Testimony as a source for the writing of history is frequently questioned. At the same time, many historians continue to seek personal stories in order to build their historical narratives. Because it is often assumed that history must reveal to us ‘exactly’ what happened or that there is a single correct narrative of the past, testimonial evidence appears to pose an imminent threat to the emergence of a consolidated historical narrative. What then makes testimony a useful source for the narration of history? In this essay, I will argue that testimonial evidence provides history with otherwise invisible perspectives, possibilities and counter narratives that make the latter representative of a greater number of voices from the past. In light …show more content…
By giving a voice to the historically invisible, testimonies serve to make us aware of latent identities and bring to surface their association with the events of the past. For instance, in his article, “Testimony as Oral History: Lessons from South Africa,” Alan Wieder talks about his project for which he collected testimonies from teachers of the apartheid period in South Africa (2004, 25). Here, the impact of the apartheid—an important event in South African history—on teachers is brought to surface by medium of personal statements. The significance of these, otherwise hidden, ‘teacher testimonies’ is reflected in Wieder’s words: “These narratives are descriptive, meaningful, passionate and important—stories that are counter to the public record” (2004, 26). In this particular line, Wieder highlights the role played by testimonial evidence in providing “counter narratives to the official historical record” (Weider 2004, 23) which stands as an important pillar of his argument in favor of testimony. I would further like to argue this point that testimonies supply stories that often tell a different tale than official records or publicly available evidences. This is an important merit of testimonies as many a time, official documents only record sugar-coated figures of casualty and death during tragic incidents and statements by survivors often yield information perhaps closer to reality. The disputed figure, as recorded in official records, of the number of people killed during the ‘Jallianwala Bagh’ massacre in 1919, serves as a case in
The reader is confronted with an interpretation of life in Jedwabne as a shared experience. With the town population of 2,500 and about two-thirds of the residents are Jewish and the rest Polish and Catholic, it was hard for anyone to participate in the economic, social, and political area without inflicting conflict on people with different ideas. Although, Gross claims that religious or ethnic difference did not partake in a role of the engagement between the Non-Jewish and Jew individuals of Poland. He avoids situating the Jedwabne experience among other anti-Jewish mass murders. The Jedwabne experience is represented by Gross's reliance on individual testimonies by direct interviews, interviews done by other interviewers, and memoirs. Court documents from the 1953 trial such the recounts from perpetrators and memoirs from survivors or family of the survivors assist in further evidence of the event. Although, the reliance on testimonials clearly highlights the issue of responsibility. Put another way, rather than providing a clear choice by disregarding the massacre as a hate crime, Neighbors gives the reader the ability to interpret the actions done by the Non-Jewish Poles was completed due the belief of kill or be killed. When a community is demoralized by war,
The use of eyewitness statements and testimony’s can be a great source of information, but can also lead to wrongful convictions. Due to eyewitness testimony, innocent people are convicted of crimes they have not committed. This is why the wording of a question is important to consider when interviewing witnesses. Due to the fact that eyewitness testimony can be the most concrete evidence in an investigation, witnesses may feel they are helping an officer by giving them as much information as possible, therefore they may tell them information that is not entirely true, just to please them. This is why there are advantages and disadvantages to using open and close ended questioning at different durations of an interview. The way you word a question may impact the memory of a witness, this is because a person cannot completely memorize the exact occurrences of an event.
Due to the persistence of racism, classism, and transphobia the notion of “good victims” and “bad victims” is unmistakably palpable. Sarah Lamble’s article, “Retelling Racialized Violence” discusses the practices of memorialization and questions the politics of how certain victims are remembered in juxtaposition to other victims of violence. Lamble contends, “identities are thus marked as constituting so-called good and bad victims and these categories fall along particular class, gender, and racial lines”. Meaning, the good victims were individuals who adhered to the categories imposed by society, whereas the bad victims were individuals mandated to the margins of society due to their race, class, sexuality, and gender
In Rights to Identity: An Analysis of Trethewey’s “What is Evidence,”“After your Death,” and “June 1863” in Natasha Trethewey’s “ Native Guard” I made the connection between Trethewey’s effort to write the untold history of African American soldiers to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie The Danger of a Single Story TED Talk. Adichie states, “All of these stories make me who I am. But to insist on only these negative stories is to flatten my experience and to overlook the many other stories that formed me. The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story (12:57)”. The stories that ‘formed
Although the struggle for equal rights, food, welfare and survival were all central themes in both narratives, through this essay one could see how similar but at the same time distinctive the injustices for race relations were in South Africa’s apartheid regime and in the Jim Crow South’s segregation era were. The value for education, the struggle to survive and racism were all dominant faces that Anne Moody and Mark Mathabane faced on a day to day basis while growing up that shaped they their incredible lives with.
