There are multiple issues here, all stemming from one major problem that is often overlooked: the thesis is not true. Afghanistan, over its history, has not been a ‘Graveyard of Empires’, indeed it has been far from it. Professor Alexander Hainy-Khaleeli has shown how the country was the heartland of many great empires across history, including even empires often used as supporting evidence for proponents of Bearden’s thesis. Alexander the Great’s empire, used by Bearden as an example in favour of his argument, successfully ruled Afghanistan for over one hundred years, and the often-cited British experience ignores the broad success of British policy after the Third Afghan War. When imperial missions did fail, it was not due to the overriding lawlessness of the Afghan terrain or peoples but instead a variety of case-specific factors.

Thus, Bearden’s thesis is a case of bad history, with Afghanistan’s past stuffed into an overly simplistic historical framework. Its usage by politicians is therefore problematic, as it means public policy and discourse is based on incorrect perceptions and knowledge. For example, by describing Afghanistan as ‘the Graveyard of Empires’, Biden oversimplifies the complex failure of the American project in Afghanistan. It assumes that the failure of American statecraft is not a failure of Washington but a result of Afghanistan’s unique nature. By imposing Bearden’s framework, it assumes no imperial policy in Afghanistan could ever be successful regardless of what the imperial power does. Biden’s speech was overwhelmingly centred around this idea – an inevitability of failure that no policy of his could ever rectify. 

This has three significant implications, demonstrating the danger of basing politics on flawed historical theory. Firstly, it stifles the development of effective policy. When addressing an issue that you deem impossible to benefit from, policy becomes solely about mitigation. Biden’s long-held belief that the US was doomed to fail in Afghanistan in line with Bearden’s thesis means that he has approached Afghanistan from a position that the US needed to leave the ‘graveyard’ irrespective of the consequences, explaining, for instance, the unnecessary withdrawal of American contractors that led to the complete collapse of the Afghan army. It also explains the frantic nature of the evacuation effort because the clear urge to withdraw as soon as possible meant that there was little planning for, say, the evacuation of the Afghans who had helped US personnel. 

Further, through basing politics on a largely flawed historical framework, there is a real possibility that we will not learn the correct lessons from the Afghan war. By attributing blame for the operation’s failures on the nature of Afghanistan and not bad policy, the US risks failing to understand the reasons for the failures in the country over the last twenty years, and thus fail to make the necessary changes. In an era where the American Empire is under threat from another would-be hegemony China, failing to learn the correct lessons could be costly. As such, it is more important than ever that the US takes a nuanced look at its role and activity in the global system, which will be significantly hindered by viewing its largest single project over the last two decades through an overly simplified and ignorant framework.

Finally, the oversimplification of Afghanistan and the blaming of it for the West’s failures is deeply immoral. The graveyard thesis crams Afghan history into how it relates to predominantly European Empires, denying it credit outside the framework of imperial history. In reality, Afghanistan has had a fascinating and proud history outside of its relations with the European powers, and thus the promulgation of this thesis risks making discourse around Afghanistan incredibly demeaning. Moreover, calling it the ‘Graveyard of Empires’ suggests that the primary victims of imperial projects in the country are the Empires – British, Soviet, and now American – and not the people of Afghanistan. The country’s people have faced endless war and persecution due to Imperial ends and are the actual victims of the country’s recent past. By framing Afghan history as a one of imperial failure, political discourse is prejudiced in favour of the West at the expense of the true victims of imperial policy. 

These are, unfortunately, inevitable consequences of applying a single and incorrect historical framework to contemporary politics: it can be profoundly immoral but also practically ruinous. Further, it can cloud the judgement of policy makers looking to draw lessons from past failures. As such, while there are good reasons to base politics on history, when that history is incorrect, the results can be ruinous.

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However, whilst the political doctrine of apartheid and its segregationist ideology ended in 1994, culminating in the election of Nelson Mandela as the President of South Africa, its socio-economic legacy extends into the present day. The apartheid economy was tailored to appeal to, and overwhelmingly benefit white citizens, and as a nation of significant inequality, the after-effects of enforced segregation still pervade twenty-first century discourses. This economic legacy of apartheid is still palpable within modern South Africa, which continues to be defined by the segregationist policies of the late twentieth century. Today, black citizens, compared to their white counterparts, arguably remain somewhat disadvantaged in the national economy and the opportunities afforded to them. As the Economic Freedom Fighters, a South African left-wing political party emphasised in 2013, ‘political freedom without economic emancipation is meaningless.’ Statistical evidence supports the party’s observation, citing that in 2011, 54% of Africans compared to less than one percent of white citizens lived in poverty, attesting to the wider culture of division which had served as the central bastion of political authority. 

Even in the realm of education – particularly pertinent given the notable involvement of students within the anti-apartheid movement – the effect of segregation is demonstrable in the twenty-first century. Under the National Party, the funding of white schools was greater than that of black schools by tenfold, meaning that historical inequalities have become so deeply embedded in the framework of South Africa’s education system, that they are perpetuated nearly thirty years after the dissolution of apartheid. From 2015 to 2019, the school funding in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, one of the lowest-income communities in the nation, fell by a further 15%. What this evidence highlights is that whilst the official dogma of segregation is no longer directly involved in the fabric of the nation, the ghost of apartheid remains a ubiquitous element of life in South Africa, carving out an enduring and reprehensible modern socio-economic legacy. 

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I believe it important to note that both the dominant imperialist and colonialist nations dominated the education systems where they ruled. The significance of this cannot be understated. Imperialists and colonisers quite clearly wanted more than land and natural resources; they want hegemony. In Ireland, the Irish language was almost completely eradicated by mandatory English-speaking schools. The attempt to integrate colonised peoples into a British identity was not only about dominance but control. In fact, jailed Irish republicans used Irish to communicate covertly. Knowledge of one’s own national history and culture has long been a weapon of the oppressed.

