Diaspora Dialogs [.com]

Unfortunately, I believe this comes down to the trivial matter of defining the terms “winner” and “loser.” It seems to me that Africans were not true losers, despite the oppression they suffered. It is true that they suffered most compared to, well, whichever other groups may have been involved in those conflicts, but they were not completely eradicated from the planet. They were enslaved, tortured, and made to work against their will, but they were not shot, gassed, or put to death on the large scale. As such, they did lose, and that loss may be enough to call them “losers” in one context, but it is not enough to consider them “true losers,” or “complete losers.”

A complete loser is one that loses completely. It is a group that suffers losses so great that it is unable to rise again. Africans, despite having suffered, have managed to subsist. They have survived their losses, and they still have their voice. Now that the battle has calmed, they are able to use it once again.

As long as the war rages, the winning side can say whatever it wants, and that version of history passes as fact because anyone who disagrees has no power to resist, no power to support an alternate tale. If the war ends and there are survivors on the beaten side, those survivors can then present their version to a world that is more willing to listen.

Therefore, in reading this explanation, you may think that the quote from Trouillot, “history is merely the story told by those who have won,” is incorrect. “Those who have won” is a phrase that can include winners of any extent, so long as they have won something – that is, unless specifications are either provided or implied for what that something is.

Unfortunately, it is only the lack of these specifications that have made this saying and other, more ambiguous forms of it (such as “history is told by the winners”) such popular, standalone statements. Without these specifications, it is impossible to simplify this issue to a single judgment about whether the statement is true or false. Instead, we have to wonder for ourselves what those specifications are. What is a winner? What does one have to win to be considered a “winner” of history? We are forced to analyze the statement under various specifications of our own providing, transforming the issue into a big, messy, and rather useless mesh of conditionals, just to reach an inconclusive result that is highly dependent on a few facts that, had they been known, would have simplified the judgment to a no-brainer.

Or maybe we don’t have to. Maybe I just felt like it.

Noah Van Horne

History defines the winners. From the beginning of known time the human race has been continuously striving and working to refine itself. As such, many people are of the opinion that a great portion of how successful we are—as individuals or as peoples—depends on the quality and quantity of our legacies. Of course, by legacies I do not only mean what is directly left to family or children, but the overall sum of what is left behind, what is changed, and who of the future is affected by those changes. What is passed on becomes history.
Although I am somewhat agreeing with Skyler's view that the term “winner” is ambiguous, there is a slight difference in the spin-off that “history defines the winners.” By this I mean that the information that trickles down to future generations—that which “survives the test of time”--can be used to define who are the winners. For example the information remaining about Stalin and Hitler allows us to define them as “not winners,” just as that left by Jesus makes him defined by many as a “winner.” This idea is similar to the idea that those who “survive” do not lose, but it also stretches farther with the possibility that even those who have failed to survive physically can be interpreted as “winners” if they successfully pass on an image of themselves as benevolent or worthy. In the context of the African diaspora I would argue that the fact that the African race survived or perished in a given location is less relevant than how, as a whole, it has come to affect the modern world, and how it will continue to do so.

As far as defining the terms “benevolent or worthy” in a broad and general sense, I believe that there are certain characteristics of life that are unanimously considered to be “good,” such as safety, enjoyment, etc.

Now for the question of who ultimately writes history. I believe that History is “written” by those who are present, those who will listen to and believe it, and those who perpetuate it. By this I imply a fairly simple chain that is not necessarily biased either towards the “winning” or “losing” side, and which therefore attempts to bypass these icky definitions all together. Essentially, for history to exist there must be an event—an origin,—someone to tell about it, and then people who listen to what is told and retell it, thereby perpetuating a given historical event indefinitely. If broken down in a slightly different way, the history may be physical artifacts, i.e. a giant stone pyramid or ancient manuscript, but still it will only make history if it is interpreted or “told about” and others are willing to “listen and retell” it.

Although I have answered this last question rather dryly, I hope that it might help return to the root of what are the basic components of history, and therefore help in the analysis of how and by whom it is told.

