REWRITING AMERICA'S HISTORY

George Orwell's dystopian novel "1984" contains the famous slogan: "Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." This quote from Orwell's book is intended to mean that those in power manipulate historical records to shape public perception, justify current actions, and dictate future beliefs. By rewriting history, authorities ensure total, long-term control. Even though it seems doubtful that President Trump ever read Orwell's masterpiece, his Executive Order "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History," which aims to combat what it describes as "ideological" and "divisive" historical narratives in public institutions, appears to be a close fit. Mr. Trump articulated that by advancing his policy his administration would "restore the Smithsonian Institution to its rightful place as a symbol of inspiration and America's greatness." His ideologically driven overhaul intends to remove "divisive" content, specifically targeting history he deemed anti American. His expressed aim is to align museum content with patriotic, traditional narratives in advance of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, with reviews focusing on eliminating subjects covering systemic racism or specific "woke" ideologies. The order instructs V.P. Vance to work with Congress to restrict funding for exhibitions that "divide Americans," and it calls for a comprehensive, 120-day review of all public facing materials, including placard text and digital displays. White House spokesman Davis Ingle remarked that "President Trump is ensuring that we are celebrating true American history and ingenuity instead of corrupting it in the name of left-wing ideology." Mr. Trump's blatant attempt at historical revisionism is candidly designed to expunge our perspective on the academic underpinning of the history we grew up with. He wants to accomplish this by replacing the scientific, more complex, interpretive studies of history with a whitewashed straightforward conventional narrative, by, among other things, erasing the examination of contributions from marginalized or overlooked groups. His approach includes abolishing D.E.I. programs, deleting "racial indoctrination" as a subject from K-12 education curricula, calling instead for "patriotic education." He envisions rewriting every course outline to emphasize a victor's or native's version of history, downplaying or denying abuses by former leaders, recreating myths through a narrative of a glorious past that was destroyed by internal and external "enemies," and removing or replacing monuments and landmarks that do not fit the new, official narrative. Historical revisionism refers to the academic effort of re-examining and updating established historical narratives based on new evidence, perspectives, or evolving contemporary values. Reinterpreting history is a perfectly legitimate endeavor, and one to which historians devote much effort. There is, however, a very big difference between critically and academically re-examining history, and deliberately rewriting or obliterating history to make it conform to what you want it to be. Political ideologues using the "Orwellian method," may use the process to make it conform to their agenda or to deny established truths. They frequently tend to believe that inconvenient facts should not get in the way of a convenient narrative. It might sound inconceivable that Donald Trump's endeavor to reconstruct our historical narrative stems from a comprehensive ideology. However, his approach to governing arguably encompasses elements of "populism" and "nativism," both of which political scientists classify as "thin-centered" ideologies rather than comprehensive theories. "Populism," an approach to governing, not an ideology, divides society into two antagonistic camps: the pure people and the corrupt elite. Its objective is to restore sovereignty to the people and overthrow a, perceived, "broken system." "Nativism" holds that states should be inhabited exclusively by the native population, defend a nation's culture, identity and territorial integrity against perceived threats from outsiders. Populist politics of history generally involve an anti-elitist stance against academic historians. Nativist revisionists tend to frame a nation's history as a story of pure unbroken greatness, while minimizing or denying the contribution of outsiders, cultural change or systemic injustice. They will argue that newcomers "spoil" or "threaten" the existing social fabric, and focus on "adjusting" the country's history to protect the status of the native born population. The Trump administration has adopted elements from both of these doctrines. Donald Trump has certainly not been the only notable national leader to attempt to rewrite history. The phenomenon has cultivated followers in numerous countries, such as China, Russia, Hungary, Poland and Japan. During the past decade, nativist populist ideas have gradually entered the mainstream of political parties across the European Union. As these ideas evolved, attempted state-sanctioned erasure or distortion of historical events tended to follow as well. Major examples include: Holocaust denial - A systematic attempt to deny or minimize the genocide of millions of Jews by the Nazi regime; Denial of the Armenian genocide - Turkish government long-standing refusal to recognize the 1915 systematic killing of Armenians; Rewriting the narrative of the brutal Franco regime - Spain's right-wing and far-right parties are working diligently to re-frame the history of the 1939-1975 Franco regime, challenging historical memory laws and preventing removal of Franco-era symbols. The attempted rewrite of history by political parties is nearly universal, serving as a common tool for power, legitimization, and mobilization of support across different political systems. While particularly prevalent in authoritarian regimes, this manipulation is also endemic to democracies, where parties frequently re-frame past events to suit current political narratives. This phenomenon, often termed "historical negationism," rampant or not, nevertheless refers to illegitimate manipulations of historical facts to fit specific political agendas. The Organization of American Historians has gone on record to submit that under the Trump administration, institutions such as museums and historic parks are now "under assault." The 6,000 member group calls the president's Executive Order "a disturbing attack on core institutions, the public presentation of history, and indeed on historians and history itself." George Orwell's expertly developed description of a dystopian nightmare remains relevant today and implies a clear warning - totalitarianism relies on altering the past to control the present, making objective truth irrelevant. Theo Wierdsma