History being one of the subjects I teach I try to keep abreast with the
current developments in the field and often revisit the Old Masters of
the field with the hope of understanding both the new and the old
better. Following are three of the books I have read/re-read recently.
- Thiranagama, Sharika. In My Mother’s House. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania UP, 2011.
- Weiss, Gordon. The Cage. London: Bodley Head, 2011.
- . London: Portable, 2012.
Interestingly
all three books had been written on Sri Lanka by outsiders. And all
three had received wide publicity/accolade as authentic sources of their
subject matter by the so-called international community. Going through
the well-stocked shelves of the leading bookstores in my quest for more
of the kind I have come across some work on the subject covered by
these by writers based in Sri Lanka. However, they have failed to
generate the kind of reception given to ‘Thiranagama’, Weiss, and
Harrison. The conclusion I was forced to draw from this is that while
most of us are going on with the daily grind blissfully unaware of what
is going on one-sided accounts of our history is being written by people
who have no idea of the historical processes that have shaped our
nation. And if some measures are not taken to present history from the
point of view of the actual participants, then fifty years from now the
future generations would be using these writers as the sole authorities
on the contemporary history of Sri Lanka. However, having said that, it
is also the sad truth that most ‘native’ writers do not have the kind of
contacts or the money to market their work no matter how good it is,
especially at the international level. Moreover, the historical point of
view of the so-called majority does not seem to receive the same degree
of validity automatically accorded to the so-called minority voices at
many international (and lately at national) forums. Consequently, this
being a nebulous time of the history of our nation I felt that I should
share some of my thoughts on my vocation – that is how I see teaching
History – and its role in shaping the consciousness of the generations
to come.
This being an individualist consumerist time, I
have often come across people sweeping aside history as a dead thing.
Live for the moment and in the moment seems to be the motto of the
Nano-Age. According to many of them the time one spend on learning a
subject like history would yield greater dividends should s/he spend it
on something useful like an international language, Science, or
Mathematics. Consequently, the first obstacle a teacher of History has
to overcome is convincing his or her students that History has utility
value as a subject. As the eminent historian E H Carr very rightly
points out “history consists essentially in seeing the past through the
eyes of the present and in the light of its problems” (What is History, 21). He further adds:
The
common-sense view of history treats it as something written by
individuals about individuals. This view was certainly taken and
encouraged by nineteenth-century liberal historians, and not in
substance incorrect. But it now seems over-simplified and inadequate,
and we need to probe deeper. The knowledge of the historian is not his
exclusive individual possession: men, probably, of many generations and
of many different countries participated in accumulating it. The men
whose actions historian studies were not isolated individuals acting in a
vacuum: they acted in the context, and under the impulse, of a past
society. (E H Carr What is History, 35).
Hence,
studying history, far from being a useless study of some glorified
individuals, would while grounding one in one’s context give valuable
insights into the roots of various issues that one is currently
grappling with. This is what a doctor does when he asks a patient about
the history of a disease; this is what a lawyer does when he quizzes his
client on the history of a ‘case’; this is what a business tycoon does
when he studies a rival business earmarked for a takeover; and this is
what climatologist does when he studies the weather patterns of the past
300 years before making predictions on the issue of the climate change.
In short, history is being ‘done’ everywhere by everyone around us day
in and day out as an essential part of his/her existence.
Interestingly,
there was a time in the not so far away past when the study of history,
personal as well as racial, had been give the pride of place. So what
has created this hostility towards learning one’s history is worth
investigating. My feeling is that this new animosity towards history and
the rise of the Middleclass, Capitalism and Neo/colonialism go hand in
hand.
Sri Lanka as a nation has a long history compared
to a newbie nation like the USA. Yet the weight placed on the importance
of teaching Sri Lankan history to its citizen by the government of Sri
Lanka is much less compared to the strenuous efforts made by the
governing bodies of the USA. Libraries in Sri Lanka are full of
historical records and they often sit on the shelves gathering dust. In
fact many Western-finished academics and those who are influenced by
them treat the accumulated historical records of Sri Lanka as trivia or
gossip columns that do not deserve a second glance let alone actual
studying. And with the emergence of the individualistic liberalist
capitalistic socio-economic policies sponsored by the neo-colonialists
of the West and their stooges operating from within Sri Lanka in the
late 1970s, the term history has become a dirty word. Consequently, the
decision makers of the government of Sri Lanka have swept aside the
importance of History as a subject so that it does not receive enough
space in curricula at school level. Though History is taught at school
as a subject from Grades 6 to 11, only two periods are allocated per
week while English Language is given 5 periods. This attitude often
discourages those who are inclined towards making the study of history
one’s chosen field of expertise. Thus, only a few students select
History as a subject at the Advanced Level Examination or as their major
at university level. As a result today many a Department of History in
the universities in Sri Lanka is manned by academics who have failed to
make a single noteworthy contribution to his/her own nation under
his/her name. The sad state of affairs had come glaring to light in the
well-documented ‘battle’ between Professors R. A. L. H. Gunawardane and
K. N. O Dharmadasa[1] in which a don of a department of Archaeology had
to offer a rebuttal to an argument presented by a don of History
department on the nation-ness of the Sinhalese because those from the
latter department would not or could not offer one. And it is under such
inhospitable conditions that those souls who teach History strive to
breathe life to these often neglected yet essential works on Sri Lankan
history.
