I was lucky enough to have a couple of excellent teachers and lecturers for History during school and University. They emphasised two important points on why History was so important. First, that history is written by the victors. Second, whoever controls the past, controls the future.
History is also the search for the truth. As one of my University professors said, “History is a bullshit detector.” Sources are analysed rigorously, published papers peer reviewed. It was constantly questioned, and re-evaluated in light of new discoveries. Or it used to be.
First, history is written by the victors. What is the major source for the battle of Hastings and the Norman conquest? The Bayeux Tapestry. Produced by the Normans. If you win, you get to put forward your version of history. This is usually then the accepted version. Even when it is later challenged by historians, it is hard to remove the perception from the public consciousness.
An example is Mary I, widely known as “Bloody Mary” for the number of Protestants she has burned at the stake. Mary burned around 284 people in her five year reign. Shocking, you may say. But let us put it in context. People were used to seeing heretics burned. Henry VI burned 10 people. Henry VIII burned 81, and had various heads chopped off. It is hard to estimate how many were executed after rebellions, but it was thousands e.g. the Pilgrimage of Grace, etc. Teenager Edward VI burned 2. Elizabeth I burned 5, and had 300 people hanged after the Northern Rebellion. Every year of the Tudor period between 17 and 50 people were hanged for theft. Executions were a fairly regular occurrence during Tudor times.
So why does Mary I have such a bad reputation, for example compared to Elizabeth I? Mary I was Catholic, Elizabeth I was Protestant, and the Protestants won. Therefore, Mary is demonized, Elizabeth glorified. The idea “of Bloody Mary” persists to this day. Kids still talk about “saying bloody Mary three times in a mirror, turn around and she will appear.” It is embedded in the public mind. Now I’m old and wise enough, and objective enough, to know that both Catholics and Protestants have both done terrible things to each other down the years. But this example of history being written by the victors is important for present day, as we shall see. When only one side of the story is told, this is the version that is carried down the years. It implants itself in the nation’s memory.
Second, if you control the past, you can control the future. History is important. To quote Cicero, “to remain ignorant of what happened before you were born is to remain forever a child.” And Churchill, “those that do not study history are doomed to repeat its mistakes.” (Socialists take note.) History helps define culture and identity. It can also influence mind set. History helps provide an anchor as to who we are in an ever-changing world. Take your flag of St. George. It is a symbol, but bound up in it is the history of the nation, a Christian tradition, the Crusades, the Magna Carta and the rights of Englishmen, and images of the World War Two, fighting actual Nazis and Literally Hitler . No wonder modern lefties hate it.
Various political personalities and groups have endeavoured to use the past to justify what they are doing today. Alfred the Great wasn’t great until Queen Victoria married Albert, from Saxony. A mania for all things Saxon then ensued. Christmas trees, etc. Hitler strived in vain to find a great German past, when by the Nazis own admission Germans were in mud huts while Greeks and Romans were inventing science, rhetoric and maths. A glorious Teutonic past was then made up, with valorous chivalric knights roaming the countryside doing good deeds. Goebbels then made films to legitimise it. Hitler even suggested the Greeks were Teutons who had moved south. Remember the double lightening symbol on German uniform collars? Reputedly found on a stone at a German archaeological dig. Hitler thought it looked good, so wanted it included, or so the story goes. But hey, that’s what you get with socialists. Style over substance.
Communism also had a go, suggesting that the earliest humans lived in a state of primitive communism, living simple happy lives before capitalism came along and ruined everything by creating wealth and raising living standards. But hey, socialism. Again. Many Muslims also believe that everyone was originally Islamic, and that people don’t convert to Islam, but return back to it. Groups like ISIS and the Taliban believe nothing existed before Islam, despite the evidence staring them in the face. They then destroy these things, such as the archaeological treasures at Palmyra, and the Buddhas at the UNESCO world heritage site in Afghanistan.
If you can change the past, you can control what people believe and think in the future. You can change nations, cultures and mindsets. Cultural Marxism writ large. We have all heard of the Frankfurt school. This is another tool they have developed. All the time the past is being weaponised for modern day political ends. The past is used to justify what is happening today. Ever hear the phrase “we are a nation of immigrants”? And it is getting worse.
