Our Correspondent
ISLAMABAD 27th April, 2006: The alternative history books focusing on history from the peoples' perspective need to be included in the curriculum and should be made part of mainstream educations system to generate interest among young people to know history in the right perspective.
This was demanded by the speakers at the launching ceremony of alternative history books published by Actionaid Pakistan here on Thursday. These books include the stories of ordinary men and women, workers, farmers and artisans and how they have contributed to create history. Dr Mubarak Ali, a renowned researcher and scholar of history and education, researched and wrote these books in which he has raised many questions such as why we study history and what is the role of women in creation of history? He is the first scholar who has pointed out that women and their role in history has been excluded from the regular history books. History is a collection of past events but the question raised by Mubarak Ali is that whether it is truly representing the events of the past and that who decides what events to be included in the history and what events to be excluded.
Ms Sabina Ahmad of ActionAid said these books have been published and launched under Actionaid's education portfolio. She further said history is a subject which is specifically used for ideological indoctoration, and is taught in schools on extensive basis, but a selected version of history is presented in regular text books which only include stories of kings and conquerors.
While speaking on the occasion, Dr Tariq Rehman (Professor of Linguistics, Quaid-e-Azam University) said that the powerful elite make the historians write history from their own perspective and their own point of view. They try to manipulate and control peoples thoughts through history. The history that is presented to children is diluted to propagate their own agendas and to manipulate the thoughts and ideas of children. The governments and rulers distort history by distorting the reality to present their positive image to gain peoples support. He said these books give a view that general people and especially women are also very important members and they have vital contribution in history.
Dr. Mubarik Ali, author of the books said: "the process of writing history was started by the kings as they wanted their names and their achievements to be recorded for the future generations. This trend of writing history has shifted from kings towards general people. Nowadays we are writing the history of farmers, peasants, artisans and children. He further said the nations are very critical and sensitive regarding curriculum text books as they manipulate all these books through the lens of nationalism to enhance the sense of pride and patriotism. The nationalist view of history presents tales of heroes who were not heroes in reality and the institutes and the traditions that are not worth praising are praised in those books."
He presented his views about teaching history to children by saying that there children should be taught history of their region, then national history and then human history. The other perspective is that children should be taught natural history of old civilizations first then regional and in the end national history.
