by Patrick Lang (bio below)
“THE HISTORICAL MEMORY OF A NATION IS NOT MERELY A REPOSITORY. OUR VISION OF THE PAST CHANNELS OUR VISION OF THE FUTURE BY CONSTRAINING OPTIONS, BUT ALSO IT PLAYS A PROACTIVE ROLE. THIS MEMORY IS ACTUALLY A VERY IMPORTANT FACTOR IN STRUGGLE…. IF ONE CONTROLS PEOPLES’ MEMORY, ONE CONTROLS THEIR DYNAMISM …. IT IS VITAL TO HAVE POSSESSION OF THIS MEMORY, TO CONTROL IT, TO ADMINISTER IT, TELL IT WHAT IT MUST CONTAIN.’ COLLECTIVE MEMORY IS THE TOOLSHED, TOMORROW’S IDEOLOGICAL ARSENAL, FROM WHICH POLITICAL CONCEPTS AND SYMBOLS ARE SELECTED, REINTERPRETED, AND MANIPULATED BOTH BY ESTABLISHED GOVERNMENTS AND OPPOSITION GROUPS. IT MAY WAIT FOR DECADES, PATIENTLY DORMANT, ONLY TO BE REACTIVATED SUDDENLY AS AN EXPLOSIVE CONTAGIOUS FORCE.”
– DR. CHRISTINE M. HELMS IN MCNAIR PAPER # 10 “ARABISM AND ISLAM: STATELESS NATIONS AND NATIONLESS STATES.” SEPTEMBER, 1990.
Dr. Helms is an old friend. Years ago I read this quotation from her work and was as impressed with it then as I am now. All too often we Americans seem to think that the past has little relevance except as a matter of antiquarian concern. As I have written before it is only in this country that the statement “That’s history” is dismissive.
A belief in the malleability of human consciousness and the irrelevance of the past underlay our ridiculous over confidence in Iraq.
Have we learned anything from the experience?
Do we now grasp the notion that collective memory will not be expunged by public relations campaigns or lying “information operations”?
Pat Lang
Col. Patrick W. Lang (Ret.), a highly decorated retired senior officer of U.S. Military Intelligence and U.S. Army Special Forces, served as “Defense Intelligence Officer for the Middle East, South Asia and Terrorism” for the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and was later the first Director of the Defense Humint Service. Col. Lang was the first Professor of the Arabic Language at the United States Military Academy at West Point. For his service in the DIA, he was awarded the “Presidential Rank of Distinguished Executive.” He is a frequent commentator on television and radio, including MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann (interview), CNN and Wolf Blitzer’s Situation Room (interview), PBS’s Newshour, NPR’s “All Things Considered,” (interview), and more .
Personal Blog: Sic Semper Tyrannis 2005 || Bio || CV
Recommended Books || More BooTrib Posts
Novel: The Butcher’s Cleaver (download free by chapter, PDF format)
“Drinking the Kool-Aid,” Middle East Policy Council Journal, Vol. XI, Summer 2004, No. 2
I wrote a diary along similar lines looking at Bush’s Sept. 20, 2001 speech versus the realities. Link here.
I wonder if there’s any correlation to be made between the degree to which a nation’s (or tribe’s) collective memory mirrors actual reality and the viability of that nation/tribe as a functional independent entity going forward.
If there is such a correlation, I suspect we here in the US are in big trouble given that what passes for the (some would say highly manipulated) collective memory is so seriously at odds with the facts.
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Thank you Pat Lang for this wonderful quote.I am very impressed with the gist of the message contained in this gem from Christine Helms.It may very well explain our failures with respect to China,Korea,Vietnam and now Iraq.Along with our dismissive attitude toward history,our own and that of other peoples, we also have two other debilitating attitudes that will come to haunt us in the years ahead.First is our belief in our own exceptionalism and second is our proclivity for violence as a first resort.
It seems to me that at each and every turn, we seem to choose the road of violence, deception,totalitarianism and outright imperialism.I don’t know what the remedy is except a total collapse of our contempt for Democracy for other peoples.
I notice your diary published just before my own on New Orleans.
I think they are very complementary in this sense: the goal of displaced New Orleanians, many I have spoken to, is to protect our collective memory of our culture here.
Perhaps in that way, we can begin to reconstruct it, aware that all of our experience since the storm is going to affect what we choose to remember, and what we choose to reconstruct, and how we reconstruct.
For me, some issues are changing, even as I write about a desire to preserve a culture and way of life. As I heard some women say today, who have lost everything in the Lafitte and B.W. Cooper Housing Projects say, “This storm is bringing us opportunity also.” To see opportunity, when all material possessions have been lost, and a way of life changed forever, can be a profound vision.
However, many New Orleansians are struggling on the verge of homelessness, and this is greatly disturbing. It is as though a war were being waged against a certain portion of our own populace: those low income and extremely vulnerable to sudden change, catastrophic change.
This war is being fought globaly against the low income citizens of our world, and you can see the middle class being drawn in as well. In fact, one would have to wonder if a kind of genocide weren’t being practiced on everyone who isn’t wealthy.
For Iraqis, of course, the task is much more difficult to preserve collective memory, for healing to begin. First we must stop bombing and killing them. It is a culture and a people constantly under assault.