There is this saying that goes like this "history is written by the victors" and truly that is one of the most powerful truths of life, the ones who win are usually the ones who get to tell the story and when they do, they tell it in a way that favors them, those who lost are often forgotten which I believe is never fair at all but who are we to question that since it was a history and no one knows when it was written.
We have been brainwashed in the past, especially in our history classes in school, back then i used to believed every word that comes out of my history teacher then and also in our history books but growing up, I started seeing things differently, some of those heroes we celebrated might not have been as perfect as we were made to believe, they also had their wrong sides but no one really talked about it, It’s like the people who controlled the story only told us what they wanted us to hear or know.
Let's take colonial history for example, we were told colonization brought development, schools, and roads but what about the part where people’s land was taken, where our people was taken as slaves, and our cultures were almost wiped away, that part was never really discussed in detail, I feel like the painful side of the history was never written but only the glory of the victors was written.
Even outside school, the same thing still happens, the media, governments, and even social platforms sometimes twist stories, If something is said over and over, people start to believe it’s true, It doesn’t matter if it’s right or wrong, the more it’s repeated, the more it sticks and that’s how false stories become part of history because we they only tell us what they want us to believe and not the reality.
I which I can imagine how the world would look if every story had two sides, one from the winners and one from the losers, maybe then we would have a better idea of what truly happened, I wonder how many things we think are facts today would actually change if the other side had been heard.
The sad part is, it’s hard to correct these wrong perceptions, once something is written in books or passed down for years, it becomes the truth for many people, trying to change it sounds like you’re challenging what everyone has believed for generations.
Personally, I don’t think we’ll ever know the full truth about some historical events, too much has been covered up or lost but maybe if more people stay curious and open-minded we can at least come closer to understanding what really happened.
History is not just about the past, It’s about who gets to speak and I believe everyone deserves to have their side heard because until that happens, history will always be one-sided, a tale told by the victors, while the rest of the voices remain buried in silence.
This is my response to this episode of Hivelearners community prompt of #hl-w187e02 which the topic is tagged TALES OF HISTORY
