Hi everybody,
I recently got a job as librarian, managing a library owned by a historical association. We collect a pretty broad variety of mostly older books, which mainly stem from private collections that are given to the association by the collectors themselves or their relatives after their death.
So here´s the thing: I was looking through one of the many shelves of books that haven’t been catalogued yet and stumbled upon a very interesting old book. It is called “Der Freiheitskampf der Buren” (roughly translated: “The Boers fight for Freedom”) and was published around 1900-1903. It is written by a man called Justus Scheibert, who was an officer in the Prussian military and also worked as war correspondent. Roughly summarized, the book is about the “Second Anglo Boer War” (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Boer_War) and includes military tactics and describes how certain battles took place, etc. What sparked my interest, however, is the rather critical and cynical way in which it talks about the war and the British as the imperial force waging it.
Here is a small segment (translated by me) that I think shows pretty well what I mean by “critical and cynical”: “John Bull (I think the author means the national personification of Great Britain here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bull)) primarily is a merchantman and his biggest mistake as world statesman is that he is solely guided by his merchant-instinct. The milder system [designed to] turn blacks into “free labourers” is complete nonsense and is based on pure privateering. In order to get free slaves, you have to free people in all countries from their property by acquiring the herds of the blacks. From this follows with mild necessity that the black [man] – without the bolt action rifle needing to carry on its bloody work in a rather scandalous way – has to work for pay for the white [man], to not starve to death. And with this the true and peaceful civilization work (probably meant “work to civilize”) is actuated happily and as requested. Without talented privateers there is no colonization in grand scale. Africa is being civilized by big stock companies to which the British government benevolently has given the rights for privateering, negro-slaughtering, slavery and to equip troops. Therefore, Jamesons raid is being viewed as fabulous sport by the true sons of Albion to which England, standing high above the races, is entitled to.”
I posted about this book on r/books and received very interesting comments about it. One of the main points was that the books representation of the Boers as African natives is not accurate, due to their European descent. Therefore the war was not the somewhat “classical” imperial force vs. natives but more one imperial force against another. The book does however talk about the war as a struggle between the mighty British empire and the native Boers. And as you can see in the segment I quoted, it criticizes the British colonization efforts on a rather general level. Therefore, I think it is reasonable to view the book as source for colonial history, at least for the views about colonization at the time.
Now, to cut a rather lengthy post short: I recently got interested in the debates and controversies around colonial history and decolonization. One of the claims I find repeatedly is that remains of the colonial past should be put away or even destroyed: I read about some museums removing artifacts connected to colonial past from their exhibitions. I am totally aware that this little book is probably not controversial in any sense, but I still see the connection to those general claims, therefore my question(s): What is your take on all of this? How should we deal with remains from this part of our past (like this book)? Should they be put away or even be destroyed? And if not, how would you/how should society deal with them? And more specifically with regard to the book: Do you think its rather critical, cynical account of the war and colonization could add to the controversies?
I don't think most Historians would want to destroy items such as Der Freiheitskampf der Buren. I do know, personally, know a couple of radical anti-colonialist scholars who would probably support the notion of destroying objects the represent colonial authority (statues, landmarks, so-forth), but generally most historians would be much more interested in these objects existing for the purposes of analysis.
The position you are, however, very likely to see nowadays is one that tends to approach any colonial sources of information with caution/mistrust. For example, you might see an article try to answer the question "What did the colonized people think of the conflict between England and the Boers?" A large portion of the article might end up talking about the (probably flawed) assumptions of the colonial sources, and how those influenced our understanding of the Boer conflict. The author would then show how their use of primary sources that originated from the colonized population paints a very different picture of the Boer War than the one that is commonly held.
Let's use a couple of examples from my own research to talk with a little more specificity on the type of attitudes a modern historian is less much less likely to give ultimate authority the sources that originate from the colonizer.
My own research is primarily to do with the work of American Composer Lou Harrison, and to a lesser extent the interactions between composers from the Western Classical "canon" and Indonesian Gamelan.
1) Colonial Sources are Missing A lot Stuff
There's a lot of things that colonial sources are missing, whether it be empathy for the colonized peoples, accurate depictions of colonized peoples, or other important details a historian might really like to know about the colonized people...like names.
At the 1889 at the Paris Exposition Universelle, perhaps the most popular exhibit was the gamelan percussion orchestra at the Javanese kampong. An entire village and their gamelan had been brought over to the exposition from Java to showcase "exotic" javanese dance and music. Composer Claude Debussy was particularly entranced, and returned often to listen and transcribe and take notes on what he heard. Several musicologists and musicians created and sold transcriptions of gamelan music.
All of this popularity, and still after months of digging and inquiring with French colleagues I cannot find the names of the musicians who performed, nor where they were from in Java.
The people who organized the showcase (probably a wealthy Dutch or English merchant) apparently neglected to document any of these details for posterity.
2) Colonial Sources Confirm What they Expect to See
Going back to Claude Debussy's interest in Gamelan music, we have a very interesting quote from him on how he heard and interpreted the music at the Paris Expo.
here used to be—indeed, despite the troubles that civilization has brought, there still are—some wonderful peoples who learn music as easily as one learns to breathe. Their school consists of the eternal rhythm of the sea, the wind in the leaves, and a thousand other tiny noises, which they listen to with great care, without ever having consulted any . . . dubious treatises.
