The one lesson that we’ve learned from history is that we haven’t learnt any of histories lessons.
History repeats itself.
There I said it.
and I’ll say it again.
History. Repeats. Itself
There are many scientific explanations for why history repeats itself , stating that it’s because our coding for relationship interface is largely the same, which therefore dooms to repeat the same things over and over again. However, I think that it is more due to the fact that humans hate the unknown and are scared to do anything new that we have this never ending cycle.
Humans would rather repeat terrible things like the holocaust, and colonization and slavery than look towards a future that we know nothing about. And let’s face it, we are yet to know a world without sexism, without racism, without inequality, and some people don’t even want to know what that world is like. They would rather know a world with this continuous cycle of pain, than face the unknown without it.
When people say that history repeats itself, they don’t mean that another baby will be born with the name Adolf Hitler and will be responsible for the annihilation of almost an entire race. Rather they are acknowledging the fact that history is one big poem and each stanza rhymes with the last. So even though Hitler is no longer around to spread terror, we can draw up eerily similar parallels. Right now, as we sit here there are Muslims in China who are experiencing what is known as the modern concentration camp. The Chinese government are calling them ‘re-education centers’; however, the reality is much more horrific. And, there isn’t one, or two, not even three, there is an estimated total of 400 internment camps littering regions of China.
Now this is the scary part, these camps have been around for years! In 2017 alone there was 300 camps, that is a one hundred camp increase that humans allowed to happen! I will admit that these were established under the radar, and the only initial proof we had were survivor accounts. However, it is a reality either way, and close to nothing is being done about it. Does all this sound familiar? Didn’t Adolf Hitler hide his camps from the knowledge of his own citizens? Oh yes! He did!
And the camps are just the start. Human trafficking is something that everyone knows about. It has become something, not accepted, but forgotten about in our society. Let’s pull up some parallels to 1620 slavery. It is Monday you and your family are sitting peacefully in your home, when suddenly it is raided. Or you are walking home alone and you are jumped. Confused and scared you start trying to get away from your captures but they are stronger and have guns. You get shipped to a place that you have never seen before and you are sold like an animal to the highest bidder. This person will make you work till you drop. Notice how I did not tell you whether I was talking about a present day situation or a story from 1620, that is because the method and result has not changed since the days of picking cotton. We have a modern form of slavery that happens all over the world! There are organizations that actively fight human trafficking but unfortunately people don’t care enough to fund them.
This is the ugly truth. Our entire society is run on fear, 75 years ago, Herman Goring was asked during the Nuremberg trials, how could the German citizens agree to this? He replied: “It’s very simple and has nothing to do with Nazism, it has to do with human nature. This can be done in a Nazi, socialist, communist, monarchy or democratic system:
The only thing the government has to do to turn people into slaves is fear. If you find something that scares them, you can make them do anything.”
And with that in mind let’s stop thinking that a future without hate is impossible, because you might find that to be the mindset holding us in this cycle, the mindset that thrives off of fear and mistrust. Rather take what History teaches us in your stride and use that to map your path to peace.