Enter the BBC and Mary Beard
The BBC have been subtly changing their content, particularly aimed at children, to fit the modern fetish for diversity and multiculturalism. The aim? To “prove” that Britain has always been a diverse, multicultural society, and that it is right that it is now and in future. So, open the doors to those migrants! Anyone who disagrees is racist! History proves them wrong! Only it doesn’t. Not only is it wild speculation at best, erroneous at worst, it is an attempt at further social engineering and following a Cultural Marxist agenda. In the same vein as the Nazis, they are altering history to suit their own ends. If they can indoctrinate kids that mass migration is normal, and has always happened, they will accept it as they grow up and teach these ‘facts’ to their own kids. Just like the Puritans of the 16th Century they seek to purge the unclean versions of history, and present only their view. Goebbels would have approved.
The BBC asserted that their depiction of Roman Britain was : “Life in Roman Britain as shown through the eyes of a typical family nearly 2000 years ago.” To illustrate this, they chose a black Roman legionary, and mixed race children. Many people (including myself) pointed out that there was no evidence this was typical. In fact, the only evidence is a few skeletons of Black origins near Hadrian’s wall. We don’t know if they were soldiers, nobles, servants or slaves. This is when SJW Historian Mary beard jumped in and said: “A BBC schools video that depicted a high-ranking solider and a father of a Roman Britain family as being black to be “pretty accurate”. This legitimised and helped spread the biased and inaccurate BBC piece.
Thankfully, the likes of Paul Joseph Watson, Vox day and NN Taleb and others were able to fightback online. They presented the case that there was no genetic evidence to support the view. What’s more, the majority of people the Romans would have been in contacted with were not Black. There were Europeans, Celts of all description, Spanish, Germanic tribes, etc. in the Middle East there were Persians, Phoenicians, Parthians, etc. In Africa were Egyptians, Carthaginians, Berbers, etc. It was pointed out that many Romans moved to Africa. Just because a person was born there, didn’t mean they were Black. Many a meme was also generated to add to the effort. This forced the BBC into changing the description to: “Life in Roman Britain as seen through the eyes of one family nearly 2000 years ago.”
Further issues were uncovered, such as Black Normans, feminist Briton warrior women, the list goes on. The point is, if we allow them to go unchallenged they will carry on with impunity. Many still believe implicitly what they see on TV and in the mainstream media. They have no idea that the media would deliberately lie to them, in order to further their own agenda. And it’s not just the BBC. Google search ‘US inventors.’ Yes really. All the time the past is dragged up as an excuse. ISIS are denounced as evil killers, and evidence of a problem within Islam. The cry from the left is “Ah, but what about Jonestown?” Despite the fact the two are completely unrelated.
Every time I switch on the news I see something similar. Take the seemingly harmless story of residents in an English village getting DNA tests. They came back that many had DNA from outside of the UK. This was then trumpeted repeatedly around the BBC. Nation of immigrants, remember? What was not highlighted is how much DNA per person, how far back, or that most was from Western Europe. What is not pointed out is that most of these migrants arrived via invasions, accompanied by fire and blood. Instead they are now called “migrants”, “settlers”, “periods of expansion” and “movements.” Romans, Angles, Saxons, Vikings, Normans, us Welsh fought the lot. They were not welcomed with open arms and a cup of tea. And each wave brought irrevocable cultural changes, not always for the better. Ring any bells?
Statues and Culture Wars
Now in the U.S.A we see Antifa and BLM tearing down statues. We have already had campaigns against Cecil Rhodes here. Just about every day turn on the T.V. or read the media, someone is trying to destroy or rewrite history. How long until people are being erased from photos? Winston’s job at The Ministry of Truth doesn’t seem so far-fetched now, does it? You should own your history. If it’s good, celebrate it. If it’s bad, remember it and learn from it. Don’t erase it. That way lies madness.
I mentioned earlier that history is written by the victors. This is why it is so important that we win the culture wars. For too long we have been losing. Only one version of history is being told. The teaching profession is now inherently left wing, as are our educational establishments. They are backed by the powerful mainstream media, which propagates the same narrative. But kids today are in to tech, and this gives us a chance to fightback online. We need our version of events to be told, so at least there can be balance, and kids can make up their own minds. This also highlights the effectiveness and importance of meme warfare. What cannot be delivered through lectures and essays, can be delivered through satire and humour. As we know, the left can’t meme. We hold the upper hand. We will be vilified. We will be called racist (facts are racist, remember.) Forget about it. Just ask for evidence you are wrong. Then watch them crumble and descend in to name calling. Historical accuracy is important. Historical facts don’t care about your feelz, left wing or right wing, they just are. They should not be allowed to be forgotten because they are inconvenient, or worse, deliberately erased. And never underestimate the power of a good meme…
More from Jonathon here.
