History; the never ending story of humans, seems to be a story of heroes, conquerors, and authorities. We simply see the trees, not the forest. Remember, Rome was not built in a day. Those heroes, conquerors, and authorities were never alone. Where ever they went, there were uncountable numbers of victims, soldiers, and secretaries who devoted their lives to them.
With that having in mind, let’s think of World History as a long movie. At the turn of the 20th century, as the tensions escalates in Balkans, you will see the assassination of the heir of Austro-Hungarian throne by a Serbian. Then you will watch the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente creating a world war, devastating the whole European continent. More than 9,000,000 people died, but what was the result? Creating World War ?. Were the soldiers and innocent citizens some kind of ghosts? Danger passed, God forgotten. Nations forget them, only focusing on their last benefit with blood in their eyes. Too busy mourn, too trifle to consider. No one remembers and no one records their stories.
In the trench warfare in early 1915, numerous soldiers died in trenches defending their nations. It was a bloody stalemate both on the Western Front and the Eastern Front. Within few minutes, the countries like Germany, France and Russia were able to kill a large numbers of people faster ever. Why? A new weapon was introduced called Poison Gas, thanks to the development of chemistry. This new weapon could cause blinding, severe blisters even death by choking. Another bloody weapon was the machine gun. This was very different from the past years because it fired ammunition automatically which means it could just wipe out waves of attackers less than a minute. Other weapons like tanks, airplanes and submarines emerged, and so the war caused more death. Imagine with these weapons that you were one of the soldiers in a trench. I bet you will be the first one to run off. As you read history, have you really thought of the soldiers? Just seeing some pictures and memorials is not what I mean here. Even, I didn’t before my teacher mentioned about them. We just read through because every history contains deaths of millions but we always memorize the ‘titans’ that our textbook author has emphasized, from the date he was born to the date he died. I think we need a change here. The allies, would they have won the war if the soldiers weren’t there? What about the Treaty of Versailles? Our history may not have gone that far. Yes, it is true that the war may not have ended without the intellectuals that suddenly emerged from nowhere and negotiate with their fantastic diplomatic skills. But the people we really need to see are the ones that stood behind those people, the people who paved the roads for the intellectuals.
History is not like an old myth. It’s a real story that humans have been through. We cannot simply judge an event or a country by the words that we read in our textbooks. Who do you think are the real ‘titans’ in history that we need to mention here?
<Questions From A Worker Who Reads>
By Bertolt Brecht
Who built the seven towers of Thebes?
The books are filled with names of kings.
Was it kings who hauled the craggy blocks of stone?
And Babylon, so many times destroyed,
Who built the city up each time? In which of Lima’s houses,
That city glittering with gold, lived those who built it?
In the evening when the Chinese wall was finished
Where did the masons go? Imperial Rome
Is full of arcs of triumph. Who reared them up? Over whom
Did the Caesars triumph? Byzantium lives in song,
Were all her dwellings palaces? and even in Atlantis of the legend
The night the sea rushed in,
The drowning men still bellowed for their slaves.
Young Alexander plundered India.
He alone?
Caesar beat the Gauls.
Was there not even a cook in his army?
Philip of Spain wept as his fleet
Was sunk and destroyed. Were there no other tears?
Frederick the Great triumphed in the Seven Years War. Who
Triumphed with him?
Each page a victory,
At whose expense the victory ball?
Every ten years a great man, Who paid the piper?
So many particulars.
So many questions.
?link
Entries (RSS)