Last October, we talked about how culture is created and how it is transmitted through the curriculum and educational settings in the blog entry “Culture through Education and Textbooks“. We saw how the research conducted by the Georg Eckert Institute in Germany shows that textbooks of certain curricular areas, such as history and geography, can spur controversy and feed into conflicts that have national, cultural or political origins. The reasons behind these controversial contents often originate in governments and communities that hold strong biases or agendas and influence in the educational system through textbooks and materials that purposely emphasize or ignore certain facts, historical events or the influence of key personalities while creating impediments to favor tolerance, mutual understanding and constructive steps towards co-existence and peace.

Shanoor Seervai recently wrote on the Wall Street Journal an interesting article about the History Project, a collaborative peace-building initiative promoted by youth from Pakistan and India that seeks to unveil stereotypes from history textbooks that perpetuate the animosity between people from these two countries over time. The project is devoted to provide “access for youth in their formative years to alternative perspectives on their shared heritage and to encourage a culture of rational and critical thinking.”

The History Project has been successful at publishing its first book with the same title (“The History Project“), which is available online for no fee. The book takes a number of differing narratives extracted from Indian and Pakistani textbooks alike, “juxtapose[d] unadulterated versions of history being taught in text books on either side of the border. We collated versions from history text books and put differing versions side by side, in an attempt to highlight the reality of an alternative perspective with equally convincing foundations.” If you look at the illustrations, you will also notice that the historical figures represented are faceless, in an attempt to detach this alternative narrative from stereotypes of well-known political personalities criticized or praised in other textbooks. Some key historical events such as the Civil Disobedience Movement, the Salt March or the Lahore Resolution are also depicted in the book: “Historical events are politicized to substantiate present events… and textbooks become a tool to bolster a political agenda.” The History Project continues to present initiatives, such as the Twitter feed that they will launch in June.

“But most importantly, we discovered that people laden as enemies in our minds without us ever having met them can be as good friends (or enemies) as anyone back home.” The History Project

This project reminded us of the TED talk video that we wrote about a few months ago “The Danger of a Single Story” by Chimamanda Adichie, who reflects about the perils of listening to incomplete or non-inclusive stories and narratives that reinforce stereotypes and affect the mutual understanding and co-existence of cultures, communities and individuals.

If you are interested in this area of the world, some further literature can be found here:

• Denizens of Alien Worlds, a study about the educational system in Pakistan by Dr. Tariq Rahman.
• A Pacifist Uncovered, an article about nonviolence activist Abdul Ghaffar Khan and his influential but also forgotten role in the independence of the region.
• A brief description of activities conducted by Women in Security, Conflict Management and Peace (WISCOMP), a foundation that brings together young people from across South Asia, and specifically from India and Pakistan, who are motivated to engage in nonviolent social change and on issues of peace and security affecting the region.
• A review of ten contemporary South Asian writers who write about various cultural and societal issues in the region.