Why history cannot forgive us -Jul 31, 2003

Tony Blair has been investing a good deal of faith in the efficacy of 'history' lately.

History, he has told the media on several occasions, will prove him right in his decision to embark on the invasion of Iraq and the removal of its brutal dictator, Saddam Hussein.

And it does not stop there. He has also claimed that history will 'vindicate him', which is a rather more politically potent assertion.

Moreover, the PM has now even gone so far as to suggest that history will 'forgive' him, a personal and (frankly) quasi-religious notion.

Of course it is easy to dismiss such statements as yet more spin, or as panoramic metaphors for elaborate self-justification. What's more, the cynic may add, the most immediate historical manifestation with which the UK government must now contend is the next general election.

Possible sanctification in the textbooks of the future will certainly lose some of its consolatory power if the electorate unceremoniously dumps Blair in the meantime. And the opinion polls suggest that his capital of trust is getting lower by the minute.

All this leaves open the fundamental question, however. What exactly is this 'history' which politicians are continually apt to think will save, deliver or justify them?

History is a construct. And it is a construct that, as Franz Fanon and others have reminded us, is most frequently assembled by the victors after the fight has been won.

This is one reason why those in power believe history will vindicate them. The disturbing rehabilitation of the corrupt and broken US President Richard Nixon is but one example of how this can happen in a surprisingly short time.

History is, indeed, what makes the modern world go round. Along with science, the evolution of language, the apparent autonomy of the individual subject and human technological capacity, 'historical consciousness' is part of what makes us who we are. It tells us where we exist in the flow of events; it gives us a place, a role and a set of targets.

In certain respects history began with the records of the Hebrew Scriptures. The Semitic religions were those that rejected the cyclical happenstance offered by the fertility gods, and opted instead for faith in a God who gave and made history.
Of course this did not stop the faithful misconstruing God (and history) hopelessly, but it provided a more reliable frame of reference.

Belief in the possibility of positive, linear development in the world then generated the key idea of progress, the movement from worse to better. When the base of Christianity moved West from future-oriented sects to imperial powers, the basis was thereby laid for the Enlightenment.

And from this new settlement there came the typically modern conception of politics as the manipulative art of the possible, recorded and codified by 'historians'.

Of course there is a huge problem inherent in all this. That is, there is a major tendency for human beings to lose sight of the truth that history is a construct. Instead we start to invest it with semi-divine powers. That is what the British PM seems to be doing.

Blair is far from unusual in this. In the twentieth century it was alarmingly common for political parties and projects to claim that 'history was on their side.' At the most extreme end of the spectrum, both Nazism and command communism built doctrines of history (and victory) deep into their ideological structures, with incalculably horrific results.

How, then should we view history and its relation to political action? Back in 1980 Dr David Jenkins, then Professor of Theology at Leeds, gave a brilliant paper on this subject to a gathering of Latin American and European theologians at Fircroft Hall in Birmingham.

At the height of liberation theology, when socially active Christians were tempted by their ideals to believe that the kingdom of God could be translated into a 'historical project' which would 'deliver' God's will for society, Dr Jenkins punctured our hubris in no uncertain terms.

History, he reminded us, is not a thing or a person. It does not 'do' or 'achieve' things. It does not 'justify' or 'vindicate'. History is simply what happens. And what happens is that some people see patterns in human affairs and respond to them in certain ways, while others do not.

History is also a fallible record of happenings and events which is always derived from a particular set of perspectives and experiences, never from a universally objective viewpoint.

For this reason, putting one's trust in history is simply bad faith. It is faith in something with no power, no morality, no love and no efficacy. Or, worse, it is faith in those who claim to 'have a hand on the wheel of history' and are thereby rendered dangerously delusional.

If we are going to have faith in anything it is far better, and more rational, that we should have faith in God -- who does, so the Christian story tells us -- have the power to justify and forgive.

Of course for many that is no longer possible; partly because God has been so badly mis-represented, and partly because post-God humanity is apt to think that believing in all kinds of other nonsense (such as a certain idea of history) is 'more rational'.

The Gospels tell us that God is as we see God in Jesus, and that therefore there is hope. This Jesus is not One who vindicates those who pursue salvation by dropping bombs. He is someone who refuses to play that kind of game altogether, preferring to accept in his own death the consequences of this refusal to perpetuate an order of death that suits only its immediate beneficiaries.

For this reason Jesus is 'vindicated' by God, but not as a triumphant worldly leader. He continues to carry the marks of crucifixion in his risen body, thereby calling those who wish to keep company with him to pursue a path alongside the victims rather than the victors of history.
The God of Jesus is thereby committed to history, in all its fallibility.

But God’s ‘availability’ is only by gift, not by coercion. As sheer gift, God continues to call us to the truth about transforming love in and beyond history, which includes the inescapable messiness of secular politics.

But unlike the contending histories that we tend to produce, the moral character of God is not altered by the vagaries of our narrative or the vicissitudes of events.

So if Mr Blair thinks history will forgive him he is making the biggest possible mistake. Only God can do that, and thereby (if we trust the promise offered in Jesus) make available to us a better kind of politics and hope than that sanctioned by killing.

Simon Barrow (www.simonbarrow.net) works for Churches Together in Britain and Ireland, but is writing in a personal capacity. His background is in journalism, adult learning, politics and theology.