Abstract :
There is no doubt that African societies have developed various civilizations historically, but during the interface between Africa and Europe in the modern period (from 1500 onwards) , the general tendency of the latter was to speak of African societies as being pre-literate, oral, or non-literate, primitive, barbaric, backward, among others. The fallacy of this claim has never been fully challenged to show that it was unfeasible, in the past nor in the present, to have cities with populations in the region of half a million inhabitants in which there were no formal means of transacting business and record documentation. More importantly, very little of indigenous African knowledge, science and development in historic times have been recognized and transmitted to continental Africans and Diaspora through clearly defined educational structures.
The challenges of resources, technology, brain drain, and onerous financial burdens of external facing Africana societies make even the research and transmission of indigenous knowledge and history secondary, not to talk of properly documenting, preserving and making available contemporary history and cultural values of Africana societies by Africana peoples. This means that most of Africana knowledge and resources are being recorded and managed by third parties. And there is no way one's history can be written by others to one's satisfaction, much less preserved in faithfulness and truthfulness. And the current situation of African history, knowledge and culture not being documented, preserved and taught to Africana children on African terms by mainly Africans is totally unacceptable.
Based on my research on, and experience of, availability of the materials for teaching Africana peoples in Africa and in the Diaspora, my interest in this essay is to alert all Africana peoples to the necessity of properly codifying, preserving and ensuring that Africana knowledge and cultural heritage is made readily retrievable to Africana peoples everywhere. In order to do this, it is suggested that there be collaborative efforts by Africana peoples on all continents to develop and preserve and make available Africana knowledge and cultural heritage. When this is done, it is argued, and then Africana youth will be able to access materials relating to their culture, and deliberate efforts being made to teach Africana children about Africans on the continent and in the Diaspora will not be under a pall of information vacuum. This will make it possible to ensure that in the centuries down the road it is not said, again, that Africa and her Diaspora did not make historically recorded and easily accessible contributions to world knowledge, civilization and heritage in the modern and contemporary times.
Introduction :
It is a fallacy to indicate that a group of people does not have a formal method of adequately recording intellectual and practical activities taking place within their society. It is even a greater misconception to say that existing generation or previous generations of people did not have a history. It is as if one is looking at another person's civilization through the perspective of one's civilization, and saying, because there are differences in cultural practices the other person's civilization is inferior to one's own. This fallacy was deliberately perpetrated against Africa and African peoples, before the era of continental independence – the 1950s and 1960s mainly – when Africans began to regain their own voices, to tell their own stories.
With this development, Africans and those who are objective scholars of African history and civilization, like Zaslavsky, started to tell the world that Africans had numerous ways of record keeping, calculating and recording knowledge and data before the coming of the Europeans. It was clear that no cities or civilizations could have flourished without such methods. But, with colonization, these methods were not encouraged or developed further, because they were seen as unimportant, compared to the Western record keeping systems, or if found useful, would not be in tune with the objective of total exploitation and domination of the colonies, to recognize viable intellectual items of the colonies. Thus, it was a popular concept during the era of colonization to assume that Africa was a dark continent, where barbaric activities took place. This idea was used, in a way, to justify colonization, exploitation and expropriation of Africa , so as to save Africans from themselves, with a belief that the Africans have no ideas of God, no moral beliefs, no civilization, no culture or history.
This continued to the level at which it was being stressed in the early 1960s that there was no history of Africa to teach, and that may be in the future there would be something to teach of Africa, culminating in the infamous claim by Hugh Trevor-Roper that darkness is not a source of historical interest. Trevor-Roper did for history what Robin Horton did for philosophy, describing the primitive, pre-logical mentality of Africans, whose intellectual predicament is closed to science, reason and development. The early kingdoms of Oyo and Benin , for example, were totally forgotten. The history of Ghana and Songhai empires was also ignored. The Great Zimbabwe civilization was credited to aliens. This is just to mention a few of the empires and civilizations that dotted the African continent before the interface of Africa with Europe in the modern period.
The popular belief, then, was that Africa must be managed in such a way that there would not be any return to the barbaric era of its darkness. Hence, when the nationalist movements for the liberation of Africa from colonialism began, it was thought, by some agents of colonialism, to be a backward movement to the period of African darkness; especially targeted for derision was the Mau Mau rebellion of Kenya .
On June 30, 1960 when Congo , as a country, was getting its independence, King Baudouin made a statement that stressed the belief that African was not functioning well as a society before the coming of the colonists. He said, in his speech, that:
It is up to you, gentlemen, to show that you are worthy of our confidence. The independence of Congo constitutes the culmination of the work conceived by the genius of King Leopold II, undertaken by him with a tenacious courage and continued with perseverance with Belgium. 1
He went to further, by advising the Congolese on how to manage their society's affairs, by saying that they should not rush their reform. The structure that Belgium left with them should not be changed, until they ‘are sure they can do better'. All this suggested that Africans can not manage their society's affairs without external influence.
