By Walter Kish

One of the most negative and destructive forces that impacts our lives and future as human beings is our inability to deal with history. It hangs around our necks like the proverbial albatross. It breeds animosity, hatred, war and genocide. It poisons relations between races, cultures and nations. It creates financial, ecological, political and cultural debts that can never be repaid. It retards progress, complicates the present, and endangers the future. It has become a clich? to state that those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it; yet repeat it we do, at great cost to our planet, our well-being as a global civilization, and our future existence.

Examples abound of how our failure to understand history has caused the perpetuation of the worst kinds of excesses of which man is capable. The current spate of wanton terror and killing between the Israelis and the Palestinians has roots that go back to biblical times. Anti-semitism has permeated European history since the time of the Crusades and the Holocaust was simply the final result of centuries of political and religious intolerance. The horror and genocide that followed the break-up of Yugoslavia was the end product of centuries of ethnic and religious feuds, animosity and atrocities. The deaths of countless millions during the Second World War was due directly to the inability of the world’s powers to resolve and deal with the issues created by the First World War. The sorry economical and political state of most of Africa is the direct result of imperialistic European exploitation, and the subsequent callous abandonment of those exploited.

Lest we feel smug here on this side of the Atlantic, we have no shortage of shameful historical baggage of our own. The disempowerment and destruction of North America’s native population haunts us to this day, creating political, social and financial problems that won’t go away. The legacy of slavery in the U.S. is racial conflict that continues to percolate to this day, and for much of the latter part of the last century, has boiled over into violence and rioting on a large scale. Yet even after more than a century of acknowledging that these were not only historical but moral mistakes, we cannot seem to generate the interest and will-power to deal with them effectively. In Canada, a nation built on the backs of immigrants, it is almost galling to read the current government’s policy on immigration. It is almost totally devoid of historical perspective and understanding and a fine example of narrow, “head in the sand” thinking.

The vast majority of us are historical illiterates. We think of history as nothing more than interesting characters, battles and dates. Few of us take the trouble to try and understand the ideas and forces that shaped historical events and brought about the world that we live in today. We blindly assume that we are somehow smarter today than our ancestors, and that there is not much we can learn from their lives and times. We then blindly go on repeating the same mistakes, perpetuating the same old biases and prejudices and creating new rounds of conflict, war and destruction.

As Ukrainians, we have nothing to be proud of in this regard either. In times of greatest troubles and oppression, rather than uniting behind a common cause, we have indulged in fractious petty politics, religious divisiveness and stubborn inflexibility. Here in Canada, where we have been blessed with more freedom, education, opportunity and wealth than is available anywhere else in the world, the Ukrainian community is more known for its conflicts and disunity than for its co-operation and accomplishments.

Why is it that the leadership of the various Ukrainian organizations can’t get together, examine the past, and try to analyze and understand the causes that led to the conflicts and divisions? Why can’t they find a way to move beyond this unfortunate historical legacy and come together again as a united and strong community? Why are they so content to live the status quo, which inside of another generation will undoubtedly lead to the disappearance of most of them as viable organizations? We cannot hope to build the future if we can’t fix the past. We must fix history before we become nothing more than history.