Forget the past and move on is good advice for people of all ages, but it’s pointless to tell societies to do the same. Without history, there would be no politics. We wouldn’t be groaning under the dead weight of a state formed by the past, with no grip on the present, let alone the future.
Left with no option, then, we’re doing the possible, which is re-imagining the past, and cancelling all that is inconvenient, and frankly, offensive. This takes the form of an unbearable pressure to once again teach history as an aid to a narrow, partisan nationhood. In short, brainwashing, which is familiar politics in South Africa.
So, open your history textbooks and turn to the year 1948, or is it 1994?
This is where the aptly named department of basic education steps into the void, with its proposed revamp of the school history curriculum. Make it a lot more boring and difficult to teach. An ideal remedy for pupils with Temu-sized attention spans miniaturised by 20-second TikTok videos.
The changes, open for public consultation that will be religiously ignored for reasons of history, herald a less “European-centric” view of the world, with less focus on “great historical characters” and more on “broad themes”. Ideological waffle, in plain talk.
Of course, there’s a lot more “struggle” history envisaged, and much speculation about ancient peoples, which has its place, in doses, but is it really a compulsory part of a modern education?
Fear not. Apparently, and this is meant to reassure, the proposals were brought down from the mount by none other than Angie Motshekga, in her earlier apparition as minister of basic education. And if that doesn’t settle you, take comfort in knowing they’re historically determined by the FeesMustFall hysteria that invaded campuses in 2015, striking a fearless blow against the oppression of “Western education”.
To aid in the enlightenment, Cecil John Rhodes was carted off campus of the University of Cape Town on a truck, draped in black plastic to hide the shame, his absence apparently better illustrating the immutable history of UCT than his presence.
Relax. Take comfort in knowing the changes are decades overdue, and were first proposed by the late and oh-so classically educated Kader Asmal, a big fan of a more African-oriented history for others.
It’s easy to blame the politicians, but why not the teachers, too? OK, I’m biased, because I don’t get on with them, historically speaking. But where in the past you’d at least have the odd bright spark teacher in the dungeons of learning called classrooms, the “professionalisation” of this harmful practice, and the dulling omnipotence of trades unions, has produced a cadre of dangerous bores. No more Mr Chips. Bad for your health.
Unfortunately, the debate, such as it is, about what should be taught as history in school will be limited by political correctness. Yes, we should study the kingdoms of pre-colonial Africa, and why not? And where there is written evidence, as in the writings of Arab and Greek witnesses, bring it on.
But why pretend that archaeology, laudable and character-forming as it is, is a replacement for the written word? Is it really useful to displace the Russian or French or American revolutions with overblown speculation on this or that yam-based polity? To what end?
How does one imagine the modern political universe without insight into the rhetoric of Voltaire, the cold logic of Robespierre, the cunning of Lenin, the madness of Hitler, the ramblings of Trotsky? The magic of Marx?
The new proposed approach breaks with history being “made” by great personages. And so historical accountability goes out the window. Everything’s the product of interests we can’t see. Struggle and conflict, balance of forces. But would we have had World War 2, the crisis of capitalism notwithstanding, without Churchill? How so? Fascism led to war, but without a demonic Hitler? How likely was that?
I’m a sucker for long-winded expostulation as to the past. But enforced, ideologically-determined history lessons in school, displacing real and useful subjects? Why?
As it is, I don’t remember much about the history I pretended to learn under the whip of a sadist at the grim benches of learning. Didn’t Shaka make his impis dance on thorns to toughen their feet, so they happily chased Mzilikazi around instead? I only understood the Great Trek years later, far too late really, with Herman Charles Bosman’s observation that the Trekkers deliberately chose the most difficult and treacherous mountain passes for their ox-wagons when they fled the Cape, spreading the good news of slavery to beyond the colony.
We don’t need a one-sided ideological bore-fest in our schools. Actually, it’s at moments like this that one needs to draw the right historical conclusions from the Cultural Revolution. Balance is essential: a little Mao, and a lot of Confucius, perhaps?
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