Who Holds the Pen? Power, Truth, and the Politics of History

Who Gets to Tell the Story?

In the aftermath of every war, there is a pause—a breath held in silence—before the stories begin.

There are speeches. Monuments. Textbooks rewritten. The world, as it was, is rearranged not just by treaties, but by memory. And memory, as it turns out, is malleable.

There’s a phrase that gets thrown around in moments like this: “History is written by the victors.”

Some say Winston Churchill coined it. Others trace it back to Napoleon. The attribution matters less than the idea itself—that the past, as we know it, isn’t just what happened. It’s what was allowed to be remembered.

But this insight isn’t confined to history books.

• What if the victors also wrote our definitions of morality?
• What if they decided which scientific facts deserved funding, which identities were legally recognized, and which narratives appeared in our children’s schoolbooks?

In that case, we’re not just talking about the past. We’re talking about the present. And the very mechanisms that define reality.

This article is not a manifesto. It’s a map. A journey through politics and foreign policy—to explore how power doesn’t just enforce the rules. It writes them.

Disclaimers: “This article presents a critical overview based on publicly available sources and expert commentary. It does not represent the political stance of the author nor our organization.”

When Winners Write More Than History

Picture 1945. The Nazi regime collapses. Hitler is dead. The world is in ruins. And three superpowers—the U.S., the U.K., and the Soviet Union—gather to decide the shape of the post-war world.

They didn’t just divide land. They divided the story.

At the Yalta Conference^[1], held in February 1945, these three leaders didn’t merely discuss military strategy or territorial lines—they set the ideological framework for how the war, and the world that followed, would be remembered. It was a moment not only of reconstruction, but of narrative control.

World War II became a tale of good versus evil. But within this story, certain details faded into the background: The mass rape of German civilians by advancing Soviet troops^[2], the firebombing of Tokyo that killed over 100,000 civilians in one night^[3], or the moral ambiguity of dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki—even when Japan had already signalled a willingness to negotiate surrender^[4].

These facts weren’t buried because they weren’t real. They were buried because they didn’t fit the narrative of a “just war.”

The victors decided which truths were worth telling—and which were best left out.

And it wasn’t a one-time thing.

Consider how the Vietnam War is taught. In the United States, it’s often framed as a Cold War misstep—a difficult, tragic war fought to contain communism. In Vietnam, the same war is remembered as a brutal act of foreign aggression, a war of liberation and survival.

These divergent narratives aren’t just folk memory. They’re embedded in textbooks, lesson plans and school syllabi. The Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE) has developed teaching resources that compared how Vietnamese and American perspectives on the war differ dramatically. U.S. materials highlight anti-communist struggle and domestic protest; Vietnamese sources emphasize colonialism, civilian trauma, and postwar recovery^[5].

• Same war. Different stories.
• Same facts. Different framing.

The lesson? History isn’t always rewritten. Sometimes, it’s just edited.

The Politics of Morality

Let’s shift gears and talk about something more intimate:

Morality. What you believe is “right” or “wrong.”

Not long ago, homosexuality was illegal in much of the world. In 2003, it was still criminalized in 86 countries. Fast forward two decades, and that number has dropped to fewer than 60, with same-sex marriage now legal in 34 countries, primarily in the West^[6].

What changed? Culture, yes. But also: policy. Lobbying. Media narratives. International aid conditions.

This moral shift wasn’t spontaneous—it was curated.

By 2011, under the Obama administration, the U.S. had begun formally integrating LGBTQ rights into its foreign policy. In a landmark speech to the United Nations, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared^[7]:

“Gay rights are human rights.”

This statement wasn’t just symbolic. It was strategic. It signalled a shift in how American influence would be used abroad—from defending national interests to promoting certain moral frameworks.

In 2015, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that same-sex marriage was a constitutional right, the decision echoed far beyond American borders. International institutions like USAID, the World Bank, and UNDP began embedding inclusivity clauses into their contracts and funding requirements. In some regions, aid was tied to the adoption of anti-discrimination laws or the support of gender rights initiatives.

Nations that depended on foreign aid—especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America—were faced with a choice: embrace this new global moral order, or risk financial penalties.

But then came the backlash.

During his first term (2016–2020), President Donald Trump reversed many of these policies. His administration withdrew protections for transgender students, reinstated the Mexico City Policy to ban U.S. funding for international NGOs offering abortion-related services, and began unravelling the use of “gender” in international treaties and UN documents, pushing instead for “biological sex” as a legal definition.

His Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, created the Commission on Unalienable Rights, which emphasized religious freedom and “natural law” over what they called the “proliferation” of modern human rights—including LGBTQ protections^[8].

In a televised announcement that quickly made headlines, Trump declared that the U.S. government would officially recognize only two genders: male and female. The statement, framed as a defence of “biological truth,” was widely seen as a symbolic reversal of years of inclusive gender policy.

In other words, this wasn’t just culture war posturing. It was a power move.

Change morality. Change the rules. Change the world.

Trump’s Foreign Policy Playbook

In early 2025, President Trump launched a bold foreign policy agenda. His administration issued Executive Order 14169: “Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid.”

