To an individual, getting embroiled
in an experience that would be unsettling or traumatic would be of one that no
one would wish to. Yet, in everyday life, there are professions wherein an
individual would get into these experiences. To a policeperson, it would be an
everyday affair perhaps to visit the crime scenes, investigate, and talk to
those families all of which would perhaps be unsettling. It would be something
similar to a doctor or a nurse attending medical emergencies on a daily basis. Something
similar would exist for lawyers either as prosecutors or defence lawyers. Yet in
many of these instances, the situations are not something you are prepared for.
There is essentially a reaction to the events that unfold in front of the eyes.
In the corona crisis, the events would unfold and there was very little the doctors
or other health care workers could do. As jounralists report from different
areas including war zones or terror zones, there is very little they could do
as they are immersed in the events that are occurring all around them. It is
perhaps much later that the reality dawns on them and they begin experiencing
the stress. Post stress traumatic disorder would something be pretty common.
Yet there are occasions when the
actor willingly embraces a choice. The choice of talking or investigating or
researching on something that has happened in the past, something traumatic. It
is through conversations with those who lived through those experiences that
are sought to become the foundation for new research output. The output would
perhaps be a documentary, a book, a movie or maybe research paper or a
monograph. Each of these would entail the investigator to remain neutral in
understanding the events that have occurred perhaps long time ago. There would
be occasions when the sources of study would be the archives print or audio or
video trying to dissect something that has happened ages ago. As one peruses
the archival footage, it would not be easy to imagine the upheavals one would
have gone through in life in combating the situation.
As one revisits these events for the
benefit of the future generations, the choice exercised apparently willingly is
something that does have a price to pay. An interesting piece has appeared in
the New
Republic. It seems to discuss a little known aspect of studying history. It
is about the psychological impact on the historian as they seek to unravel
facets of history something that remain undiscussed or bringing those facets of
history to a new audience. As one examines the facts in history, it is not
certainly comfortable. History might be replete with peace punctuated with wars,
yet it is those wars which attract the most attention. Wars are not without
horrors. The story of these horrors would perhaps send a chilling note to more
than a generation or so. The historians are those who are presumed to have the
duty of recording and interpreting these events for posterity. As they immerse themselves
in the study if these events, they bring their own cost-benefit analysis. The benefits
might be to the society but the costs are to the individual presenting the
story to the audience.
The article does present quite a few
instances of historians impacted by the experiences as they research on their
subject. An historian would be expected to take a neutral stand something that
would be instilled in them in their academic training. Yet as they begin
investigating, it would be difficult for them to escape from being judgmental. There
would naturally arise an empathy as they interview the victims. It would be
impossible for someone not to get touched or traumatized merely listening to
those who survived the Holocaust for that matter the rape of Nanking. Someone
seeking to write the history of Yazidis in their struggle against ISIS, would
not be immune to experiencing the traumas they faced. The historians might be
recording through perhaps a second hand experience or may be merely through
archival footage, yet as they immerse themselves, they would in many ways
become a part of the story. Research might have qualitative or quantitative
dimensions, but as they engage in immersion, the story writer becomes the
story, the dancer becomes the dance, the singer becomes the song.
As the story evolves, it would be
natural to getting trapped into judgments. The stories as they are recounted
and retold, it would be the historian taking notes who would be in many ways
getting involved into the act. It is not merely about the notes, but the
reviewing those notes, those footages, those archives and doing so again and
again will draw them into the story. The story does not begin or end in the
drawing room but happens in the theatre of activity. Historians often are known
to spend months in the war-zone or the theatre if one might call it seeking to
imagine what would have happened in those tumultuous times. Imagine being in
Chittorgarh as Khiji invaded it or in one of those expeditions of Genghis Khan
ravaging the Central Asia or in the 16th century Europe being a
Protestant being tried of Inquisition, the story would be the same. The emotions
that would draw, the personalization that would emerge would be a different
historical picture than something drawn out of cold blood or no linkage to the
event.
Therefore, contrary to the
assertions of historians being detached from their subject, the practical
experiences seem to dictate a different story. There is certainly a judgment
that emerges through those stories. Judgments are often not something positive
but they could be negative with respect to the persona of the narrator. There is
no doubt, that the judgment need not be negative. The immersions could well
might be positive. Yet, as history unravels, it is essentially the survival of
the fittest. It is about trials and tribulations that have societies have
undergone in their path to survival, subsistence or prosperity. It is about the
triumph of the human spirit. Someone has to tell the story. The story therefore
becomes a part of the persona. The storyteller cannot escape the emotions of
the story. Therein lies the historian’s trauma, the trauma that one might
willingly seek to embrace so that the future knows what happened in the past.
Comments
Post a Comment