Christmas in Montpelier, VT. We’re up here visiting my sister and I have to say…it’s been a nice break from the daily grind of Beijing living. YJ and I are constantly amazed over such commonalities as “pedestrian right of way” and “customer service.”
Having a bit of a break from family to-do’s, we wandered around the downtown area and found ourselves at the Vermont History Museum. $5 per person meant entrance and brochure and as we meandered our way through Abenaki wigwams and farmers cabins, I was struck by how much I had become accustomed to China’s museum culture.
Apart from the obvious (not being reminded every ten minutes to warmly love the Party and the Motherland), I was struck once again how, in the hands of thinking and thoughtful historians, the narrative of history — whether in words, pictures, or artifacts — can give a visitor a greater appreciation for a place and its people even if that narrative includes uncomfortable truths. The entry way to the exhibits is an Abenaki wigwam with information markers describing the horrific fate of those people as European settlers made their way into Vermont during the 17th and 18th centuries. Vermont’s participation in the Revolutionary War gives as much space to the ongoing struggles between settlers and land grant holders as it does to larger issues of a new nation fighting against the British crown. The development of agriculture and quarrying in Vermont is balanced by discussions of unionization and environmental degradation. An 18-minute film juxtaposes legislative debates from centuries past over abolition and women’s suffrage with the divisive battle from earlier this decade over civil unions.
History doesn’t only have to be a celebration of what is, it can also be a story of what might have been. It can talk about the past, the good and the bad, and its relationship to the present. It can inspire and inform, even when events of the past make us reflect on the cruelty of humanity. The past can teach. But only if it is allowed to speak ill sometimes.
Those who censor the past atrophy our understanding of history and do an injustice to those who came before.
"Those who censor the past atrophy our understanding of history & do an injustice 2 those who came be4." @GraniteStudio http://bit.ly/8QX4eB