I grew up in Taiwan learning Chinese history. I learned a lot about the Four Great Inventions of ancient China, compass, gunpowder, papermaking, and woodblock printing. I also learned about Marco Polo, the Mongolian Empire and the Silk Road. The way history is taught in Taiwan is pretty straight forward, the text composed of mainly facts, time, place, and events. Not much opinion is put in the textbook and I assumed history is objective.

However, after I stayed in the United States and started taking U.S. and World History, I realized that Americans be concerned more about Columbus than Marco Polo, televisions, elevators, than compass, and paper making despite that both textbooks are composed mainly of facts. The Mongolian empire in which “Kublai Khan” conquered as far as Eastern Europe is almost forgotten just like some Qing Dynasty Chinese history, when China was under foreign rule, is lost. I deduced that history is the story told by those who won to some extend or at least not always conspicuous.

Winner of history is a vague term. It could be, conquering a country, declaring independence, gaining civil rights, or even the opposite, owning slaves. Let’s discuss slavery. Have slave owners gain anything from slavery? Yes, there were wealthier. However, just like Michael Jackson said, “Slavery was terrible, but when black people in America finally got out from under crushing system, they were stronger.” This trend is hard to understand. Nevertheless, if we considered the cruelty of slavery and narrow-mindness of slave owners, I would say slavery only lowered their ability to think broadly and become more intellectual and civilize. Just like drugs, slavery gives rise to slave owners dependence on slaves and make them unable to live their lives without slaves. So, were the slave owners really “winners”? Probably not, at least not complete winners.

In addition to Michael Jackson’s quote, U.K. was one of the first Western countries to abolish slaves. And soon, it seemed that the British were “blessed”, they started to conquer the whole world and defeated France in war. Why? Have they lost all their profits from slavery? There was no clear answer here, probably because they were free to think broadly and became more tolerant to things.

In conclusion, there are no 100% winners or losers in history. Just like there are always downfalls in owning slaves, and suffering from slavery can only make people who got out of it stronger.

In my opinion, history is not necessarily told by those who won, but rather the people with the most powerful voice. Those who won a war or battle may have the most powerful voice in that situation like in the battle of the Alamo, however sometimes those who have suffered the most will have the most powerful voice.

Survivors of tragic disasters in history such as the holocaust and slavery, have the possibility of getting their side of the story put in the history books because their stories are so powerful. The people writing the history books can’t just ignore these voices. The vast majority of people will sympathize with them and that may make their side the focal point in that part of history.

In conclusion, history may not always be told by those who won. In many cases such as slavery, the holocaust, or other tragic cases where people may be marked as ‘losers’, history is also told by these people who have the most powerful voices and stories.

Those who write history cannot be labeled under one stereotype. They are not simply winners, losers, or survivors but an assortment of winners, losers and survivors. The perspective from which, history is told is dependent on whose voice dominates the other voices. As a result the story of the Holocaust is not necessarily only told by the Jewish people, who survived but also those who inflicted the horrors of the Holocaust upon the Jews. The story the perpetrators have told about the Holocaust might not be a story that is generally agreed with, but is still written. For instance, there are many people who believe the Holocaust never occurred, so if they were to write about history during the 1940's and 1950's they would probably leave out the Holocaust or diminish it. This version of history, while written and told, is not widely accepted. As a result, people might overlook the fact that this "version" of history exists, which would lead them to believe that the only written history that exists is the one told by the survivors.

Similarly, I think that the perspective from which we learn about history is largely dependent on where we live. American textbooks are written to show Americans in a heroic and victorious light, while a textbook written by the French about the same event might show the Americans in a cowardly and failing light. In my opinion, the idea that many historians tell history in a different fashion is crucial to understanding history. I think that the only way to fully understand an event or form your own opinion about that event is to read about it from multiple perspectives.

The ideas I have discussed can be seen explicitly in Cheryl Finely's "Commited to Memory: The Slave-Ship Icon in the Black-Atlantic Imagination". Her discussion of how The Plymouth Committee and The London Committee used their knowledge of the slave-ship as propaganda to further the abolitionist cause and later about how former slaves and descendants of slaves used the slave-ship in their artwork, shows two different groups of people telling a story about the same event. Both The Plymouth Committee and The London Committee told the story of the slave-ship in a way that will aid their cause, while the former slaves and descendants of slaves simply told the story of the slave-ship to remember the horrifying experience they endured or to tell others about their horrifying experience.

