How the Past Shapes the Present Essay

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Worth Remembering

The past is not something that stays in the past. It reaches out and extends forward into the present; it shapes and instructs us, warns and interests us. Sometimes we return to it in order to judge it anew or attempt to reconstruct it in a way that allows it to make more sense. Sometimes new information is uncovered from the past that puts a new perspective on things. Sometimes the past can be impactful on the course of events still occurring in the present. In short, there is no wall or barrier between the present and the past. The two mix and mingle and inform one another. Therefore, everything about the past is relevant in 2016. This paper will examine 8 articles that deal with specific incidences in the past that I find to be particularly meaningful today.

History teaches us to pay attention -- to be on the lookout for events and situations that could trigger something big, something that could affect us all. This was exactly the case in Berlin under the Third Reich. The Weimar Republic had been an unprecedented time in Germany for Jews. With the abdication of the Kaiser, the Jews had risen to positions of power. They were part of the arts and entertainment, the nightlife, the political scene, the financial sector. German culture was changing as a result. The "New Frau" came into existence and with it Berlin decadence. Hitler and the Third Reich set out to change all this. Their "resettlement" of the Jews in 1941 during Yom Kippur was an act that could have been foreseen (123). The Jews had a long history throughout the Middle Ages of being expelled from most countries in Europe at one time or another. Only following the Protestant Reformation in England were they allowed back into that country. Now in Germany under Hitler a resurgence of nationalism was underway, and the Jews, viewed as outsiders, were targeted.

This article by Roger Moorhouse, "Beyon Belief: Berliners and the Holocaust" is a good reminder of what can happen when history is forgotten. The Jews had apparently let down their guard. They had enjoyed some degree of freedom and autonomy in the 1920s -- but all of that changed in the 1930s. A new force was rising in Germany. It showed its head in 1941 in the Jewish community. The lesson that Moorhouse teaches us here is this: don't forget the past, because out of its ashes can arise, like the Phoenix, something earth-shattering.

This same lesson could be drawn from the Cold War, and the issues that led to its emergence. As Geoffrey Roberts notes in "Starting the Cold War," a "political, ideological, and military rivalry" between the East and the West -- the communists and the capitalists -- helped to generate the conditions that allowed the conclusion of WW2 to morph into the Cold War, which went on for decades (128). Instead of addressing the issues that the Western nations and the Soviets and Chinese were facing in a diplomatic manner, the two sides viewed one another with suspicion, each pointing to the imperialistic aims of the other. Roberts points out that it was the disintegration of the "Grand Alliance" of the WW2 Allied powers following the conclusion of the war, which set the stage for the Cold War (129). In other words, the alliance proved only to be a temporary one. Stalin's Soviet Russia was not one that the Western nations wanted making power plays in the regions where they themselves wanted to exert influence. Because of the unwillingness to share or to allow a multi-polar world order to come into being, the West made a gambit to stop the spread of communism, as they described it. To this day, we are still feeling the effects of the Cold War. Russia is fighting ISIS in the Middle East, but because of the U.S.'s own geopolitical allegiances with Turkey and Saudi Arabia, that war is not one that the U.S. is eager to join. Thus, Russia gets all the glory for disposing of the terrorist regime while the U.S. looks completely helpless attempting to walk a fine line between supporting moderate rebels and fighting terrorism.

From Michael Beschloss's "A Case of Courage," we learn the lesson that underdogs stick together. For Truman, identifying with Israel was easy: the Jews were the underdogs of the world, as far as he could tell. And he himself felt like an underdog, who found himself leading the "free world" at the end of the WW2. That Truman dropped not one but two atomic bombs on civilian populations in Japan could, upon reflection, make him appear to be more of a mass-murdering big dog than the underdog that he felt he was -- but perhaps the use of the bomb was just his way of making up for insecurities (and showing off to Stalin, of course).

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The Zionists in Israel followed suit with their own genocidal campaign against the Palestinians -- therefore putting themselves squarely in the same mass-murdering camp as Truman. What makes this episode of history relevant today is this: the Zionists have exerted so much power throughout the world that Israel is practically the 51st state of the U.S. Congress bows down to Netanyahu whenever he comes to make speeches (because AIPAC can make or break political careers, after all). To this day, the Middle East is a mess and the Palestinians continue to be marginalized (the Gaza Strip and West Bank illegal Jewish settlements should count as examples of marginalization) all because one little underdog who wanted to be a big dog named Truman felt compelled to help out another little Zionist dog nab a big territory for itself.

This push for power was represented by Mao Zedong as well in China around the same time. Mao had great plans for liberating China -- and all he had to do was rely on the same fallback as Truman and the Zionists: just commit a little mass-murder and the Great Leap Forward can get underway. Lynch's "Mao Zedong: Liberator or Oppressor of China?" is relevant today because of its depiction of the rise of a totalitarian regime, which we are seeing all around us today. Totalitarianism is the doctrine of modern politics: the Establishment exerts its authority with such intractable force that so-called democracies wince every time an election cycle comes around. Even if one of their favorites wins popular support, the Establishment comes out to knock him down and put the voting body back in its place. Mao was no different, except that he was less subtle about his intentions. In China in the mid-20th century one could kill hundreds of thousands of one's own people and be hailed a hero. Today, we kill hundreds of thousands of other peoples are call ourselves the good guys. Totalitarianism puts blinders on the eyes that should look inward -- and this article reminds us of an important lesson when it comes to looking at history: we should not forget the necessity of judging ourselves.

Indeed, the brutal loss of life in the 20th century is one that is still impacting us. The article "10 Million Orphans" describes how over 10 million children have either lost a parent or both to AIDS. This utter decimation of life is one that is destroying societies and cultures. Communities are being obliterated. The AIDS epidemic is one that continues to be a plague for societies around the world but especially in impoverished countries like Asia. Why is it here that so many are lost? What is the connection between AIDS, Africa and the imperial powers that are there to help stop the spread yet seem so ineffective? There is a lesson here: we in the West should be more careful about what we are doing to help others. We should ask ourselves if we are helping or hurting, if we are saving or getting in the way. 10 million orphans are too many for us not to take this issue directly to heart -- but our minds must also be ready to confront the issue head on and deliver an effective strategy.

The issue, in fact, is not just one that we in the West face. As Steven Butler shows in "Korea: Echoes of a War" the situation in Korea remains tense as the North and the South continue to antagonize one another and the "tragic afterthought" that caused the division between the two Koreas continues to be felt by both sides (144). This was another situation in which the world powers, meddling in parts of the world where they believed they had some national interests, contrived to cause mayhem and tension among the native peoples there. This is a lesson that desperately needs to be learned today, as world powers continue to exert control over parts of the world that are not theirs. The U.S. is still committing such acts throughout the Middle East and Europe (its….....

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