Similarly, history is weaponised in the study of archaeology in Palestine. The discipline has been used as a tool to legitimate colonisation through a history explicitly based on ethnonationalism. The enmeshing of religious history from thousands of years ago with a modern-day nation state’s claim to land is a perfect example of Benedict Anderson’s argument that nationalism is an “imitation of simultaneity across homogenous, empty time”. This claim, however, is overshadowed by the history of the Palestinians who have been dispossessed of their land and of which they have emotional and practical ties to within living memory. These personal histories will be passed down orally through families and will be the spark for resistance to the colonisation process for generations to come.

History can seem like a dry academic investigation of a static past; however, the stage is set for the morality play of history in the mainstream media often. Britain seems to be obsessed with an overly simplistic version its history. When representations are narrow and limited to mostly excavations of world war two, a rare occasion in which Britain made a positive impact through contributing to the defeat of German fascism, it is easy to see how the identity of ‘Britons’ on the world stage can appear as a trans historic moral force to some. This is important to understand how people in the army understand their role as a historical agent and can believe they are doing their duty to a higher moral power, their civic religion: nationalism. It is for this reason that people can participate in imperialist wars such as the invasion of Iraq and keep a personal sense of morality and justice.

Although a new generation is questioning the authority of these narratives. This nationalism is outdated for a country that is home to people from previous colonies of Britain. Eric Williams argues that “the British historians wrote almost as if Britain had introduced Negro slavery for the satisfaction of abolishing it”. In fact, the cultural homogeneity that supports history as national morality play is swiftly broken by the curiosity, doubt and challenge of a new generation. The petition to teach the empirical truth of colonialism has garnered massive support and shows that a new generation will attempt at establishing their own history. The question that lingers is: will this be based on a new kind nationalism?

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The Grenada Revolution began on 13^th March 1979 with the deposition of the first Prime Minister Eric Gairy by revolutionary Maurice Bishop, leader of the Marxist-Leninist New JEWEL Movement (NJM), one which advocated for educational and welfare reforms along with political liberation. The NJM quickly established the People’s Revolutionary Government (PRG) with Bishop as the new Prime Minister and suspended the post-independence 1974 constitution enabling them to rule by decree. Simultaneously, the NJM utilised their National Liberation Army to conduct armed takeovers of vital strategic locations such as police barracks and the national radio station. 

Since 1974, Prime Minister Gairy had increasingly restricted the rights of political expression and attempted to quell all forms of opposition. On the 21^st January 1974, known to witnesses as “Bloody Monday”, Gairy’s private paramilitary nicknamed the ‘Mongoose Gang’ was mobilized to subdue a mass protest resulting in the death of Bishop’s father, the injuries of numerous others, and a drastic gain in support for the NJM. The fraudulent 1976 re-election of Gairy due to his continual deployment of the infamous paramilitary, and rumours of his plans to assassinate leaders of the NJM in 1979 seemed like the perfect storm for Bishop’s party to gain traction.  

By March of that year, most Grenadians supported the “Revo” (revolution) and once in full swing, Bishop and the PRG implemented social and political changes up until its end. The new government prioritised improvements to the education system, introduced a national literacy scheme, expanded free healthcare provisions, and encouraged voluntary labour schemes to construct housing and other physical infrastructure such as the new international airport with Cuba’s assistance. Additionally, the PRG authorised the creation of farming co-operatives to maximise the islands’ limited agricultural resources, decriminalised labour unions, and established the People’s Revolutionary Army (PRA). The domestic finances of Grenada would only stretch so far to fund these projects since sanctions had meant diminished access to the IMF and the World Bank. Inevitably, this led to international economic support from Cuba, the Soviet Union, and other left-wing allies much to the frustration of the Reagan administration. 

However, a few of Bishop’s key decisions seemed contrary to the ideals of fellow NJM members and supporters. Firstly, the decision to maintain the British monarch Elizabeth II as Head of State seemed paradoxical. After all, the monarch was a figure of imperialism and the colonialism that had once afflicted Grenada and who revolutionary Grenadians wished to distance themselves from. Nonetheless, Bishop allowed Elizabeth II to remain Head of State and for the Crown representative Governor-General Paul Scoon to be kept in his position since Bishop believed that Grenada would mantain stronger legitimacy due to its ties to Britain and develop stronger international trade links. It should be noted that while Grenada’s relationship with the Crown did not change, the country was sanctioned by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. 

Secondly, in the autumn of 1983, the central committee of the PRG attempted to convince Bishop to enter into a power-sharing agreement with Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Bernard Coard to ensure more focus on political as well as social stability for Grenada’s future. This proposition caused a massive internal fissure within the PRG with accusations of Bishop deviating from the ideological prerogatives of the NJM and having no coherent vision. Following Bishop’s rejection of this proposal in October, he was placed under house arrest leading to demonstrations across the islands flaring up as Coard assumed leadership of the PRG. Despite attempts to evade re-capture having been helped by demonstrators to escape, Bishop and seven others were executed by a PRA firing squad on 19^th October. What followed was the rapid collapse of the PRG and the six-day military junta led by former PRA General Hudson Austin. This, too, came to a grinding halt with the invasion of Grenada by the coalition forces of the US and six Caribbean nations on the 25^th October 1983. Overall, from 1979-1983, Grenada experienced a unique position as a pro-monarchy, a (at times) stable socialist Caribbean nation, and a huge concern to the United States.

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