Recording history is imperative and essential but teaching history or pretending to learn from history is farcical

Capturing humankind’s history and recording events as they occur is essential and as such, we continue to document our history. However, if lessons can be learnt from history, the world today, would not be as messed-up as it is, would it?

We conveniently choose which history is relevant and what is to be taught

Tracing one’s history (genealogy) has recently become a favourite pastime for the retired. And they all conveniently trace their ancestry to ancient kings and queens. One can only conclude that serial killers and child molesters are all single folks with no children and as such, no lineage. You hear of people tracing their lineage back to war heroes. Where are the children, grandchildren and great grandchildren of deserters and war criminals?

If you tell people we all descended from apes and that Africa was the cradle of humanity and we all hail from there, people turn religious and want to opt for biblical ancestry, but when you point out that if we are, according to the bible, all descended from just Adam & Eve (who by the way, couldn’t have been much different from folks currently in the Middle East) and as such, why are we so keen to see some live in squalor around the world today, while we carve out arbitrary borders and treat each other with such disdain, they quickly find another more convenient history to opt for

Today’s history classes would make us believe everything starts and ends in Europe and the European conquest of South America, South-East Asia or Africa (and what followed). Few care that the Chinese invented paper ages prior or that Mongols laid out spectacular means of governance or that ancient Egypt built pyramids and ruled huge swathes of the world and so did the Turks. If history cannot be taught accurately then we end up with lessons of convenience and decades after some of the worst atrocities in history, we find ourselves at the cusps of a repeat…..

We sing and believe “rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves, Britons shall never, never be slaves”, but we have been slaves. Britain has been conquered by the Romans and Vikings and many others over centuries and been enslaved by Normans and others. But we draw the line rather conveniently on the history that gets taught. We want to teach about conquests and we go back as far as convenient and stop. Then we want to teach about slavery but choose not to go as far back as galley slaves and barbary slaves but conveniently pitch it as we wish, for the effect we seek.

History has been the most potent, most efficient tool of manipulation this civilisation and those in control of how history is disseminated, will continue to have the upper hand