"The worst head of state is the Political Scientist. Remember Woodrow Wilson and the wars waged under his term. If I am a candidate one of these days, do not vote for me! "
I am quoting our beloved Ghassan Salame once again , and I actually think that WW was one of the best presidents America has ever had. He was simply unlucky and had the WWI to orchestrate his presidency; he was actually as competent and as unlucky as Obama, who is sinking with the economic crisis.
But I want to plagiarize Salame by replacing Political Scientist with Historian. A Historian cannot be a good politician.
I often hear people telling me that knowing History is a must to understand politics and international relations, because that means having the knowledge of what happened before, and thus of what will happen next. Orwell, once again…
But now that I think about it, I believe that my biggest mistake was to do History and not to break up with my love to Politics.
Revolutions are the driving force in Politics, or at least the forerunner for any political process. To take up arms, a revolucionario needs courage, intelligence, and a bunch of chair-à-canon people. But had the Che read exhaustively the fate and the last days of Jugurtha or Ali Ben Ghdahem, would he have done what he did? I don’t think so. Unless I agree on the fact that he was totally insane.
Reading History makes you calculate every action you take and compare it with the examples you have read about. Learning History is a handicap because it impeaches you from undertaking audacious initiatives. History –at least when it makes you believe that it’s a circular curve- is useless than musicology to do Politics.
Historians like to give prophecies on the outcomes of events through their analysis of the past, but their most significant contributions take birth after the event occurs, and rarely before. I see the Historian like an impotent James Bond, perpetually flirting with Politics but unable to catch her. And I don’t notice any Viagra coming as yet.
0 comments:
Post a Comment