Istorija je u paradoksu dvostruke igre. Sa jedne strane, identifikujemo svesno uništavanje velikih moralnih pitanja istorije što rezultira intelektualnom ništavnošću samog istoričara koji više nije sposoban da misli ne samo društvo, nego ni svoju nauku. Sa druge strane, nova čitanja istorije koju predvodi borbena grupa istoričara zelotskog tipa, svela je istoriju na nihilističku kategoriju u kojoj sve što se dogodilo se nije dogodilo, sve što smo znali, neznamo više. Rezultat toga su već generacije dece koje u školskom uzrastu bivaju trovani predmetom koji se zove istorija. Školski udžbenici i razne knjige o istoriji učinili su sve da se ozakone iracionalne akcije, mržnja, osveta, nasilje, sila i osećanje superiornosti u odnosu na prošlost. Agnes Heler u svojoj knjizi Teorija istorije, iz tih razloga tvrdi da možemo potvrditi prosvetiteljsku tezu XIX veka da religija truje ljudski razum ali, ovoga puta u XX veku, tako što ćemo optužiti istoriju za isti zločin.

U odmotavanju tog klupka unazad, moramo doći do trenutka kada su napisane istorijske knjige postale tabula rasa ili kada su na drastičnim primerima istorijska iskustva prošlog veka ušla u manipulativni proces revizije. Odmah je u toj rekonstrukciji vidljiv jedan fenomen a to je, da su sve reinterpretacije nacionalno-politički upotrebljiva kategorija i da, po pravilu, prate političke procese na evropskom kontinentu sa SAD-om u pozadini. Drugim rečima, bez eufemizama, one su ideološke.

Sve je počelo, vrlo otvoreno, oko revizije razloga za Drugi svetski rat. Ili tačnije, pokušaja relativizacije nemačkog nacizma kao posebnog fenomena u odnosu na totalitarizme XX veka. Pad berlinskog zida, uz svu popratnu euforiju, nije započeo konačnu obnovu Evrope od stoleća zlih, on je upotrebljen da se revidiraju ne samo granice država, nego i sama istorija. Ernest Nolte, nemački istoričar, izneo je tvrdnju da su fašizam i nacizam „istorijska reakcija“ na Rusku revoluciju 1917. godine, odnosno ruski komunizam-boljševizam iz čega proizlazi da je Gulag prethodio Aušvicu.

Na tu tezu reagovao je francuski istoričar Fransoa Fire sa komentarom da se radi o tipičnom primeru istorijskog revizionizma koji umanjuje odgovornost nemačkog fašizma. Pogotovo kada je u pitanju Nolteova teza da u fašizmu ima „racionalnog jezgra“ što je, kako je primetio Fire, teško primenjivo na „konačno rešenje jevrejskog pitanja“. Moze se reći da ima sličnosti u totalitarnom modelu koji projektuje „više ciljeve“, ali tu prosta analogija prestaje. Istorijski fenomeni ne mogu da se izjednačavaju na način gubitka svake individualizacije istorije koja je tekovina pojedinih naroda i država. Pored globalne unifikacije ide se i u redukciju, svođenje na potrošnju i materijalno blagostanje kao konačni smisao ljudskog postojanja. Dvadeseti vek, iz tih razloga, može se zaokružiti Fireovom tezom da je istorija postala moćna-svemoćna, ona suvereno vlada i mi smo „konačno izgubili iluziju da vladamo njome“.

Za razliku od Noltea, jedan drugi nemački istoričar ustalasao je, 60-tih godina XX veka, polje polemika medju istoricarima i nemačkom javnošću ali na potpuno različitim premisama. Bio je to Fric Fišer koji je tražio kontinuitet u stremljenima nemačke politike od XIX do XX veka. Njegova knjiga Savez elita, o kontinuitetu struktura moći u Nemačkoj od 1871-1945, prati savez vladara, političara, vojne vrhove, industrijalce, bankare, veleposednike, univerzitetske profesore, intelektualce kao učesnike i saučesnike u kreiranju ratoborne politike, dalekosežnih ratnih ciljeva i antidemokratskih težnji. Fišer je tvrdio da je postavljanje ciljeva u pravcu Istočne Evrope, da bi se stvorila istočna imperija Rajha, došlo još u doba Nemačkog carstva. Ono je odvelo Nemačku u Prvi svetski rat, latentno ostalo prisutno u interregnumu Vajmarske Republike i doživelo uspon u Trećem Rajhu i kreiralo Drugi svetski rat. Detabuizirajući nemačku istoriju, Fišer jasno pokazuje sva prikrivanja i manipulacije koje su imale za cilj da takav kontinuitet, koji je rezultat istorijskog saveza nemačkih elita, učine nesaznatnim.