During the identification and prosecution of a suspect, eyewitnesses are the most important. Eyewitness testimony needs to be reliable as it can have serious implications to the perceived guilt or innocence of a defendant. Unfortunately, the reliability of eyewitness testimony is questionable because there is a high number of eyewitness misidentification. Rattner (1988) studied 205 cases and concluded that eyewitness misidentification was the factor most often associated with wrongful conviction (52%). Eyewitness testimony can be affected by many factors. A substantial literature demonstrates own group biases in eyewitness testimony. For example, the own-race bias, in which people are better at recognizing faces of their own race versus another
The reliability of children’s eyewitness testimony is a controversial issue. Opinions range from proponents believing that children are virtuous in every detail to those who are more skeptical. In actuality, child testimony falls somewhere in between the two divergent views. Though children may not intend to intentionally distort the truth, they do seem to be very vulnerable to suggestibility. Therefore, certain comments and the form of questions can influence testimonials.
By stating, “racism itself is dreadful, but when it pretends to be legal, and therefore just, when a man like Nelson Mandela is imprisoned, it becomes even more repugnant” and “one cannot help but assign the two systems, in their supposed legality, to the same camp” (Wiesel, p.1), the Holocaust survivor is creating solidarity within two separate decades that are connected by the government’s tyranny. The rationale behind constructing a system of unity is to ensure the lives of the oppressed, regardless of their personal beliefs and cultures. Mandela is not affiliated with the Holocaust, nor is he a Jew – rather the former President of South Africa who stood up against anti-black movements – but he is still bound by a common
In ‘unreliable narration’ the narrator’s account is at odds with the implied reader's surmises about the story’s real intentions. The story und...
For instance, Wiesel briefly reflects on his experience in the Holocaust with the use of an anecdote. Wiesel writes about himself, “I remember his bewilderment. I remember his anguish. It all happened so fast. The ghetto. The deportation. The sealed cattle car” (1). The fact that Wiesel lived through and survived the Holocaust already puts him in a position where one is able to immediately trust his word. Now, Wiesel is able to look back on and share his experiences with the world. The anecdotes from his past show the terrible acts of persecution that the Nazis inflicted upon Jews and will encourage people in today’s world to stand up against any current injustices. To add on, Wiesel’s credibility is drastically increased with the fact that he is receiving a Nobel Peace Prize. Wiesel acknowledges the audience by saying, “It is with a profound sense of humility that I accept the honor you have chosen to bestow upon me” (1). By winning a Nobel Peace Prize, one is able to tell that Wiesel is a trustworthy source. With his usage of inclusive diction, Wiesel shares part of his success with the crowd, making the audience feel directly affected and more compelled to his claim. Wiesel’s usage of ethos supports him in proving his
After our study of many accounts of the English Civil War and Charles I’s trial and execution, it is clear that discovering historical truth and writing a satisfying history are two very separate, difficult tasks, and that finding among many accounts a single “best” story is complex, if not impossible. In order to compare the job each historian did in explaining what’s important about this conflict, the following criteria can be helpful for identifying a satisfying history.
Without accepting confessions as legitimate form of evidence to be used in the court of law, the justice system would be in complete disarray what with most suspects making confessions to the police, also having a high likelihood of going on to be convicted. Confessional evidence is of great importance seeing as it is one of the exceptions to the hearsay rule. Although it is of high regard in evidential law, it would be naïve to say that the law on confessions is down to perfection, especially with such high-profile cases such as the Guildford four or Birmingham six which brought to the surface the potential possibility of fabrication by police and perversion of the use of confessional evidence to bring about a certain result in a case. While known as the most powerful form of evidence to be adduced, it is also known as the “best and worst form of evidence” to deal with. Whether the implementations of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act has succeeded to remedy the dilemmas in respect to confession is up for discussion.
Nour Ellisy 3/11/14 English 10H Ms.Metrakos Annotated Bibliography Entries. Annotated Bibliography Entry Source #1 Nelson Mandela taught us that the humanity all of us share can help us transcend the sins some of us commit. There is no better example of the transformative power of tolerance and reconciliation than Nelson Mandela and his inspiring work in overthrowing the apartheid government in South Africa. He understood the power of words to change minds and the power of peaceful deeds to open hearts. His life reminds us that justice and tolerance can overcome even the greatest cruelty.
It is a story that provides the ultimate explanation of how two different people who are witnesses to a crime give completely different psychological recollections of the same event. The author reminds us that truth depends on the telling. Someone must step forward and tell that truth.
Praise God; that was the phrase I would here every morning when my dad would drop me off for school. Although my family has gone through many hard times, they have grown to know Christ and wanted to share that with their kids. I grew up in the kind of household that if you said “shut up” then you were going to be spanked several times. I knew one thing on Sunday morning and Wednesday nights; you go to church. Church became a hobby to me, I didn’t hate going there but it was just what you did. I thought that all families were like that also, I didn’t realize till my teenage years that not everyone goes to church every Sunday morning and Wednesday night. But as I grew older and started really listening to what my friends would talk about at school, I saw that life wasn’t all about going to church and being a Christian for some people.