{"id":56388,"date":"2025-08-14T01:03:57","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T05:03:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/?p=56388"},"modified":"2025-08-19T06:05:52","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T10:05:52","slug":"facts-never-speak-for-themselves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/?p=56388","title":{"rendered":"Facts never speak for themselves"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
\nAugust 09, 2025<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Dr.<\/a>I was reminded of EH Carr\u2019s What Is History? when I read Kevin Baldeosingh\u2019s letter, \u201cTeach fact-based African history<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

He excoriated the Emancipation Support Committee (ESC) for not spending \u201ca single cent from the millions given to them by [the] government to commission such a [history] book\u201d which he wanted them to write from a Euro-centric point of view (Express, August 4).
\n
\nIn his mind, Afro-centricism is the most offensive concept that ever entered the English language.<\/p>\n

Sitting on his intellectual high throne, he tells African people why a book commissioned by the ESC is likely to throw more light on African history than any such existing histories. Fact-based as he is, I am sure he has the empirical evidence to prove his contention.<\/p>\n

He then gives us \u201ca small sample of true African history\u201d to guide our proceedings.<\/p>\n

Baldeosingh may not be aware of what some thinkers call a theory of history or a theory of reading. To begin with, there is no such animal called a \u201ctrue history\u201d of any region or of our past since all history depends on our interpretation of the known facts and new knowledge that constantly comes to light.<\/p>\n

Baldeosingh\u2019s most egregious blunder lies in his presumption that history is a static phenomenon that can be deployed to attack any mystery man he has in his mind. In chapter 1, \u201cThe Historian and His Facts\u201d, Carr asks the fundamental question: \u201cWhat is a historical fact?\u201d<\/p>\n

He answers: \u201cThis is a crucial question into which we must look a little more closely. According to the commonsense view, there are certain basic facts which are the same for all historians and which form, so to speak, the backbone of history\u2014the fact, for example, that the Battle of Hastings was fought in 1066.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut this view calls for two observations. In the first place, it is not with facts like these that the historian is primarily concerned.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is no doubt important to know that the great battle was fought in 1066 and not in 1065 or 1067, and that it was fought at Hastings and not at Eastbourne or Brighton. The historian must not get these things wrong.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut when points of this kind are raised, I am reminded of Housman\u2019s remark that \u2018accuracy is a duty, not a virtue\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo praise a historian for his accuracy is like praising an architect for using well-seasoned timber or properly mixed concrete in his building. It is a necessary condition of his work, but not his essential function…<\/p>\n

\u201cThese so-called basic facts, which are the same for all historians, commonly belong to the category of the raw materials of the historian rather than of history itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other words, while facts are the necessary building blocks of a historian\u2019s work, they are not \u201cthe essential\u201d aspect of what s\/he does.<\/p>\n

Carr also emphasises that \u201cthe necessity to establish these basic facts rests not on any quality in the facts themselves, but on an a priori decision of the historian\u201d.<\/p>\n

Baldeosingh ends his letter with a furious denunciation: \u201cAs a history writer I hope that any African syllabus will be fact-based rather than Afro-centric propaganda.\u201d He forgets that all historians enter the historical arena with a well-defined approach to history and which determines what he writes.<\/p>\n

There is a simple reason for this. All social beings are constructed within their social order or, as Michel Foucault suggests, \u201cwe are shaped and defined by the social and historical contexts we inhabit\u201d.<\/p>\n

Even language is a function of one\u2019s social order. For example, an individual is not born with language. He is born with a capacity for language which is why an individual that is born in Japan speaks Japanese, and someone who is born in China speaks one of the dialects of that language.<\/p>\n

An Englishman or Frenchwoman writes from a social, epistemological and even ontological perspective that is shaped from where s\/he was born.<\/p>\n

Correspondingly, an Igbo man writes from an Igbo perspective because he is born into a specific social order. It follows, therefore, that to write from an Igbo perspective is no more propagandistic than an Englishman writing or interpreting historical events from his innate English perspective.<\/p>\n

Carr got it right. He said: \u201cFacts [do not] speak for themselves…The facts speak only when the historian calls on them: it is he who decides which facts to give to the floor, and in what order or context.\u201d Baldeosingh, a God-given oracle, is free of all these restraints.<\/p>\n

Other people write about African and Afro-Trinbagonian history. However, there cannot be an a priori assumption that they write \u201cthe truth\u201d while we [African historians] wallow in propaganda.<\/p>\n

Our duty is clear: under no circumstances should we leave the telling of our stories to these illustrious, truth-telling strawmen who presume they are bereft of any social affiliations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe August 09, 2025 I was reminded of EH Carr\u2019s What Is History? when I read Kevin Baldeosingh\u2019s letter, \u201cTeach fact-based African history\u201d. He excoriated the Emancipation Support Committee (ESC) for not spending \u201ca single cent from the millions given to them by [the] government to commission such a [history] book\u201d … Continue reading Facts never speak for themselves<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[101,1],"tags":[1515,171],"class_list":["post-56388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africa","category-general-tt","tag-kevin-baldeosingh","tag-selwyn-r-cudjoe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56388"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56391,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56388\/revisions\/56391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}