History on its Head

Recently I wrote a post on historians that turned into a mini-rant against Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States." Zinn seems to be, among other things, the classic '60s activist professor who never stopped pining for the old days of moral clarity and good vs. evil.

Today, by sheer chance, I stumbled on a commencement address he gave this year. What an inspiring view of America he imparts to these young minds! Here's what modern America is worth in this historian's view:

My hope is that your generation will demand an end to war, that your generation will do something that has not yet been done in history and wipe out the national boundaries that separate us from other human beings on this earth.

Recently I saw a photo on the front page of the New York Times which I cannot get out of my mind. It showed ordinary Americans sitting on chairs on the southern border of Arizona, facing Mexico. They were holding guns and they were looking for Mexicans who might be trying to cross the border into the United States. This was horrifying to me -- the realization that, in this twenty-first century of what we call "civilization," we have carved up what we claim is one world into two hundred artificially created entities we call "nations" and are ready to kill anyone who crosses a boundary.

Is not nationalism -- that devotion to a flag, an anthem, a boundary, so fierce it leads to murder -- one of the great evils of our time, along with racism, along with religious hatred? These ways of thinking, cultivated, nurtured, indoctrinated from childhood on, have been useful to those in power, deadly for those out of power.

Here in the United States, we are brought up to believe that our nation is different from others, an exception in the world, uniquely moral; that we expand into other lands in order to bring civilization, liberty, democracy. But if you know some history you know that's not true. If you know some history, you know we massacred Indians on this continent, invaded Mexico, sent armies into Cuba, and the Philippines. We killed huge numbers of people, and we did not bring them democracy or liberty. We did not go into Vietnam to bring democracy; we did not invade Panama to stop the drug trade; we did not invade Afghanistan and Iraq to stop terrorism. Our aims were the aims of all the other empires of world history -- more profit for corporations, more power for politicians.

Speaking to a historically black college, he quotes for them Langston Hughes against America:

Being one of the world's big vampires,
Why don't you come on out and say so
Like Japan, and England, and France,
And all the other nymphomaniacs of power.

He advises the graduates, "There are wonderful people, black and white, who are models. I don't mean African-Americans like Condoleezza Rice, or Colin Powell, or Clarence Thomas, who have become servants of the rich and powerful."

What kind of "history" can a nation hope to have when it is written by such men as this? What's the opposite of "triumphalism"?

One wonders if he would speak so ardently to young people in Turkey or France or Cuba or the Soviet Union -- when there was such a thing -- about the need to devote their lives to erasing their nation from the map, and of denying any special quality in their culture. One wonders if he ever stops to wonder why he wasn't invited to do so.

One wonders if he's really doing a service to these young black men and women by telling them the only good life is a life in opposition, in rejection, a life devoted to avoiding the taint of "power." Other white speakers in the past have told blacks the same thing, but they are not lauded for it today.

Finally, one wonders how reliable a historian is who asserts that the aim of "all the other empires of world history" was "more profit for corporations." Exactly what corporations benefitted from Genghis Khan, anyway, Mr. Zinn?