Trouillot - Silencing the Past

Not only did I enjoy Trouillot’s arguments and writing style, but I was also impressed with the relevance and applicability of his arguments to other disciplines and fields of study.  Throughout his book I was continually making connections to what he was saying with issues I cover with my own students as well as topics addressed in my other grad courses.

While reading Trouillot, I frequently found myself thinking about and reflecting upon my own teaching practices.  As a Latin teacher, I focus predominately on grammar and translation techniques, but I do spend some time teaching history.  I always try to give my students “both sides of the story” – the story presented by the Romans and retold through the ages until it became accepted as “fact” and the silent story of those conquered by the Romans.  Frankly, the Romans were masters at creating silences and producing a history which suited their political, social, and economic purposes.  Trouillot has given me a much deeper understanding of this process through his discussion of the four moments in which silences can enter the process of historical production (p. 26).  I never considered the layers of silences which can be created through this process and how those layers complicate and exacerbate the original silence.

Both Townsend and Trouillot discuss the power of names and terminologies.  Trouillot says, “Terminologies demarcate a field, politically and epistemologically.  Names set up a field of power (p.115).”  He goes on to say, “…the power to decide what is trivial – and annoying- is also part of the power to decide how ‘what happened’ becomes ‘that which is said to have happened (p.115).’”  This viewpoint really became clear to me in his discussion of Sans Souci as the name of Christophe’s palace and the various meanings and implications of the name.  When non-Haitian historians emphasized a connection to the European palace over native connections, they completely shifted the significance of the name from a native and emic origin to a foreign-conqueror and etic origin, which effectively silences the importance of the native culture and heritage and gives power and credence to the conqueror (pp. 58-66).  Trouillot’s point about the unequal control of the production of history creating silences reminds me of a course I took recently on Tourism.  During the course we addressed similar issues of hegemony and names as we read about the colonization and commodification of Hawaiian culture for the consumption of Euro-American tourists and how that process created silences for the Native Hawaiian people.  Specifically we learned how the native peoples had a “storied landscape” where every hill, valley, and stream had a story connected to it.  The Euro-American colonists took the names of those places out of context and renamed them for the tourists, essentially silencing and trivializing the stories and heritage of the native people. 

I think Trouillot had two main purposes when he wrote his book.  First he wanted to make us aware of all these silences and how they come about – both the intentional silences for deliberately hegemonic and oppressive reasons but also the unintentional silences which come about during the process of producing history through narratives, archival practices, museum displays, and even celebrations. Secondly, I think this book was written as a vindication of or the righting of an injustice done to the Haitian people.  By uncovering and addressing both intentional and unintentional silences, Trouillot is able to give a voice back to those who had their story silenced and I believe he is calling on other historians to do the same for other silenced voices and peoples.  In this regard, I felt galvanized and inspired by Trouillot to be on the lookout for the opportunity to right past injustices and give a voice to existing silences.  However, at the same time, I was also left with the pessimistic feeling that Tony mentioned in his post.  Trouillot says that history is confusing and messy (p. 140), and it seems to me that he was saying that it is impossible to tell the whole story of an event from every perspective equally without creating at least some silences.  I really wanted Trouillot to give us a blueprint to follow so that we don’t inadvertently create silences ourselves!  However, even though he didn’t leave us a blueprint, I think through reading Trouillot and heeding his warnings, historians can hope and strive to give the most balanced, fair, and just account of an event as possible.