Disappearing
primary sources.
I can’t remember as a child ever making any association
between a country’s postage stamps and their political landscape. Slowly as you
grow older you become aware of a Europe that has moved from pre-war tranquillity
to one of an aggressive nature. The appearance of Adolf Hitler's image on stamps,
overprinting of countries names, or new currencies denominations herald a more impermanent
present.
When I turned eight, I inherited my father stamp collection
containing stamps from countries that no longer seemed to exists, some with
over printed names of new masters who had imposed their rule militarily or
other political reasons. Stamp collecting has a larger agenda beyond its
revenue role for respective government. It is in a way a primary source to
reinforce new historic situations, a visual history of events that outlive
their own time.
Sadly current societies march towards the electronic age is
discarding many of the tangible links to the past such as the disappearance of postage stamps. Recorded history no longer
written by hand, but by the touch of a finger on a computer. Unlike the written
account recorded by witnesses of events in physical form, our primary source is
open to alteration by other hands without necessarily any consultation with the
original author.
Whether such ‘histories’ will be considered primary sources
of information by future generations remains an open question. It is possible
that history as we now understand it may be a thing of the past. Will we be
left only with the current edited electronic interpretation of what may be considered suitable.
I’m not sure that the world will be bester served by such an outcome.
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