Careful not to repeat history
Announcing that history would become a compulsory subject until Grade 12, Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga made a revealing comment. It inadvertently showed exactly why this should not happen, at least not under the control of apparatchiks masquerading as educationalists.
“This is not a propaganda exercise destined to shore up support for the oldest liberation movement in Africa, the ANC … But it will make sure that our history books reflect correctly the true story.”
Motshekga says history has a number of positive effects – contributing to nation-building, social cohesion and cultural heritage.
Nation-building and social cohesion may result from the inhabitants of a geographical space understanding from whence they came. That is especially so in South Africa, where there are so many contending narratives, many of which have been and continue to be suppressed.
It is also important to understand the rich tapestry of cultural heritage. Again, that is especially so in South Africa, where the primacy of one culture over all others was, and often continues, to be asserted.
But those aren’t the primary aims of history. On the contrary, those are the propagandistic objectives of politicians, priests and parents and have little to do with finding a factual understanding of people and processes in the past.
In contrast, an honest interrogation of history will challenge the preconceptions we have of our world and of why we are as we are today. It is only through this rigorous and unflinching process that we can conceive how we are likely to be tomorrow.
Motshekga says the “recalibration … must include the last-bid attempt at the decolonisation of the African mind … We must without any apology remove the vestiges of apartheid’s sanitised version of history.
“In this equation, the apartheid rulers will henceforth be presented as folk devils. We want a nuanced approach to history.” Apartheid rulers as folk devils? Is this history? Anthropology? Or political scapegoating? Wikipedia explains it perfectly: folk devils are “people portrayed as outsiders and deviants, and are blamed for crimes or other social problems”.
The pursuit of folk devils frequently intensifies into a mass movement, during which the folk devils are the subject of pervasive campaigns of hostility through gossip and the spreading of urban legends.
“The mass media sometimes get in on the act … to promote controversy. Sometimes the campaign against the folk devil influences a nation’s politics and legislation.”
What Motshekga proposes would have made perfect sense to apartheid’s rulers. History as a chisel to slice, shave and shape school children into “ideal” citizens that understand the “true story” was integral to the Verwoerdians’ messianic duty to preserve Western civilisation.
Move on a few decades and we have new Messiahs but the same megalomania. Now the goal is the “decolonisation of the African mind”, no less.
That’s no surprise, given where the ANC finds inspiration. The task team considered, among others, Russia, China and Zimbabwe to be textbook examples of history teaching, worthy of emulation.
In the face of practical difficulties, it is not a given that this proposal will be implemented. But if this happens, there is a consolation to be found from our own history.
Even badly taught, as it was in the apartheid years, history as the subject has a potential to grip the imagination of a young person that is like few school subjects. Decolonisers will eventually face what the Verwoerdians had to deal with: the “true story” will be examined by young people and be found wanting.
An honest interrogation of history will challenge the preconceptions we have of our world and of why we are as we are today.