I was a history major in college and I have been reading it ever since. I find it absolutely fascinating and am distressed when my grandchildren, to a person, declare it boring. Their complaint is that it is all about dates. Well, maybe so. After all it might be important to know that World War II did not take place in 1965. However, the main thrust of history is the fact that it is the longest running soap opera of all time. I mean whole movies and fictional books are based on who killed whom and why, who married whom and why, who went to war with whom and why. That is all history is – the longest running show on earth.
But history is also another thing which I am beginning to appreciate at my age. I am now old enough to see the turn of the wheel, and to see the past begin to repeat itself. The sad thing about the repetition is that no one realizes that it is one. They have not read boring old history, and do not know that this same event that is fixating us today took place in a similar form years ago. Perhaps if we looked back a little bit, we might learn from our mistakes and move on as humans.
We reminisce with longing on a time a few years back when everyone in Congress seemed to work together and could negotiate across the aisle. What is forgotten, but I can remember at my age, is that this period was preceded by the sixties when cities went up in flames, when we were involved in a long and acrimonious war, and there were horrific and violent racial divides. Although many might think me old enough to remember, it is history that tells me of the Senate before the Civil War, where a representative from South Carolina entered the chamber and beat a northern Senator with a cane until forcibly restrained. Or how about the original march on Washington (yes, there was a demonstration long before the one that followed our former President’s inauguration.) In 1913 thousands of women descended on the capital the day before Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration demanding the vote. They were harassed unmercifully by the men lining the route, with policemen either ignoring the harassment or shockingly entering in.
I would now like to give all of you a homework assignment. If you want an historical event that evokes the current climate in our country read up on the Dreyfus Affair which took place in France from 1894-1906. You will find fake news, extraordinary lying, racial persecution, religious factions, social inequality, whistle blowers, the role of the media, and sorely misplaced patriotism. What happened was …….. No, I am not going to tell you. You must read it for yourself.