Lessons from history: ‘Teaching of history marred by different set of narratives’
Pakistan needs to create more space for historians to speak with different voices, says expert.
KARACHI:
The problems of teaching history are that it is marred by a different set of narratives but this issue is not only exclusive to Pakistan.
In a lively discussion moderated by S Akbar Zaidi and Zahra Sabri at the The Second Floor on Monday, Sarah Ansari, a history professor at the University of London’s Royal Holloway, said what has recently been so good in the context of Britain is the hard-earned autonomy of historians.
University of Karachi’s (KU) Pakistan Study Centre director Syed Jaffar Ahmed and KU’s general history department faculty member Nasreen Afzal were among other panellists at the session, titled ‘Teaching Pakistani history/Teaching Pakistanis history’.
“The school and university teachers have all worked together for a united front to resist the pressures from the authority,” said Ansari whose research focuses on the parts of South Asia that today comprises Pakistan, including British annexation of Sindh in 1843, Partition and its aftermath. “The unity of purpose on the part of the experts is essential. That, I think, is the only way through which any change can happen.”
In Pakistan, she asserted, there definitely needs to be more space for historians to speak with different voices. “In a way, what we need to do is to agree to disagree,” suggested Ansari, adding that in the absence of such tolerance, there isn’t any space to hold debates and discussions on diverse ideas and many interpretations.
“We may have disagreed with each other but that does not mean we cannot have fierce discussions with each other,” she said. “But if we don’t have a context where we can agree to disagree then all we do is just repeat the same mistakes in covert adherence to our linear interpretations of history.”
The problem with Pakistan’s history, believes Ansari, arose when the authorities failed to trust their own people to behave responsibly to understand the multiplicity of meanings and interpretations. “Knowledge is not about transfer. It is about exchange. The authorities, on the contrary, tend to behave as if they are always more conscious and politically correct than the people.”
While tracing the path for rectification, Ansari pointed out that the first step would be to start at school level by creating more space for people to realise that there are different ways of looking at the past, devoid of the connotations that one opinion is right and the other one is wrong.
“In the offing, maybe we will be able to encourage a little bit more tolerance for diversity in the younger generation,” she asserted. “The people talk a lot about Pakistan in terms of a failed state but actually the country is a reality that has been around for only 70 years. Take some confidence in that and recognise that now the third and fourth generation of Pakistanis need to reflect on their past in more complex ways. Obviously, it is not black and white. History is all about greys.”
Ansari, nevertheless, believes that almost every nation carries some ‘uncomfortable truths’ in the realms of history which people do not like facing up to and attempt to gloss over the less palatable aspects of the past. “We cannot, however, undo the past as what is done is done. In attempts to sanitise the past Pakistan is not alone, but other countries perhaps do this is in a slightly more sophisticated way.”
Published in The Express Tribune, January 1st, 2014.
The problems of teaching history are that it is marred by a different set of narratives but this issue is not only exclusive to Pakistan.
In a lively discussion moderated by S Akbar Zaidi and Zahra Sabri at the The Second Floor on Monday, Sarah Ansari, a history professor at the University of London’s Royal Holloway, said what has recently been so good in the context of Britain is the hard-earned autonomy of historians.
University of Karachi’s (KU) Pakistan Study Centre director Syed Jaffar Ahmed and KU’s general history department faculty member Nasreen Afzal were among other panellists at the session, titled ‘Teaching Pakistani history/Teaching Pakistanis history’.
“The school and university teachers have all worked together for a united front to resist the pressures from the authority,” said Ansari whose research focuses on the parts of South Asia that today comprises Pakistan, including British annexation of Sindh in 1843, Partition and its aftermath. “The unity of purpose on the part of the experts is essential. That, I think, is the only way through which any change can happen.”
In Pakistan, she asserted, there definitely needs to be more space for historians to speak with different voices. “In a way, what we need to do is to agree to disagree,” suggested Ansari, adding that in the absence of such tolerance, there isn’t any space to hold debates and discussions on diverse ideas and many interpretations.
“We may have disagreed with each other but that does not mean we cannot have fierce discussions with each other,” she said. “But if we don’t have a context where we can agree to disagree then all we do is just repeat the same mistakes in covert adherence to our linear interpretations of history.”
The problem with Pakistan’s history, believes Ansari, arose when the authorities failed to trust their own people to behave responsibly to understand the multiplicity of meanings and interpretations. “Knowledge is not about transfer. It is about exchange. The authorities, on the contrary, tend to behave as if they are always more conscious and politically correct than the people.”
While tracing the path for rectification, Ansari pointed out that the first step would be to start at school level by creating more space for people to realise that there are different ways of looking at the past, devoid of the connotations that one opinion is right and the other one is wrong.
“In the offing, maybe we will be able to encourage a little bit more tolerance for diversity in the younger generation,” she asserted. “The people talk a lot about Pakistan in terms of a failed state but actually the country is a reality that has been around for only 70 years. Take some confidence in that and recognise that now the third and fourth generation of Pakistanis need to reflect on their past in more complex ways. Obviously, it is not black and white. History is all about greys.”
Ansari, nevertheless, believes that almost every nation carries some ‘uncomfortable truths’ in the realms of history which people do not like facing up to and attempt to gloss over the less palatable aspects of the past. “We cannot, however, undo the past as what is done is done. In attempts to sanitise the past Pakistan is not alone, but other countries perhaps do this is in a slightly more sophisticated way.”
Published in The Express Tribune, January 1st, 2014.