Universal, not European history

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that follows U2.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

hiphop

Rock n' Roll Doggie ALL ACCESS
Joined
Apr 2, 2001
Messages
7,410
Location
in the jungle
The conflicts which the world faces nowadays are not only about "Who?s got the power?" also about "Who?s got culture?"

Just remember that the Arabic region has had a very high old culture when the U.S. didn?t dream of existing, before of Columbus.

Remember that in all the history books we read, and all the books our children learn about, the middle age is normally thought of as a dark period.

For the Arabs, it wasn?t quite like that, was it? They had a great culture developing between 600 and 1200, reaching its high point around 1300, while Europe was full of religious wars.

Another example is India. Their products, f.e. silk, were better than the ones of the British Empire, but the Brits needed tea. So they stole Gold and Silver from Africa to trade it with the salesmen from India, for silk etc. Now there was an opium war too... generalized we can say that while Great Britain was industrialized, India was de - industrialized (no more "higher", "industrial" products, but agricultural ones).

I think some books should be rewritten. Its always European, Northern or Western history we learn, because this is in the interest of those who are in power. "To bomb someone back into the Middle Age"- hah!

What we need is Universal History. A history that covers the view of a certain country/ region from its own point of view.

Feel free to discuss.
 
Actually, this has already been done. I can't think of any specific books offhand, but something called "social history" is becoming very popular in schools (it was being talked about a little when I was in high school, which gets further and further away all the time). Social history combines all elements of what *makes* history--economic, cultural, artistic and other factors, for example--to try and weave a more complete picture of what a country, region, or culture was like at a specific point in time.

A social history book would, for example, recognize the fact that Arabic cultures were very advanced during the European Dark Ages. Social history is being taught increasingly now; for example, even though I'm pretty young, I knew what you said about Arabia and Asia being advanced cultures long before we ever thought they were ("we" being Americans or Western Europeans). I don't know how old you are, hiphop, but perhaps when you were in school you learned more about things from a Eurocentric viewpoint, which tended to highlight military history (and economic history a little); that is, history is, for you, mostly an endless series of wars and treaties. This, of course, is a pretty narrow view.

You make good points, but the sort of history you're talking about is on its way to being viewed as dead and inert by many people in historical fields.
 
I think the problem with our history is that it is romanticized, not only by the U.S., but by everyone. We have all sorts of people wishing to go back to the "good old days," but forget that the people back then eagerly embraced progress and couldn't wait to advance themselves. Just look where many of us are today?

I think it is tragic how much of the Islamic world has plunged into poverty and ignorance. It is a far cry from their scholarship of 1000+ years ago, but how many will know their history?

Melon
 
The fact that Arabian culture and society was more advanced than Europe in the middle ages was taught when I was in grade school here in the USA.
 
Let's look at this issue a litle more in-depth:

If we are going to explore history fully, do we even want to expose the negative information?

For example, I did not learn until college that blacks owned slaves in Louisiana up to the time of the Civil War. Certainly we don't want to put this information into students' textbooks.

Also, who could possibly ignore the advanced civilization of the Arab world up to 1300? That was always presented in my World History classes. One area that may cause disagreement, however, is why that civilization declined, but I willnot get into that.

~U2Alabama
 
U2Bama said:
Let's look at this issue a litle more in-depth:

If we are going to explore history fully, do we even want to expose the negative information?

For example, I did not learn until college that blacks owned slaves in Louisiana up to the time of the Civil War. Certainly we don't want to put this information into students' textbooks.

~U2Alabama

What a silly statement. Whether or not a few uppity blacks (and it is certainly a few) betrayed their own brothers and sisters hardly changes the fact that the blame for the brutal genoicide and slavery of millions of black Africans in America lies squarely where it does, and it aint on black people.
 
gabrielvox, you are right, but you imply something that U2Bama didn?t say. He said "Certainly we don?t want to put... into textbooks" and I imply that he said so bc he recognizes the fact this would give a wrong picture of slavery.

