History Repeats – Till You Learn From It
I was at the launch of a Patta History event where they showcased the history of our more recent past from Independence onwards. This is a very important time frame as most of our history books happily omit this era which has the 1956 Sinhala only policy, the racial riots, JVP insurrections and the civil war.
Failure to teach history ensures it repeats. A young man in the audience, after watching the episodes said he did not know that the Indians were involved in the civil war. He had not heard of the IPKF (Indian Peace Keeping Force). It was shocking – I wanted to ask him, why do you think Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated? But here lies the woes of an education system built on mere text book parroting and a selection of a syllabus that fails to teach us the history of our most recent past.
Yes it’s nothing to be proud of – the insurrections and the civil war are grave mistakes that could have been avoided had they been addressed in due course. But they weren’t and this is precisely why Sri Lankans from whatever social, racial or religious denominations must learn their past. Most children in international schools will be learning British and European history, the Lankans will be imbibing the history of this country upto Independence and then will be skirting over the rest.
I remember learning about 1983 thanks to poetry written about that era. The rest I heard at home from my family. But how many parents today talk to their children let alone teach them history? Civics was a subject that existed in my mother’s time and disappeared during mine. It has now been reintroduced albeit a watered down version.
The lessons of history are many and it is important to remember that there are versions of it. Hence critical thinking must be applied. But first – learn. Coz if you don’t learn, it will repeat.