History lies in a two-sided paradox. On the one hand, we identify the conscious destruction of history’s great moral issues, resulting in the intellectual irrelevance of the historian himself, who becomes unable to think not only about society, but also of his own scholarship. On the other hand, new readings of history, led by aggressive overzealous historians, have reduced history to a nihilistic category, in which nothing of what happened actually happened, and everything we used to know we no longer do. The result is that generations of schoolchildren are being poisoned by a subject called history. Textbooks and different history books have done whatever they could to legitimize irrational acts, hatred, revenge, violence, power and a sense of superiority in relation to the past. Agnes Heller in her book A Theory of History argues that we can accept the 19th century enlightenment proposition that religion poisons the human mind but, now in the 20th century, we accuse history of the same crime.

When we unravel this coil, we must come to a point at which the written history books became a tabula rasa, or when the historical experiences of the previous century drastically entered the manipulative process of revision. One phenomenon is instantly revealed in this reconstruction, and that is that all reinterpretations are useful for national-political manipulation and that, as a rule, they follow the political processes on the European continent, with the United States in the background. In other words, not to euphemize, they are ideological.

It all began, quite openly, with a revision of the reasons for World War II. Or rather, with the attempted relativization of German Nazism as a phenomenon separate from the 20th century totalitarianisms. The fall of the Berlin Wall, with the accompanying euphoria, did not bring the final reconstruction of Europe from the century of evil; it was used to revise not only national borders, but history itself as well. Ernst Nolte, the German historian, argued that fascism and Nazism were a “historical response” to the Russian Revolution of 1917, or to Russian Bolshevism-communism, suggesting that the Gulag preceded Auschwitz.

The French historian Francois Furet remarked that this is a clear case of historical revisionism aimed at diminishing the responsibility of German fascism. Especially when it comes to Nolte’s proposition that fascism has a “rational core” which is, as Furet noted, hardly applicable to the “final solution of the Jewish question”. One could argue that there are similarities with the totalitarian model which projects “higher goals”, but this is where simple analogy ends. Historical phenomena cannot be equated by getting rid of all individualization of history, achieved by individual nations and states. In addition to global unification, there are also attempts at reduction, reducing everything to consumption and material well-being as the ultimate end of human existence. The twentieth century, for this reason, can be summarized by Furet’s proposition that history has become all-powerful, reigning supreme, and that we have “finally lost the illusion of controlling it.”

In contrast to Nolte, another German historian stirred the polemical field in the 1960s among historians and the German public, but on completely different grounds. It was Fritz Fischer, who searched for continuity in the trends of 19th and 20th century German politics. His book From Kaiserreich to Third Reich: Elements of Continuity in German History, 1871-1945 traces the alliance of rulers, politicians, military top brass, industrialists, bankers, landowners, academics and intellectuals, as participants and accomplices in the creation of hard-line policies, far-reaching war objectives and antidemocratic tendencies. Fisher argued that aiming towards Eastern Europe, in order to create the Reich in the East, emerged as early as the German Empire. It led Germany into World War I, was latent during the Weimar Republic interregnum and resurfaced in the Third Reich to create World War II. By de-tabooing German history, Fischer clearly shows all the concealment and manipulation that was needed for this continuity - the result of the historic alliance of the German elites - to be inscrutable.

U toj istorijskoj igri skrivanja pravih ciljeva, koja je oživljena i danas, Gavrilo Princip je izazvao Prvi svetski rat, odnosno Srbija kao nalogodavac. Istina je, s druge strane jednostavna, Nemačkoj je trebalo da saveznička Austro-Ugarska monarhija prva stupi u rat, napadne Srbiju pa da se otvori put prema Rusiji koju je smatrala da može da pobedi, jednako kao i Francusku. Kao što je nemačka propaganda onda tvrdila da je od opasnosti od Rusije naterala da ratuje, tako smo danas, u novoj političkoj propagandi hladnoratovskog tipa, mogli da čujemo pojedine zapadne istoričare kako vaskrsavaju tezu nemačke nevinosti za Prvi svetski rat.