I am the biggest fighter against slavery you will find, but it is a fact that even in Africa there was slave trade, sure, mainly committed by whites, but a little by Africans too.

Which doesn?t weaken the argument of billions of reparations $$ that the countries who actually benefitted from slavery will have to pay for the commitment of their crimes.

But when we discuss openly, we have to be ready for statements like that, and not just brush them off as stupid.
 
STING2 said:
The fact that Arabian culture and society was more advanced than Europe in the middle ages was taught when I was in grade school here in the USA.

Fine, but I say that in our brains, we judge things different bc we have the "European picture".
 
The truth is what needs to be taught, not just something ideologically friendly to the nation teaching the lessons.

Melon
 
whenhiphopdrovethebigcars said:
I agree, melon. Now, how can we define truth, then?

I'm going to guess that we can't define it in such a way that everyone everywhere is going to agree on it. The modernist assumption that thinking people everywhere, if they just used their reason, would come to the same conclusions, seems to have been largely de-bunked by postmodern critiques. But the question remains then...do we throw out truth (as a concept) entirely or do we admit that we are finite and come up with different stabs at it and that we could be right. But we could also be wrong.

random thots. ;)
 
Oh oh hoooo, Sula anwering to a thread of mine. What an honor to see you?re still alive, missus.

How?s it going, friend?
 
in germany, my cousins arent taught of world war 2.

dont ask, dont tell.

ofcourse everyone knows what happened, and a large deal of the population is still alive from that time but still. why is this not being taught to the children?
 
Last edited:
whenhiphopdrovethebigcars said:

But when we discuss openly, we have to be ready for statements like that, and not just brush them off as stupid.

Point noted.

However your other statement about perhaps portraying the wrong image (and sortof the whole flavor of this thread) of slavery by the inclusion of the fact that a handful of blacks also had slaves I disagree with.

I knew this from Grade 9 history, and it didn't change my perception of the overall evil of slavery nor did it cause me to believe that whites were any less to blame for slavery than what I believed in Grade 8.

My perception of his comment was that there is possibly a master plan to deliberately decieve students of history and slavery into believing that the only slave owners were white and all the slaves were black.

A simple read of the history of slavery as a concept will tell you that is not so.
 
To answer the original post asking for a universal history, I highly suggest reading Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs And Steel"(The Fates of Human Societies). Diamond deals with human history dating pretty much from our early ancestors up until the age of "guns, germs and steel" as he calls it, and by no means centers only around Europe. It truly is a global history and not a eurocentric one. It's a very interesting, illuminating and well-written read.

The basic question he tries to answer is why did Europe become the technologically advanced powerhouse it is today while much of Africa and smaller nations are still living relatively the same as they did a millenia ago? Why did European germs affect the native peoples of conquered countries so dramatically and native germs not affect Europeans to the same extent? And he goes well beyond and behind the obvious answers of "they developed technology first" or "they became more immune to disease" to really delve into how and more importanty why they developed it first - from both a social and geographic standpoint. It's really a fascinating book. :up:
 
Last edited:
gabrielvox said:

(...) and it didn't change my perception of the overall evil of slavery nor did it cause me to believe that whites were any less to blame for slavery than what I believed in Grade 8.

exactly :up:
 
Thanks for your suggestion, Diemen. I might look for it.

I think, too, that its very important if we compile a Universal history, the Ethiopian part should be written by an Ethiopian, the South African part by a South African, the American part by an American, the Iraqi part by an Iraqian, the Indoniesian part by an Indonesian, the Irish part by Bono, and the Vatican part by the Pope.
 
gabrielvox said:


What a silly statement. Whether or not a few uppity blacks (and it is certainly a few) betrayed their own brothers and sisters hardly changes the fact that the blame for the brutal genoicide and slavery of millions of black Africans in America lies squarely where it does, and it aint on black people.

