Politics of the past: the use and abuse of history - Socialists ...

Witness, Not Victim
Who would have thought that after so many years in politics, I would
become involved in a debate about the role of history in my work. I
was educated as a historian but I never professed the trade. Nevertheless,
it did of course have a significant impact on my intellectual
and political development. I belonged to the optimistic 1968
generation; we did not select our faculty for career reasons but out
of interest and sympathy for a subject. We studied what we liked.
I took an interest in political theory, did courses on philosophy, wrote
about regional history and did research on the diplomatic relations
between Emperor Charles V and the Ottomans. I believe that my
historical training helped me become a politician with a certain intuition
and a feeling for nuance, but it also turned me into an adherent
of the European rational tradition, given my specific interest
in the role of 16 th century Humanism and 18 th century Enlightenment.
My first historical recollection dates from when I was five years old.
For some weeks in 1956 my parents were glued to the radio,
anxious to hear the latest news about the uprising in Hungary. I was
only aware of the tension, not knowing what it was all about, but
I can still remember the sense of uneasiness.
But what was my historical outlook before I actually went to university?
What made a lasting imprint? I am from a country, the
Netherlands, with a long – more or less – continuous history. Small
but well respected. The historical reality, as taught in schools during
my youth, was dominated by the independence struggle of the
16 th and 17 th centuries and the Golden Age following it. It is still an
important part of Dutch collective memory. The town where I was
born, Groningen, celebrates every year the battles of 1672 when
the Seven Provinces were attacked from all directions. Now I live in
Leiden, where there the magic year is 1572. It was then that the
founding father of the independent Low Countries, William of
Orange, broke the Spanish siege of the city. I doubt whether many
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Jan Marinus Wiersma
Jan Marinus Wiersma (MEP), studied History at the University
of Groningen.