What Debussy hears seems akin to the idea of the noble savage reflected in music. Untainted by modernity and the confines of the musical academy (important to note: Debussy and the musical academics of his era often butted heads, this is likely a projection of that conflict.) Debussy assumes, incorrectly, that the counterpoint present in gamelan is free improvised because he has never encountered anything quite like it before. And, rather than actually consulting the musicians, he assumes that he understands how the music was constructed.
In reality Gamelan counterpoint is based on tempo canons (with apologies to ethnomusicologists for approaching gamelan in such a western way) formulated around a pre-existing cantus firmus. The counterpoint is distributed among stratified layers of the orchestra, with the higher pitched instruments playing much faster, and with the lower pitched instruments playing a near-glacial pace. The largest instrument of the orchestra, gong ageng, marks the beginning of each new cycle through the cantus firmus.
The lines of each of the instruments are actually pre-determined in rehearsal.
In other words, because of Debussy's position as a member of the colonizer, he fails to accurately depict or understand what the musicians are actually doing. They're just "one with nature."
There is a work that Debussy wrote that imitates the gamelan orchestra. Analysis of that work showcase the composer's lack of in-depth understanding of the gamelan orchestra and his penchant to embrace exoticism; to see what he expected to see. It is done lovingly, I believe, but it still represents the issues with using Debussy and other members of colonizing forces as a source for introducing students to gamelan music. I won't be going into this here unless requested.
3) Even more objective sources have their problems
Ethnomusicologist and composer Colin McPhee wrote a rather infamous book among ethnomusicologist and gamelan scholars: Music in Bali. McPhee assumes the role of the ethnographer, and throughout documenting what he heard in Bali consistently preferred to play a role of the "distant observer" and to translate what he saw with a science-like demeanor. He used tuning forks for reference pitches, and recording accurately all of the pitches he heard down to the Hz.
The two big problems McPhee did not avoid, however, were the following:
The second issue is problematic in a very obvious way: he actually has a less accurate understanding of what it is like to play in a Balinese gamelan, and he ended up missing an important distinction about the cycles that structure gamelan music in addition to missing that Indonesian musicians actually perform with their music being "back-weighted" while western music is "front-weighted"
The first issue actually is twofold:
Anyways, I hope this helps. These are just some of the reasons that a modern historian should assign less authority to colonial sources. This is not to say that these sources can't be valuable. For example, McPhee's work has been a really invaluable tool for my research because it helps me contextualize why western music critics and composers had many misconceptions about gamelan music.
I definitely don't think that most of these items should be destroyed. This question speaks to many current issues that are going on not only in popular/political culture (like discussions of whether Stranger Things really needed to film in a concentration camp or the removal of confederate statues from around the Southern US), but in many academic fields such as museum curation, archaeology, and heritage studies. Historically these disciplines have often perpetuated colonial ideas, and now are working to fix some of that damage and establish ethical principles for moving forward. For example, the Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) has charged all (federally funded) universities and museums that hold Native American collections with returning human remains, grave goods, and ceremonial items back to the appropriate Indigenous descendant population, or to work with them to form a plan for management or reburial. All of these examples show us the complexity of your question- not only because of the ethical questions involved, but because of the historical complexities that complicate who should be involved in the making of these decisions and the funds, personnel, and resources necessary to implement most repatriation or reorganization plans. Perhaps your experience is a bit different with books, I'm not sure if some of these references have are widely available or if you're talking about one-of-a-kind manuscripts- most of my opinion and knowledge is based on the ethics surrounding artifacts.
Firstly, many artifacts have been excavated and are now studied, stored, and/or managed by people who were not descendants of the original owners or users. For example, Native American artifacts in American universities. In these cases, I think that descendant populations should get the final say on whether the items are used for educational purposes, reburied, or something else. Unfortunately that's easier said than implemented- the group may not have the resources to care for them in the way they would like to; with older artifacts, there may be one or more modern day group of descendants; there may be disagreements about the best course of action among descendants; etc.
As a librarian, I'm sure you can appreciate the lack of funding and curating resources that are available to museums right now. Archaeology as a whole is experiencing a curation crisis, with far too many artifacts and not enough money, space, or people to take care of them all. I'm sure that this happens in some degree with historical libraries as well? My opinion in this case is that the destruction of some artifacts and/or books may be justified, IF there is no new knowledge that could be gained from them AND they are not unique. If there are several thousand copies of a racist manifesto in one library, maybe we don't need those. Same with the 30,000 broken pottery pieces all from the same midden site.
In the case of artifacts that were obtained or are being housed/managed ethically, context is everything. I'm a big proponent of museums and public education about the past, and I think that people connect much more when they can see an item or book or photograph from that time period rather than just being told about it. In the case of historical books that carry potentially racist or otherwise harmful information (especially when presented as fact), I do think that there are ways they can be displayed with interpretation and along with other materials to communicate messages about how personal biases can effect real world systems and how that's affected history. I don't think they should just be like in libraries presented as fact for kids to read, and maybe they should be stored with a note regarding the inaccuracies found within the text?
I also kind of disagree with museums removing colonial items from exhibit, unless they're doing so to return a stolen item to its rightful owners, or if it's something sacred or sensitive that shouldn't be on display to the public. I think good interpretation is key, and the Museum should confer with modern populations to ensure that exhibits portray their ancestors appropriately.