Gabrielvox,
Usually I lean toward your perception if not exact dialogue, but this is just inflamatory.
First we were not the first Black slaveholders, our European friends beat us to that, though we were the last. Also like others said you have to play into the politics in Africa, specifically tribal wars and the reasons they sold off rival tribes as slaves.
I also believe slavery of the the traditional kind still exist in Africa and Asia (seen on 60 minutes a coulpe of years ago with rich Islamic families). Then you can get into white slavery, specifically prostitution slaves in western Europe and the former Soviet Union.
 
Last edited:
Well why dont we all just agree that slavery is bad no matter who is doing. I understand that blacks were the targets but to fight over who holds the most blame isnt something that young children should be learning about. We are trying to install them with basic pricapals and this is one of them.

I would be intrested to know how much certain countries learn about the ones closest to them. For myself i can remember every year we would learn specifically about one country along with my own country. Then ever second year we would focus on US. I would be intrested, if anyone can remeber, how much does Americans learn about Canada and Mexico? I can remember learning about China Russia Germany England and Africa. Anyone else remember?
 
whenhiphopdrovethebigcars said:
I agree, melon. Now, how can we define truth, then?

Easily: there is no "Truth" (<--note the capital "T"). "Truth" is defined by the person writing the history, the person translating the foreign language text, the worldview of the person writing it, the "important" part as defined by the editor, etc.

We need to teach reasonable theories of history, and foster individual scholarship and critical thought. In literature, just because we don't know exactly what went on in Charlotte Bronte's head when she wrote "Jane Eyre," it doesn't mean that we don't read it and analyze it. We just do it with the reality that these are subjective interpretations, and, as long as we have justification for our interpretation, it is, for all intensive purposes, "correct."

Sure, that may seem like some intellectual disease that only intellectuals can afford (;)), but why should we settle for the wrong answer, merely because it is the simplest answer?

Melon
 
Okey, okey, y know, I did this stuff like analyzing the different aspects of german litterature critique of Lord Byron over a time span of 150 years.

It wasn?t that simple. It fucked with my mind. And especially those were "just" criticians - not him.

With my intellectual disease blah I just wanted to say that we tend to overanalyse sometimes. In my opinion, the transcended feeling is the most important thing. What that person will make out of it in compare to that person... well. Its a piece of art so its free for interpretation.

I dig Lord Byron.

And then, I think we get nearer to the "truth" (if we can speak of a truth in that sense) when, in history, everyone tells his own story.
 
Having earned a degree in history and in education I am not ashamed to admit that I have not found the "Truth" in history. To break it down, history is a systematic way of thinking about the past. No two ways are exactly alike, this is what makes teaching it challenging and rewarding.

Just as a side note, many high schools are now offering a world cultures class as well as a world history class. I am teaching three sections of this course this semester and it focuses on non western history and culture.
 
Scarletwine said:


Gabrielvox,
Usually I lean toward your perception if not exact dialogue, but this is just inflamatory.
First we were not the first Black slaveholders, our European friends beat us to that, though we were the last. Also like others said you have to play into the politics in Africa, specifically tribal wars and the reasons they sold off rival tribes as slaves.
I also believe slavery of the the traditional kind still exist in Africa and Asia (seen on 60 minutes a coulpe of years ago with rich Islamic families). Then you can get into white slavery, specifically prostitution slaves in western Europe and the former Soviet Union.

Scarletwine please dont read insult into what I was saying, that wasn't my intention. My point was about slavery as it occured in America.

While it may not be a pleasant thought, white Americans were the ones most responsible for the type of brutal genocidal slavery and resultant lingering racism problems that seemed to be more of a North Amercian phenomenon.

In other cultures, slavery was not always based on race. My understanding was that it had more to do with social status. In addition in most other cultures while slavery was part of the fabric of their society, their religions taught them to treat their slaves well and not abuse them. For some reason these principles of basic human dignity even for those indentured to their owners just didn't make it to America as a general rule.

And, as you mentioned, America was one of the last countries to abolish slavery based on race.
 
gabrielvox said:

While it may not be a pleasant thought, white Americans were the ones most responsible for the type of brutal genocidal slavery and resultant lingering racism problems.

:up:

I think racism is/ was spread in all the world though.
 
Back
Top Bottom