eventually freed the slaves? That’s the story in the U.S.
Clearly, Haiti can benefit by aid but remains a basket case; that seems to be the present consensus on this unfortunate country.
Trouillot himself has an interesting background. A political refugee from Duvalier’s dictatorship, he invented his way through graduate school, rejecting the overspecialization that is the lot of U.S. scholars. He believes that American scholars are not “public intellectuals.” I know what he means. Intellectuals like me simply disaffiliate, since we can get little attention or recognition. We grumble away on the margins.
Footnote: Blogging has enabled many of us non-affiliated marginal intellectuals to find a platform for our ideas and an audience, however small.
I review Trouillot's Global Transformations here.
Marianna Scheffer, 2001, 2010