Danas smo došli u situaciju da u civilizaciji koju, s pravom, možemo da nazovemo civilizacijom Uma počinjemo da tonemo u istorijskim somnabulijama. Gotovo da nema činjenice koje neznamo o oba svetska rata u Evropi, pa ipak se taj saznajni fenomen tajanstveno udaljio i ponuđeni odgovori gube svaku uverljivost. Zato su odgovorni istoričari revizonisti i cenzura istine. Tome treba pridodati još jednu pojavu koja, ukratko, glasi – šta bi bilo da je bilo ili bila je greška što se to uopšte dogodilo. Kod srpskih istoričara revizionista omiljena je tema 27.mart, odnosno velike demonstracije u Beogradu i ostalim jugoslovenskim gradovima povodom potpisivanja Trojnog pakta sa Hitlerom. Po njihovom mišljenju, to je bila velika greška koja je koštala Srbiju rata sa Nemačkom, velikih žrtava i razaranja . Dakle, jednostavno rečeno, antifašizam gradjana Beograda i tadašnje Jugoslavije bio je pogrešan! Tako smo došli, u poslednjoj aberaciji, do istoričara koji veruju u svoje pravo da učestvuju u prošlosti igrajući se u vremenskoj mašini sa ljudima drugog vremena na način superiornih arbitara.

Bilo bi najlakše da takvu istoriju i takve istoričare proglasimo paranaučnicima i njihove tvorevine paraistorijskim, ili u maniru Karla Popera bedom istoricizma. To ih, međutim, neće savladati jer imamo još jednog neprijatelja civilizaciji Uma. On nije varvarski, kako to kaže Edgar Morin, u starom značenju tog pojma. Neprijatelj nema neke posebnosti koja ga čini osobenim, one se nalaze u homogenizaciji koja poput buldožera razara mnogostruke kulture i političke posebnosti. Neprijatelj nije etnički, nego hegemonistički. On pokazuje svoje lice u sprezi hegemonizma, homogenizacije i totalitarizma. Opisujući isto rastuće osećanje tjeskobe, za razliku od Morina,Fire je to definisao, da smo prvi put zatvoreni „u jedan jedinstveni horizont istorije“ u kojoj svet kreće kao uniformnosti u kojoj se gubi ljudska ličnost.

Zaista, kakav je to jedinstveni horizont istorije u kojoj se suočavamo sa istorijskim čudovištima i gledamo kako bivaju rehabilitovani i slavljeni. Što reći za Dražu Mihailovića koji je rehabilitovan ne zato što nije kriv, već zbog proceduralnih pitanja njegovog sudskog procesa pre 70 godina. Što reći za Blajburg u kojem su žrtve postali krvnici. Kolone ustaša, četnika, slovenačkih domobrana i njima pridruženih civila koji su svi završili svoj krvavi performans na tlu bivše Jugoslavije u svom životu i u svojoj smrti.

A što reći o mestima gde su samo žrtve? Jasenovac, Staro sajmište, Banjica i mnogi drugi. Tu dolaze nevoljno. Političari, crkveni velikodostojnici…Eto, reda radi. Jedan islamski velikodostojnik je u Blajburgu rekao da je iz tog istorijskog dogadjaja nastala Srebrenica. Nije obratno.

Na kraju, istoričar mora da se zapita, kakav je to mehanizam koji povezuje zločin, reviziju i prikrivanje?Razumljivo je da neće svaki istoričar na sebe preuzeti patnje čovečanstva ali mora da se ustukne pred bezdanom mrtvih, egzekutiranih na način koji izmiče našem shvatanju vrednosti i smisla našeg postojanja. Kako su sve te žrtve u praksi ove monstruozne revizije prošlosti postale krive? Alber Kami je u svom Pobunjenom čoveku, napisao da propaganda i tortura sa zločincem spaja ljude u prisilno saučesništvo.“ Onaj koji ih ubija ili stavlja na torturu vidi samo jednu senu u svojoj pobedi: ne može se osećati nevin. Potrebno je stoga da stvori krivicu u same žrtve. Kad ideje nevinosti nestane čak u nevinog, vrednost moći konačno vlada nad jednim očajnim svetom.“ Ali to se, po Kamiju, dešava samo u svetu bez usmerenja. A to je napisao pre pola veka, posle Drugog svetskog rata. Kako je to danas ponovo moguće? Kako je moguća Srebrenica? Kako je moguće udruženo ništenje zločina iz XX veka? Kako je moguće prisilno saučesništvo?

Svaki istoričar može dati istinit izveštaj o onome što se dogodilo u prošlosti. Mi istoričari, treba da vršimo svoju dužnost i naša se volja treba da univerzalizuje kao dobra volja Čoveka. Svako, uostalom, može da živi prema etičkim i moralnim uzusima onog što treba da bude i šta treba da čini.“ Mi smo, kako to kaže Agnes Heler, ograničeni na jedno zajedništvo sa smrtnima sa kojima delimo život. Bunar naše prošlosti zaista je dubok, naša odgovornost zaista je ogromna. Postoji jedna želja koju ne mogu poništiti druge želje, to je da učestvujemo u odgovornosti našeg zajedništva. Možemo živeti poštenim životom. Zašto da ne pokušamo.“

To je poslednja rečenica Teorije istorije ali, to mora biti i poslednja rečenica ne samo za istoričara, nego i za svakog čoveka jer suštinski utemeljuje smisao našeg istorijskog postojanja.