I would grant that teaching History, especially
teaching History in a post-colonial country like Sri Lanka, is not an
easy task. It is not, I would like to think, as straight forward as
teaching Science or Mathematics for in teaching History one has to
negotiate not only with the historian’s version of history but also with
one’s own personal histories as well as the personal histories of those
who sit in front of him/her. It calls for a lot of skills and qualities
that are often at odds with each other. One has to have passion for
what s/he teaches but at the same time be willing to see both the good
and the bad of the subjects of his/her subject. One has to be truthful:
one must not hide from one’s charges that most of those we call national
heroes in actuality are the worst enemies of the nation. Yet, one
should not stripe one’s pupils of these illusions too fast too soon for
it could cause extreme disorientation which could be catastrophic for a
nation that is suffering from an acute case of identity crisis at the
moment. The History teacher must also contend with the lack of
understanding in the officials of the significance of the subject.
Syllabuses are changed and students are overloaded with trivia from
world history which prevents both the teacher and the student from
appreciating great historical moments and significant personalities of
their own history. For example, Wasteland Ordinance is given as a change
brought about Colebrook Commission of 1833 but there is no room for
discussions on how a significant historical decision like the Wasteland
Ordinance contribute to urban poverty and landlessness in Sri Lanka. Yet
an entire lesson is allocated to studying the spread of Islam in Asia.
In such a context as a History teacher I am often forced to resort to
the triage system practiced by emergency workers. Consequently, many
important local historical moments and personalities are just mentioned
in passing and reduced to a word or two in the ‘note’ in favour of
allocating meaningful time to at least one or two of the most
significant of their kind. Sadly it is the student as the future citizen
that is on the losing side. Therefore it is important that a panel of
wise men and women well-versed in the field must be appointed in
fashioning syllabuses at both school and university levels that would
reflect positively on the nation in the long run through their
contribution towards fashioning citizens who care for their birthright.
In the meanwhile, considering the intricacy of the decision making
involved in teaching, it is disastrous to use armatures in teaching
History as a subject. Therefore due attention must also be paid to
training a corps of dedicated, wise, and well-versed teachers of History
as soon as possible.
According to Iain
McGillchrist our defective civilization is on its way towards
self-annihilation. While this might prove to be true in the long run it
is patent that the civilization nurtured by the Sinhalese in this island
nation is facing an imminent threat of being obliterated by forces that
are working against it. Maybe through ignorance, apathy, or by design,
as long as the teachers of History become party to the conspiracy of
maintaining the neo-liberal capitalist myths propagated by most of those
at the top layer of Sri Lankan society the nation as a whole would
remain in that Platonic cave looking at the shadow show staged for their
benefit by those hegemonic powers who would use the ignorance of the
‘majority’ to further consolidate their position and carry on with the
agendas of their paymasters abroad. Those few at the top who crave
absolute domination have tricked the masses into relinquishing their
sovereignty in the name of representative democracy with what Louis
Althusser aptly called Ideological State Apparatus (ISA). Furthermore,
with effective use of ISA, these power-mongers have effectively turned
the very fruits of our loins against their heritage. Today, many a
member of the younger generation is up in arms ready to castrate the
nation by rendering its history irrelevant. Those few souls with their
Janus-like vision still intact like Gunadasa Amarasekara and Nalin de
Silva are discarded unceremoniously along the wayside as extremists
against ethnic reconciliation – the all-important journey towards an
ethnic melting pot in which only the Sinhalese melt to become something
else. Interestingly, the USA the very country that first advocated this
notion has since discarded this view as impractical.
Under
such situation it is the duty of the teacher of History to help his/her
students understand who his/her enemies and their modus operandi so
that they would not be broadsided unawares as we have been a countless
number of times in the past. in order to do so the teacher of History
must first make that arduous journey towards light and then return to
the cave to guide those who are still within – if need be kicking and
screaming – towards that selfsame light.
[1]
Gunawardane, R. A. L. H. “The People of the Lion: The Sinhala Identity
and Ideology in History and Historiography.” The Sri Lanka Journal of
the Humanities. Vol. V Numbers 1&2 Peradeniya: University of
Peradeniya, 1979.
---, Historiography in a Time of Ethnic Conflict. Colombo: Social Scientists’ Association, 1995.
Dharmadasa.
K.N.O. “People of the Lion: Ethnic Identity, Ideology and Historical
Revisionism in Contemporary Sri Lanka” The Sri Lanka Journal of
Humanities. Vol. XV numbers 1&2 1989
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