Historians have final say in judging U.K. politics

Ken Endo / Special to The Yomiuri Shimbun

In early September, the Labour Party-led British government published official documents compiled by the then government regarding the reunification of Germany in 1990.

The documents revealed that at the time, French President Francois Mitterrand privately warned British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher that after its reunification, Germany might make even more advances than Hitler had.

The media widely reported remarks and actions by Mitterrand and Thatcher that revealed their misgivings over Germany's intentions before and after its reunification, but there was nothing new in the reported information as it was already known even at the time.

Normally, official documents of a national government are released based on a "30-year rule"--under which restrictions on public viewing of government papers are lifted 30 years after their compilation. Therefore, the unusually early publication of the British documents leads one to believe the government had a particular purpose in releasing them ahead of schedule.

One aim, I suppose, may be linked to the interests of the British Foreign Office.

The policies aimed at reining in Germany that were implemented by Thatcher, then leader of the Conservative Party, came to nothing.

The British government probably wants to emphasize--through the recently published documents--that some British diplomats dissented from Thatcher's policies.

Another reason may have something to do with the interests of the Labour Party.

It is highly likely that the Conservative Party will win the next general election, with the new government expected to take a Euroskeptic stance.

I surmise that the Foreign Office wants to remind the people of a historical fact: The country lost its pivotal position within Europe 20 years ago in the move toward European integration under the Franco-German axis that resurged with German reunification.

Thus, historical events become the objects of political battle. Viewed from a different angle, evaluating historical events based on official documents is always important in that it forces politicians to mind their p's and q's when it comes to executing their duties.

In general, politicians and bureaucrats typically face three forms of nonelectoral evaluations over their public duties: critical journalism, "inquests" into the effects of particular policies, and historians' verdicts. What I envied most during my three-year stay in Britain was the fact that the triple-verification system was functioning well there.

Critical journalism means media reporting on contemporary political situations and related issues.

The British media's critical faculties are powerful when compared with those of U.S. media, whose style of coverage often means that events are reported in a uniform way.

As an example of policy verification conducted within a few years of a particular event, Oxford University held seminars in the early 1990s in connection with the civil wars involved in the breakup of Yugoslavia to verify the facts of the conflict. Featuring concerned parties and specialists--including the then British foreign secretary, a North Atlantic Treaty Organization commander, European Union and U.N. bureaucrats and members of nongovernmental organizations--the seminars became a stage for lively discussions.

What made it possible for the attendees to have such spirited debates was the rule that the invited participants would tell the truth, and that researchers would not quote remarks the participants made there in their academic studies.

Inquests made by historians could be called the final judgment.

The United States and European countries, including Britain, have an established system under which a record of the policymaking process is kept in the form of official documents that are published about 30 years after being archived.

In Japan, former Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda advocated creating a similar system, and the official documents management law eventually was enacted in June this year.

In postwar Japan, intellectuals versed in the history of ideas have taken center stage for a long time in the sphere of giving meaning to historical incidents.

In Europe, meanwhile, historians mainly play such a role. Whenever official documents of a national government are published, historians give their interpretations of the recorded events, with their views representing the final evaluations of the politicians and bureaucrats involved in those events.

This often makes debates over historical incidents fierce, causing politicians to pause to consider how history will judge their actions.

In Japan, a new form of politics has started under the Democratic Party of Japan-led government, making me wonder what politicians and bureaucrats are thinking and how they are acting at this moment in history.

They need to have the maturity and resolve to endure the multiple layers of evaluation to which they will be subjected as the nation's history unfolds.

Endo, an expert in international politics, is a professor at Hokkaido University and a senior fellow of the European University Institute. He lives in Italy.