History will Teach Us Nothing

HaileyinHongKong wrote:

If I know more about their history, does that mean expats in the US know more about my history?

A lot of American seem to either have little knowledge of their own history or a very selective/skewed version of it.

I'd be interested to know what you learn of your own and international history.

Do for understand the Indian wars, what do the books say about wars, pre and post 1945, and so on?
Indonesia has far too little understanding of its own history since 1945 and I know British kids never learn about the negative side of our colonialist past - in fact, colonialism isn't really mentioned much at all.

Sadly, in my opinion, not learning of a violent past but being told about how great and right is, leads to even more of the same.

Do you agree?

History learn us a lot but unfortunately we never learn from it.

The question should be: why we don't learn.

American's sense of history is abysmal.   And I'm not talking dates, etc., I'm talking people, places, why's and what happened.  We must remember that the winners write the history, be they right or wrong.   Sometimes it takes years upon years to find out the true story.  I've often wondered if the North Korean populace really believes all the "history" they are told about their great leaders, etc. 
Do we just accept what we are told because of the people that tell us - because its the accepted thing to do?   hmmmm

To come back to your question:

I don't think that the major of the expats knows more about the history of their current country then the locals.
They come for work and leave after a certain of time.
They want to know how the life is, what they can expect and if they are able to make some friends to hang out with.

For those who have plans to stay for a long time, there is a chance that they read about the local history.
And even then, how far they want to go to read back: 100 years ago or 1000 years?

If an American moving to an overseas location had no interest in American history, then I doubt that they will have any interest in their new resident country history.  I can't see an "awakening" on the trip over.

expatprotax wrote:

American's sense of history is abysmal. ............. We must remember that the winners write the history.....   Sometimes it takes years upon years to find out the true story.  I've often wondered if the North Korean populace really believes all the "history" they are told about their great leaders, etc.

Lots of countries tailor their history for nationalistic reasons.
Our HK guru has given us a glimpse into America schools and their total inability to admit America fault in so many wars.
British schools pretty much totally miss the nasties we did as a nation and make it look like the Spanish armada was an out of the blue attempt to destroy England, not the military action to stop queen Lizzie's pirate ships that it really was.
Japan, as I understand it, totally refuse to teach WWII history or even admit their mass rape camps and the terrible, shameful way they treated anyone and everyone that had the misfortune to come near them.

I'll be willing to bet NK has a similar 'communist party first' skew on history the south doesn't seem to like to say very much about their own leaders of the time that were corrupt dictators who sent the political opposition to gaol and fixed elections.

As an aside, can you imagine a communist party party?

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Hi comrade dude, long time no see.

Nice to see you comrade dude - I've been camping for re-education after I was denounced as a capitalist because I sold my neighbour that coal so he didn't freeze to death.

Come in

Cheers - where's the beer?

Beer - that implies a brewer and brewers are capitalists - back to camping for you, traitor.

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Oh hum - I wonder what Iranians are told about America.

HaileyinHongKong wrote:

... I learned more about Chinese history when I was in school - long before I even thought about coming here - than most Chinese people seem to have ever learned.

Hailey, surely yours was an exceptional education - unless you took Chinese history as a college major or some such. I didn't learn anything about China except the bastards had the cheek to resist Britain's righteous invasion and occupation of their territory a couple of times, when they (the Chinese) refused to allow the importation of hard drugs. I imagine Chinese children learned the other side of that, as a brief footnote in their history books.

Gordon Barlow wrote:

HaileyinHongKong wrote:

... I learned more about Chinese history when I was in school - long before I even thought about coming here - than most Chinese people seem to have ever learned.

Hailey, surely yours was an exceptional education - unless you took Chinese history as a college major or some such. I didn't learn anything about China except the bastards had the cheek to resist Britain's righteous invasion and occupation of their territory a couple of times, when they (the Chinese) refused to allow the importation of hard drugs. I imagine Chinese children learned the other side of that, as a brief footnote in their history books.

We British, whist total gits, were also very clever.
Feed the opposing army a load of opium then invade while they're all as high as a kite.
Saves all that messing about fighting.

I'm reviving this thread, because the topic is too important to let die so easily. I have long been dissatisfied with the way I was taught history at school - all from a nationalist and subjective point of view. In later years I discovered the concept of "human rights", and became a convert to it. "Human rights" are mostly incompatible with nationalism and (dare I say it?) patriotism, except at a minimal level. As an expat I managed to throw off my tribal/national loyalties, once I realised that "my people" were really no more admirable in any way than any others. Here in the Caribbean we say "people are people". The slogan gets only token respect, as you would expect, but it is useful to have it at hand.

Most of the history books were as per the writers or the government's will....as it has already mentioned that only winners write history wether it is right or wrong, they manupulate the facts and after a gap you will find this as beliefs and faiths of the local people....There was a man i think American he was writing the History of the world and when he was about to complete his book one incident happened near to his house where he was staying someone has murdered someone with knife and then he rush down to the place and try to find out the truth and unable to get it because different people's different opinion make him to understand that History is all about like this and then He burned the book and never written any history.....

Moreover till today we have not learn anything from History....in today's world history is just like His + Story....If you see all the Faiths and Beliefs of different cultures and religions....it can give you more clear picture that how people believes on the so called fact but they never try to find out the truth behind that....but if you say something then you are in a great danger....This is what today's History......

Because here you have thrill