History as written by whom?

I was young when I first heard that fact and it straightaway struck me as weird. Why should we pay attention to the dead, when the present and future were what was most important? It took years before I realised why we still write obituaries and why they still have a large readership.

How you want to be remembered after leaving the world? Some of us don’t care, while others ponder what their descendants will do to commemorate the anniversary of their passing. Some want to make it into the history books and be remembered by all. Others just get on with their daily tasks but make achievements that benefit millions long after they are gone.

Imagine a world without Thomas Edison’s discovery. It’s almost impossible: Powering factories, homes and much else, electricity is now indispensable in our daily life – even more so since we all became hooked on digital gadgets.

What would Asia look like today if Japan had continued to rule the region after World War II? That question links us back to Albert Einstein’s equation, E=MC2, which was the base formula for atomic energy.

The New York Times marked the brilliant man’s death in 1955 with an obituary headlined “Dr Albert Einstein dies in sleep at 76: World mourns loss of great scientist”. The quotes that followed showed he was more than just a great scientist: “I do not want to remain in a state where individuals are not conceded equal rights before the law for freedom of speech and doctrine,” Einstein said when he was forced to flee Nazi Germany.

Obituaries indeed serve as mini chapters of history on famous people. The public impression of their lives dictates the epitaphs that appear in print.

If American comedian Joan Rivers could read it, I’m not sure how she would feel about her obituary in the Economist. It was, I have to confess, the most unorthodox obit I have ever come across. The focus was almost exclusively on her dark side – from her obsession with beauty to her offensive behaviour.

“Thank God that old body had gone. Never pretty enough. It contained so much plastic she’d been going to donate it to Tupperware.”

It shocked me, even if it was written in the acerbic voice of Rivers herself and meant as a loving tribute. Journalists tend to hold back on the nasty details when writing epitaphs for celebrities. But this article didn’t spare any. 

And then it dawned on me. You can’t change what people think about you, even when you leave the world and deserve everyone’s forgiveness. Death doesn’t change what you did in the past, and obituaries reflect that.

Yet, obituaries can’t predict how future generations can change the way we look at the famous dead.

More than a century after Karl Marx died, he and his collaborator Friedrich Engels are remembered as merely the fathers of a failed political regime. Communism fell foul of Soviet Russia’s power-hungry rulers, and many continue to doubt whether the egalitarian philosophy can be successfully applied in our world of self-serving politicians.

Far from being the villain behind Stalin’s dictatorship, Marx died in 1883 beloved and revered by millions of workers, from the mines of Siberia to the fields of California.

This is where the history books come into play, with full accounts that encompass both important individuals’ lives and the effect they have had on the world in the decades or centuries after their death. Newspapers have been called the first draft of history. Like good historians, journalists are told to stick to the facts and let nothing unverifiable creep into obituaries.  

One difference with obituaries is that some facts can be omitted out of respect to the deceased. History books, in contrast, must be comprehensive in their coverage of the facts so that readers gain a full picture of past events and figures.

Thai historians today follow this guideline, but whether their successors continue to do so is in serious doubt. Our historians of the future are now in school, and they are reading textbooks that have been twisted. When they reach the list of Thailand’s prime ministers, they will find a blank where the name of the incumbent who served from 2001 to 2006 should be.

For whatever reason, our educators have taken a step which is entirely unnecessary. In this digital age, textbooks are just one element of teaching materials. Any student who clicks to www.britanica.com www.britanica.com will learn all about Thaksin Shinawatra: born July 26, 1949, Chiang Mai, Thailand, Thai politician who served as prime minister of Thailand (2001–06). The student will then query why those in authority have “deleted” this information from schoolroom history. Worse, we are teaching children how to avoid truth, when “only the truth will set you free”.

Einstein once said there is no particular reason to expect the universe to be the way it is. “The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.”

But it is comprehensible only when we have the full facts at our fingertips.

 Thai educators who seek to remove those facts may want to be remembered for their new way of teaching history. But history will judge them and find them lacking.