In this historical game of hiding the real aims, which has now been revived again, Gavrilo Princip caused the First World War, with Serbia as the instigator. The truth, on the other hand, is quite simple - Germany needed the allied Austro-Hungarian Monarchy to enter the war first, attack Serbia and open the corridor to Russia, believing it could defeat Russia the same way it did France. Just as German propaganda in those days claimed that the threat of Russia forced Germany into war, today again, in the new Cold War-style political propaganda, some Western historians are trying to resurrect the argument of German inculpability for the First World War.

Today we have reached a point of sinking into a civilization, which we can rightfully call a civilization of the Mind, with historical somnambulation. There are virtually no unknown facts about the two world wars in Europe, and yet this cognitive phenomenon has mysteriously drifted away and the answers that are offered are losing all credibility. This is the responsibility of revisionist historians and censorship of the truth. Another phenomenon should be added, and that is - what if the events unfolded differently and it was a mistake that something happened? The favorite subject of Serbian revisionist historians is March 27, the mass demonstrations in Belgrade and other Yugoslav cities provoked by the signing of the Tripartite Pact with Hitler. In their view, this was a great mistake which cost Serbia the war with Germany, countless casualties and destruction. Therefore, simply put, the anti-fascism of the people of Belgrade and Yugoslavia was a mistake! So we come, in this final aberration, to historians who believe it is their right to participate in the past by playing with a time machine, with people of another era, in the manner of higher arbitrators.

The easiest thing would be to denounce such history and such historians and their creations as faux-historian, or in Karl Popper’s parlance, as the misery of historicism. This, however, will not detract from them because there is one other enemy of the civilization of the Mind. Edgar Morin said that he (the enemy) is not barbaric, in the old sense of the term. This enemy does not have definite features which make him distinctive; they are instead hidden in a homogenization which, like a bulldozer, razes manifold cultural and political characteristics. This enemy is not ethnic, but hegemonic. He shows his face in a conjuncture of hegemony, homogenization and totalitarianism. Describing the same growing sense of anxiety, and setting himself apart from Morin, Furet wrote that for the first time we are “enclosed in a single horizon of history”, pulled towards standardization, in which the human personality is lost.

Indeed, what is this single horizon of history, in which we are facing historical monsters and watching them be exonerated and celebrated? What can we say about Draza Mihailovic who was exonerated not because he was not guilty, but because of procedural errors at his trial 70 years ago? What can be said of Bleiburg, where the victims became executioners? Columns of Ustasha, Chetnik and Slovene Domobran units and the civilians who joined them all ended their blood-stained performance on former Yugoslav soil in their life and their death.

And what can be said about the places where there were only victims? Jasenovac, Staro Sajmiste, Banjica and many more. Those places are visited reluctantly. Politicians, church leaders… just as a matter of formality. One Islamic dignitary said in Bleiberg that this historic event gave birth to Srebrenica. Not the other way around.

In the end, the historian must ask, what is the mechanism that unites crime, revision and suppression? It is understandable that not every historian will shoulder the suffering of all humanity, but he must recoil at the abyss of the dead, those executed in a manner that escapes our understanding of the values and meaning of our existence. How is it that all the victims of this monstrous revision of the past became guilty? Albert Camus wrote in his Rebel that propaganda and torture unite people in forced complicity. “The triumph of the man who kills or tortures is marred by only one shadow: he is unable to feel that he is innocent. Thus, he must create guilt in his victim so that … when the concept of innocence disappears from the mind of the innocent victim himself, the value of power establishes a definitive rule over a world in despair.” But all this, as Camus claims, occurs only in a world without direction. And he wrote that half a century ago, after World War II. How could it happen again today? How is Srebrenica possible? How is the concerted abolition of 20th century crimes possible? How is forced complicity possible?

Every historian must give a true account of what happened in the past. We historians must do our duty, and our will should be universalized as the good will of Man. Everyone, after all, can live according to the ethical and moral standards of what he should be and how he should act. “We are,” in the words of Agnes Heller, “confined to a conjunction with other living beings with whom we share our lives. Indeed, the well of our past is very deep, and so is our responsibility. There is a desire that cannot be revoked by other desires, to participate in the responsibility of our community. We can live a dignified life. Why not try.”

This is the final sentence in The Theory of History, but it must also be a final sentence not only for the historian, but for every human being as well, because it profoundly establishes the meaning of our historical existence.