Dangerous Games: The Uses and Abuses of History Read Online Free PDF

racist,to discourage “Orientals” from settling in the country. But does present-day Canada have to pay recompense to the descendants of those who chose to pay the head tax? Would it make more sense to use funds for the community as a whole rather than for individuals? How much is enough? Sadly there have been some unedifying squabbles among different groups claiming to speak for Chinese Canadians about how any government money ought to be distributed.
    How far ought we to go in second-guessing, even trying to reverse, the decisions of the past? The British government recently decided that the army should not have executed soldiers for cowardice in World War I. So it has posthumously pardoned them. Is it right, asked Matthew Parris, a respected British journalist, to retrospectively question the judgments made then? “I doubt we are able today to second-guess judgments made three generations ago in different circumstances and according to a harsher moral code,” Parris said. Can armies be run without stern discipline, he asks, including harsh reprisals against those who refuse to obey orders or who try to desert in the face of the enemy? It is not natural for human beings to risk death on the battlefield. The threat of execution may help to keep armies from disintegrating into a disorganized rabble. We can say that there should not be wars in the world and that there should not be armies, but until such a peace comes, we need armed forces to defend ourselves and carry out our policies.
    Canadian governments have recently indulged in such attempts to refashion the past, over the interning, for example, of particular ethnic groups in wartime. In both world wars, Canada interned those it regarded as enemy nationals. In World War I, it was at war with Austria-Hungary, and many of the Ukrainians living in Canada came from within its borders. Perhaps they had left because they did not like Hapsburg rule; perhaps some ofthem still felt loyal to the old emperor. In August 1914, indeed, a Ukrainian bishop in Winnipeg urged the men of his flock to head into the United States so that they could make their way home to fight for Franz Josef. Should the Canadian government at the time have taken a chance on their loyalty to their new home? It chose not to and so interned them. The British and Australian governments took a similar view when they interned their German subjects, even though many of them had been resident for decades.
    In World War II, Allied governments interned many of those of Japanese, German, and Italian origin. We now know that the Axis powers lost, but at the time the decision was made, it was not at all clear that would happen. And it was not reassuring that all three Axis powers confidently expected help from their emigrant communities in Allied countries. Would it have been responsible of any Allied government to have overlooked the possibility that there might be sympathizers with Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, or militaristic Japan among them (as indeed there were)? What is less forgivable is that so little attempt was made to distinguish between the loyal and the potentially disloyal. In the United Kingdom a majority of the “enemy aliens” from Germany and Austria were Jewish refugees. Yet they, too, were rounded up and sent to internment camps such as those on the Isle of Man. Over seven thousand were shipped off to Canada and Australia; several hundred died on the Arandora Star when it was torpedoed. And what was not responsible and indeed illegal was to seize their property as well. In both the United States and Canada, the property of Japanese internees was stolen, destroyed, or sold off at bargain prices to eager speculators. Both governments have since paid compensation.

    Words are cheap—although they can lead to expensive demands— and politicians like to appear caring and sensitive. Moreover, apologies about the past can be used as an excuse for not doing very much in the present. Australia has