At a press conference, a senior administration official, Greg Steube explained:

“American taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize misguided globalist experiments that do nothing to strengthen our country or protect our interests abroad.”

Trump signed an executive order that cut funding to over 80% of USAID programs deemed “ideologically motivated”. Over 5,200 contracts were terminated. Entire categories—gender equity, minority empowerment, climate awareness and LGBTQ+ inclusion—were labelled “ideologically biased” and swiftly defunded^[9]. The numbers were staggering: Millions in pending foreign aid retracted or frozen^[10], 27 countries impacted in Sub-Saharan Africa alone and UNICEF projected a 20% budget shortfall for 2026^[11]

Trump’s defenders called it “budget discipline”—an effort to rein in waste and end what they described as “foreign-funded cultural imperialism.” But critics saw something else: ideological warfare waged under the banner of fiscal responsibility.

And it didn’t stop at what was cut.

The administration rerouted $1.6 billion toward military and border security programs in allied nations—particularly those that agreed to tighten immigration policies, enforce religious freedom clauses, and promote “traditional values” in school curricula. These nations became partners in a reshaped world order—one aligned with Trump’s conservative moral vision.

Foreign aid, once framed as humanitarian support, became a tool of cultural negotiation.

And here’s the kicker:

Much of this was public. There were speeches, reports—even campaign-style videos where President mocked foreign aid program and announced a redirection of funds toward “faith-based partners” and “pro-sovereignty development programs.

There was no attempt to hide the agenda. But when power becomes transparent in its intentions, it isn’t less dangerous. It’s just harder to ignore.

Beyond Borders: Global Story Wars

The politics of memory and morality are playing out across the globe—sometimes quietly, sometimes with fanfare. In each case, the fight isn’t only over what happened, but how it will be remembered.

India: Rewriting the Past for the Future

In 2023, Indian school textbooks underwent a significant revision. Entire chapters on the Mughal Empire—India’s Muslim rulers who reigned for over three centuries—were either trimmed or removed. References to the 2002 Gujarat riots, which saw large-scale anti-Muslim violence under then-Chief Minister Narendra Modi, were excised. Gandhi’s assassination remained, but Nathuram Godse’s Hindu nationalist ideology was softened^[12].

Critics argue this wasn’t just an update—it was an erasure. The changes sparked widespread outrage among historians, educators and opposition leaders, who saw them as part of a larger ideological project. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), aligned with the Hindu nationalist RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh), has long championed a version of Indian history that centres Hindu civilization and minimizes contributions from Muslim rulers and secular democratic movements.

The narrative being reshaped isn’t accidental. It’s strategic.

“There’s a method in the madness,” said historian Apoorvanand in the video to Al Jazeera.

In the revised textbooks, the word “Mughal” appears less frequently. Sections on evolution and the periodic table in science textbooks were also reduced or removed—raising concerns about broader attacks on scientific and secular education in favour of ideological conformity.

It wasn’t about denying history. It was about selecting it.

In a 2023 interview, Professor Krishna Kumar, former Director of NCERT, discussed the importance of presenting history as a constructed and contested field, emphasizing the need for curricula that encourage critical thinking by showcasing multiple perspectives^[13].

France: Erasing Empire, Rewriting Identity

In France, the past isn’t erased with silence—it’s buried under the language of universalism.

The French Republic prides itself on the principle of laïcité—secularism that claims to treat all citizens equally, regardless of race, religion, or origin. But this color-blind ideology often clashes with the country’s colonial legacy and the realities of race and inequality.

For decades, French history curricula gave minimal attention to colonization, slavery, or the wars of independence that defined modern North Africa. Algeria’s brutal war for liberation—where French forces used torture and civilian massacres—was only officially referred to as a “war” in 1999, more than 35 years after independence^[14].

Even today, France struggles with how to tell the truth about empire.

In 2005, the French government passed a controversial law requiring teachers to emphasize “the positive role of French colonialism”—a clause so widely condemned by historians and educators that it was repealed the following year. Yet the impulse remains: to frame France’s global past as civilizing, not violent; generous, not exploitative.

French President Emmanuel Macron has taken symbolic steps to address this. In 2017, he called colonization a “crime against humanity,” a statement that sparked backlash from the political right^[15]. In 2021, he commissioned reports on colonial memory and returned stolen artifacts to Benin and Senegal—but critics argue these gestures are cosmetic, not structural.

In collaboration with fellow historians, Blanchard described colonization as a “real black hole (trou de mémoire)” in modern France. They argue that, unlike other aspects of French history, colonialism remains largely absent from the national narrative, leading to a fragmented collective memory^[16].

When Memory Becomes Power

History isn’t just about what happened. It’s about what we choose to remember—and who gets to do the choosing.

From textbooks in Delhi to classrooms in Budapest, from censored search engines in Beijing to executive orders in Washington, the struggle over narrative isn’t just academic. It’s political. It’s planetary.

Because when you shape the story, you shape the stakes.

We like to think the pen is mightier than the sword. But we often forget this:

The hand holding the pen doesn’t just write history. It writes morality. It writes science. It writes the margins into the footnotes—or out of the story entirely.

So the next time someone hands you a version of the truth, ask yourself:

Whose story is this? And who’s still waiting to be written in?