Ultimately, history is written by a vast number of people from different walks of life, the version of history you hear or read is dependent on where you look.

-Barrie Brandt

The line between winners and losers in history is often blurred as time goes on. There must be two sides in any given altercation, and when it resolves, there must be a winner and a loser. However, by this definition, the winner and loser must be determined by an external, unbiased observer - which is impossible. The sheer fact that one may declare a winner means that he/she is basing an opinion (because winner and loser are only viewpoints) on a set of defined rules. Yet - what is the outcome when two definitions hold true? The Crusades, for example, can be considered a 'successful failure' for the Western Europeans, because they did retreat in the end, however they also attained many cultural advancements as a result (spices, artistic influences, for example). This same theory may be applied to many other events through history, including the African Diaspora.

History itself is static, however the interpretation of history is not, and this is where history begins to 'change.' A prime example of history being completely rewritten is seen with Josef Stalin and the USSR. In rebuttal to the statement that history is written by those who have suffered most, it can be easily argued that the Russian people suffered greatly under Stalin - only to have their past taken away from them and rewritten how Stalin wished.

In the case of the African diaspora, the winners and losers are defined based on perspective, and which values one holds more dear. Are the physical and emotional scars on the African people through history more important than the various cultural influences they have had in their areas of dispersal? This is a question that can only be answered individually.

Thus, I believe history is not told by winners or losers, but by those that one listens to. History is only as wide or narrow as it is in one's mind.

Similar to some of the other responses, I believe that part of the answer to Erin’s question lies in the definition of the term “winner.” If the term is taken to mean the victor, the wealthy, and those that have inflicted the pain rather than those that have experienced the pain then I believe that history is not told by the winners. However, if in fact a winner is defined as one who has survived and persevered through the events in question, then I do believe the “winners” along with the bystanders tell the stories of history.

But, considering all forms of history throughout the world, my question is how can one determine that not all of the world’s history has been told? Yes of course it seems that the educated, wealthy, and scholarly have published their beliefs in the finest most popular textbooks, but this does not mean that the “losers” of the world have not told their own version of history.

Looking at several examples that Erin provided, it seems that there are events that have occurred that do not seem to yield a winner. Events such as Hurricane Katrina and the Tsunami most definitely did not benefit anyone but are still a part of the world’s history. While it is true that those who suffered the effects of these natural disasters were and are able to tell their stories, the stories are also told and supplemented by outsiders who have seen the events through a view that does not include a winner or a loser.

Rather than simply viewing history through the eyes of a winner or a loser, it is my belief that we as students view history through a combination of eyes including those of the survivor, and those of the witness. To say that history is divided between winners and losers is to oversimplify the world’s past without regarding the numerous exceptions.

I do believe that depending on what country one is in or what book one reads there is a spin or slant put on history. Like darragh said growing up in a school in the U.S. the books were definitely made to be patriotic and in some instances protray the U.S. in a better light than they deserve.

These early views of history may have some influence on us as children and young adults but hopefully as we grow up we continue to learn and research both sides of a conflict before we decide who was at fault and who was the winners and losers. I believe that we can not truly determine a winner or a loser in major historical event untill many years later. This is because alot of history's stories and tales of hardships dont truly come out untill years later when survivors feel safe to tell their stories. This can be seen in instances like the holocaust and the slave trade. While the jews and african americans were being suppressed they were not able to share their stories untill the tragic events were long over and people were willing to hear their stories.

I aslo believe that it is too complicated to determine a general winner or loser in tragic events such as the slave trade. In real life everything is not so clear cut. The lines between right and wrong are hard to distinguish. To try and justify who is the winner and who is the loser is a very subjective topic. There are various arguments for both sides of any major event such as the slave trade.

History is also largely based on whether someone is willing to accept someone elses view on how they interpret a historical event.