The Past is Not Past

Bianca Nobilo and Tim Marshall are the hosts of History Uncensored.

Here’s a piece of advice from us: when something really important happens in the world, switch off the news and pick up a history book.

We are both professional journalists, so we aren’t trying to be provocative when we say this. Yes, it is important to stay on top of the news cycle, but you also have to understand that today’s headlines don’t come out of nowhere. They are part of complex historical processes and are often the consequences of decisions taken decades – if not centuries – ago. As Winston Churchill liked to say: “Study history, study history. In history lies all the secrets of statecraft.” Unless you do that, you will know things but you will not understand them. 

Take the topic of this week’s episode of History Uncensored: the protests and riots in France. 

It’s obviously not the first time that La Republique is in flames. We should not assume that just because Paris – and other big cities – have seen scenes of violence that France is in a revolutionary moment. The media often mistakes what happens in a capital for the country.

Go back, for instance, to the now mythical protests of May 1968. Today, we remember them as being student protests – which they were – but there was also a mass strike across the country. The French president was the conservative Charles de Gaulle, and his government gave serious concessions to resolve the crisis. 

And yet, the following year, the presidential election was won by Georges Pompidou. Despite the museum named after him in Paris, he was not a centrist. He was a protégé of de Gaulle. 

That historical episode is important to remember as we consider the political consequences of what’s happening in France at the moment. The hard left under Jean-Luc Mélenchon is exulting, obviously. They are claiming that the people are behind them and are ready to storm the barricades. In their telling, they will triumph at the presidential elections next May. But actually the possibility that Marine Le Pen, the far-right candidate, wins has now increased. 

There is something else that we should all do when thinking about the connections between past and present. Put simply, we have to join everything up. Like detectives on an American crime show, we have to connect all the dots.