Resident columnist Dickson Igwe
Now, in this Old Boy’s opinion, history is as important to learning as any other ‘’coveted subject’’ in the education curricula and culture. In fact , all knowledge- social and scientific- is history.
And from the earliest days of our learning, until the day we inevitably vacate this planet, we are all players in the great game termed history.
We learn history throughout our lives as human beings existing within time and space. Life as we live it is a process whereby we acquire experiences from moment to moment. That acquisition of experience is part of the process of history.
All over the world, in lands that hope to churn out adults from the education system with real world perspective, and true understanding of how the world has evolved, and works, understanding history that is accurate and simply narrated, is the best tool for that purpose.
Enlightened societies are places where people have an understanding of the past, and how that past impacts the present, and paves a route to the future.
Ignorance is not a virtue. And one of the drivers of national hatred of outsiders, or of minorities, intolerance leading to violence, and even civil and international war, is the inability by a country’s peoples to recognize from the past, tragic markers in the present, and when the Rubicon has been crossed, from what is civil and acceptable, to what is unacceptable, dangerous, and even genocidal: Germany 1939-45.
Today’s USA appears to have failed to have learned from the Second World War, and the dangers of Populist Strong Men playing on the worst instincts and emotions of people.
Millions of Americans died in the Second World war to stop a Nazi Mad Man.
Today, that history has been forgotten by a new generation who never understood the horror of the Holocaust, or the bloody massacres of Stalingrad, or the eternal grief of hundreds of thousands of moms and dads who lost their sons on the fields of war in Europe, Africa, and Asia.
A number of thinkers and intellectuals expect a return to the populism of the Donald Trump days in 2025, and even colossal street violence.
It is important for a country to understand and appreciate its national history. But not because of national pride. It is important because of context.
History teaches how a country has evolved and survived in a world plagued by crisis, suffering, and war. And that is why any national history without a fitting of that history into world history is essentially useless: it is history without any context.
Virgin Islands history for example makes more sense with an understanding of the migration to North America of Europeans from Europe from the late 1300s, The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, the establishment of the Spanish Empire of South America, The American Revolution, The American Civil War, British Colonial History, and the Post Slavery Period, with the rise of nationalism, and the journey to Independence by territories of European Powers.
Culture and heritage derive from history. And both culture and history derive from context. Context is the geography and movement of whole societies over the ages from continent to continent, to where the world is presently.
In countries where history has been ignored in the learning, a culture of the philistine is adopted. The ignorance of the past filters into every facet of life leading to a lack of any understanding as to how the society, economy, and institutions evolved.
The younger generations have no clue of the past trials faced by the country and its leaders, in decades gone by, that led to where the country is today. The significance of past men and women in the evolution of the country, and how the country may have avoided war and tragedy in years gone by is forgotten.
Some sage stated once that when history is forgotten past mistakes are repeated. On the other hand, countries that remember their history, and that act swiftly to prevent tragedy when the tragic markers appear, save themselves a huge amount of trouble, and even tragedy.
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