Foreign Affairs is one of the most murky areas of policy we will consider. There are currently 196 countries on the planet. But there are also some 8000 langauge groups, at least 2000 religions, and a multitude of areas of countries that want out of their current situation.
Do we consider the foreign entity from our own perspective, or do we include theirs? Are we aware of their "history?" When it comes to this, history, well, then we are murkier stiill. It's been said that history is written by the victors. Perhaps, but the revisions are written by the losers, the guilt-ridden and of course time itself.
No one really knows what took place hundreds of years ago, never mind thousands of years ago. To talk about the French History is absurd. The territory of France has had so many kingdoms, prinicipalities, independent city states, invaders, winners and losers and more that it becomes impossible to ever talk about a "Fench History" -- it is more like the "what we think we know about what might have happened at some points in time by a few people we know about in an area that we now call France."
Oh, the French will surely tell you they have a history. Indeed, they do. Because anything that happened yesterday is "history" -- and most people don't remember what they had for breakfast, whether they are French or American.
As convoluted as foreign affairs are today, they were no less so than 500 years or 5000 years ago. No one is ever able to grasp the history -- and to know every aspect of it. It might serve as a nice topic for study and discussion, but as for the future, history doesn't have much meaning.
Not only that, most of history that we know of is one of unrelenting slaughter of anyone in the wya of the victors. Had only the Ostrogoths been a bit cleverer over the Franks and we wouldn't be talking about France today at all. But the Ostrogoths are just as much a part of French history as the Gauls, the Romans and anybody else who wandered through.
Piled on top of this confusion is the severae lack of of information about what really happened. If they wrote it down it was either lost or is in some forgotten langauge.
The only people who are condemend to repeat history are those who rely too much on it for a guide to the future. The glories of the past were mostly confined to the murder, rape and pillage of anyone the victors came into contact with. So much for the glory of history. |
