Myths, Politics and the Not-So-New World Order

Abstract

1. Mythology, Historiography and Politics The New World Order threatens to degenerate into something drearily familiar. It now looks just as prone to self-serving and manipulated myth-preservation and myth-making, tribal ethnocentrism and the politics of fear and exclusion as were older world orders (Jacobsen, 1992). If we cannot transcend the distorting bounds of our particular group or 'national' cultures, then visions of a more just and less conflict-prone order will remain a mirage. Parochial historiographies tell the tale - and illustrate the scope of the challenge before us, if we are to transcend older orders. Today's most prominent actor is as susceptible to the foibles of arrogance and conceit as others. In Washington the myth of invincibility lingers, dangerously, notwithstanding Vietnam, 1814 and other reverses - perhaps more so now that the 'Vietnam syndrome' has been expunged by the Gulf War, and its Cold War rival is prostrate. The hagiography of real victory can also distort. The United States' glorification of Texas's 'fight for independence' stands in sharp contrast to Mexican views. The latter see the story as the West saw Moscow's 1979 invasion of Afghanistan, with pretexts for war wilfully manipulated, to 'justify' invasion, and occupationlannexation (Smith, 1980, p. 7). The USA's 50th commemoration of Japan's 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor provides another classic example. The surprise nature of Japan's attack was 'perfidious'. Yet that was how Japan had attacked before, as against Russia in 1904; if she was going to strike, there was every reason to expect surprise assault. The commemorative historiography did not mention that the USA itself launched most of its wars with surprise attack. Nor did it report that the USA had established an oil embargo that promised to cripple Japanese industry, and presented an ultimatum and deadline for Japanese withdrawals from the mainland that were physically impossible to meet. The view from Tokyo was and is different. But if the New World is prone to myth, the Old World is no less so. One typical example is the image of Richard III bequeathed to us through Shakespeare: a hunchback, ugly to behold, disliked by his people, a poor ruler who murdered the princes who were rightful heirs. Yet a review of local and church records of his time shows a different Richard. He had no hunchback; he is described as handsome, well liked, widely admired and respected; and it appears that the princes may all have outlived him - in the dungeon of the Tower of London (Tey, 1989, pp. 172-188). The fault is not Shakespeare's. He merely passes on the 'history' of his times. It was the history of Tudor propagandists, designed to justify and legitimize Henry VII's usurpation of power after Richard's death. The historiography of victors and successful usurpers of power finds no better example than Joseph Stalin's 'Short Course' History of the Communist Party of the USSR, which utterly distorted the cataclysmic events of 1917 and after (Stalin, 1938). It re-wrote every stage of the Bolshevik Revolution, excised the name of Leon Trotsky - whose role was as