Week 3 Story: Your Story or Mine

Throughout human history, war has plagued mankind and resulted in the loss of countless lives. One such war, fought not terribly long ago, ended only after great bloodshed and sorrow. One side emerged victorious after six years of fighting, ruling over its vanquished enemy and absorbing its lands and people. As tends to happen after wars, books upon books were published praising the efforts of the winning nation's soldiers while lambasting the defeated. As the saying goes, history is written by the victorious.

One day, several years after the war had ended, two scholars met to discuss a recent publication about the war. One of the scholars was from the conquering nation, a young man who had escaped fighting in the war and had continued his studies as it raged on. The other was an elderly scholar from the conquered nation who had seen his own country win and lose several wars in his long lifetime, this last being the final event that brought his nation to its knees. He and his countrymen had not published any works relating to this war as the ruling nation had forbidden any discussion of the conflict by scholars from the conquered nation, hoping to avoid the reigniting of anger and the revealing of the violence and pain that the conquered people had suffered. 

Almost before the old scholar had sat down, the young man was exclaiming about the wonders of this new work, how it truly shed light on the events of the war in a way no other work had yet accomplished. As the young scholar praised the book which had been written by his fellow countryman, and reveled in its findings that the war had been justified, had been in retaliation for the conquered nation's aggressions, the old man listened with a patient expression. He had already been threatened numerous times with termination and possibly prison if he dared speak out about any literature or media published about the war. His opinions were unwanted and, in the new government's eyes, dangerous. So the elderly scholar sat and listened for half an hour as the young man continued.

Finally, the young scholar finished his monologue on the publication and sat down, quite satisfied that he had shown the value of the book and its importance in the field of history in a way even the old man could not deny. Turning to the other, he asked him what he thought of the work, knowing full well that the scholar could not legally criticize any work on the topic. The young scholar eagerly waited for the praise he was sure would come, praise he had gotten used to as no scholar from the conquered nation dared to oppose his or his fellow countrymen's account of the conflict. 

Finally the old man spoke: "The book tells the story I thought it would, the story of your people and their experiences. However, if any of my countrymen had written such a piece, it would tell a vastly different tale, one filled with the horrors inflicted on them by your government. It is easy to tell your truth when the other side is threatened into silence." With that, the old man left the room and the shocked young scholar and went back to his apartment, where he was found dead by the authorities the next morning, having fought back in his own small way.

Photo by Ben Welsh. Source: Flickr

Author's Note:

This story is a retelling of the Lion and the Statue from Joseph Jacobs' The Fables of Aesop. In this fable, a man discusses with a lion which of them is stronger. The man then takes the lion to a statue that shows a man slaying a lion and claims that this proves his point. The lion then remarks that the statue was made by a man and would therefore tell a very different story if it had been made by a lion. I retold this story setting it in modern times (the last century or so) shortly after a war, with two scholars, one form the conquering country, the other from the conquered, representing the man and the lion, respectively.

Bibliography: The Lion's Share in The Fables of Aesop by Joseph Jacobs (1894).