“The one who deals the blow forgets, the one who carries the scar remembers.” Haitian Proverb
Those were the opening words of one of my favorite books I have ever read, Gangsters of Capitalism by Jonathan Katz. Such a simple statement, yet one with such poignant meaning. Katz used this proverb to open his book on US imperialism during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The history retold in Gangsters of Capitalism is almost completely forgotten by most people in the United States. For this blog post, I wanted to extrapolate further on how this proverb can help us understand conflict in international relations. What fault lines and discord can be created when two countries remember different chapters of the same history?
Let’s use a couple of examples from US history as a prism through which we can view this issue. How many Americans reading this are aware of the fact that the US maintained a military occupation of Haiti for nearly twenty years at the beginning of the 20th century? How many Americans are aware that in 1953 the CIA helped orchestrate a coup that overthrew the democratically elected prime minister of Iran? If I had to guess almost no Americans reading this have any idea about either of these events. Additionally, I doubt most Americans are aware of so many other troubling chapters of American history. We in the United States like to paint a picture of ourselves as the good guys of the world and of history, and any events that contradict or complicate this picture tend to be swept under the rug.
However, events such as those mentioned above are well remembered outside the United States. Sticking with the example of the coup in Iran, I will be using John Ghazvinian’s excellent book on US Iranian relations American and Iran: A History, 1720 to the Present, as a source. An event that is much better remembered in the United States is when employees of the US embassy in Tehran were taken hostage during the Revolution in 1979. The reasons why the employees of the embassy were taken hostage are myriad and complex. But one of those reasons is that many feared that the United States was planning another coup. After twenty-five years many Iranians knew that much of the planning for the 1953 coup was done inside the US embassy. Those who believed that the US wanted to try again were further bolstered by one of those accidents or mistakes that history so often hinges upon. The Shah of Iran had been ill with cancer for some time and leading up to the embassy takeover was in the United States seeking medical treatment. However, the Shah’s poor health was a carefully guarded secret, so many ordinary Iranians thought that this was a ruse. Those who thought the Shah’s health problems were fake believed that the Shah was waiting in the United States until the CIA would bring him back on their coattails following yet another coup. This not entirely unjustified fear led many to believe that taking the embassy was a good way to safeguard Iran and the revolution.
What might we be able to learn from these events? In my view the hostage crisis of 1979 perfectly illustrates that Haitian proverb used above. Many Americans well remember the hostage crisis and will cry foul about the injustice done to those captured. Americans remember what happened, while at the same time they fail to learn or appreciate the deeper context as to why it happened. They fail to learn reasons why those who captured the embassy felt like it was necessary. We don’t have to support or condone capturing embassies and taking hostages. But learning the greater context of US and Iranian history does give us a more nuanced perspective.
Imagine something similar to the 1953 coup in Iran was done in the United States. Imagine that sometime in US history a foreign power’s security services, with the blessing of their political leadership, orchestrated a coup that overthrew an elected US president. How would Americans feel if this information became widely known? Would Americans feel angry that the integrity of our elections, and our basic sovereignty, had been violated by a foreign power playing puppet master? Would this event leave a lasting wound on our national psyche? Would politicians be able to use this event to create nationalistic anger whenever they needed more domestic support?
This is the core of what this piece is about. If nations were people, they would all be pointing accusatory fingers at one another decrying the crimes committed against them, while at the same time everyone ignores the crimes they committed against everyone else. This leads to constant misunderstandings. A nation might be able to successfully close its eyes and ears and ignore parts of its history that it doesn’t want to confront. But even the most powerful nations on earth would be hard pressed to silence criticism everywhere.
This is a continuation of a point I was trying to make in one of the essays of my book, creating a strictly positive national myth has far-reaching real-world consequences. Reality is complex and nuanced. Part of being a mature adult is being willing to do the work of navigating this complex and nuanced reality. When we refuse to confront this complexity and instead manufacture convenient stories to tell ourselves, we are creating an inherently warped and false reality. This can happen on both a national and a personal level.
If nations want to better understand one another, then they have to be willing to confront the difficult or dishonorable moments in their own history. When two countries remember entirely different moments of the same history, then they are bound to create impasses in their relations with one another. If a country refuses to see the blows it deals out, someone else will remember for them.