Looking at this preconceived notion about Africa and Africans, the question that begs for an answer is this: How can there be total eradication of the bias and negative concept of Africa and regarding Africans in the minds of the foreign writers of African history, who are not part of the people of African decent and who believe that colonization and enslavement of Africans was the best thing to have happened to Africa and the Africa Diaspora? This question is urgent, as there is need to ensure that the past destruction of Africa and African heritage does not repeat itself in the future, and generations of African and Diaspora youths are not persuaded that they are descended from apes and barbarians.
When we are looking into ways of answering this question, we will have to consider the fact that systematic acquisition of information leads to the growth of knowledge. The only way to change the course of history is to be part of documenting process; that is, by actively paying attention to what is recorded about African experience, events in African societies, and through proper analysis of the questions relating to how and why these events and experiences took place.
Knowledge Management :
Libraries have usually been known as a reservoir and repositories of information and knowledge. In addition to this quality of libraries, libraries have helped in promoting the material and intellectual culture of societies. Through many activities of libraries, people have broadened their awareness of the history, science, religions, sociology and cultural developments in society, to mention just a few. Some users have used libraries to develop their social skills, and many see libraries, especially the public libraries as centres for social networking and cultural reaffirmation.
Libraries have helped children improve on their reading and information literacy skills. The majority of people in many developed and developing societies depend solely on public libraries to satisfy their information needs. Based on this relationship between the public and libraries, it is very important for libraries to develop its collection to the satisfaction of its clients; that is, libraries must be sensitive to the needs of clients and public, making sure of accuracy of information stored, and accessibility of its collection.
The needs of the customers could only be satisfied in a justifiable way if materials provided are authentic and in no way reduce in value and quality of the primary sources of information. There are different sources of information, as information may be obtained from origins which can be either secondary sources or primary sources, depending on whether they were produced out of consulting a source or used to produce another material. These are books, journals, government publications, brochures, newspapers, among others. Knowledgeable people can be interviewed and, definitely, this is a primary source of information.
On the other hand, information storage and dissemination can take different formats. These can be print or non-print. More attention has been concentrated on non-print media in many societies, given the advancements taking place in electronic technology. It may be because of easy accessibility or the ability of some to display more than one piece of information at a time. Lynne Schafer Gross (2000) expressed the view on the wide spread of peoples' interest in telecommunication as stated below:
Telecommunication is one of the most potent forces in the world today. It influences society as a whole, and it influences every one of us as an individual… The early pioneers of radio would never recognize today's plethora of electronic media-broadcast, television, cable TV, direct broadcast satellite, multimedia, videocassettes, the Internet just to name a few 2
The objective of storing information in any library is to promote the growth and use of knowledge when people have access to the information. There is, therefore, the issue of funding, which cannot be ignored. Public libraries and specialized libraries are non-functional in the Caribbean and many African countries – of which one can cite Nigeria as an example. Most school libraries, including those in tertiary educational institutions, are usually not well funded. If those who are responsible for funding a library realise that through the effort and services of libraries the individual and the nation are developed technologically and culturally, maybe more financial resources would have been made available to develop the required collection and dissemination of information.
Sources of Knowledge :
1. Textbooks
A preconceived idea, in most cases, affects subsequent transactions and future opinion of people about other people, places or things. Reading informs, and the information received through reading becomes a source of knowledge that can be gained about the subject matter of the material read. Since it is a common understanding that the knowledge gained has effect on how one views the object or subject that one learns about, therefore, information contained on sources, such as books, journals, magazines, and other materials, should be objective, truthful and presented in an unbiased way.
It required a scientific mind to know that things are not static. The preconceived idea about Africa is often being exhibited in different ways. Some textbooks are currently being produced which speak about different countries/continents of the world. When one looks at those texts written about many other countries, outside of Africa , the focus is mainly on their cultures, successful businesses and the people. In relating information about these countries, one sees high rise buildings, without mentioning the part of a city that nobody would like to see. These texts would become a source of historical writings for the future.
However, when the peoples of Africa in the Diaspora read the books that are written about Africa and African (in some sense even by Africans), the information in them become a source of concern, leading to negative beliefs about how Africa should be viewed. The children living on the continent, after reading these books, may likely continue to believe in a negative way that they are different.
There are textbooks on the market written by people who have the interest in writing African history, but do not have the accurate information or have allowed the previous negative representation of the history and the people of Africa to control their line of thought. I had an experience of such a book when I was to teach history of West Africa to a Eleventh Grade in Jamaica (Form Five). If I had not been privileged to have had access to a book written on the same subject by an African writer, I would have also believed that that aspect of the history that I was reading was written the way it was to be written. I had to get books written by unbiased minds in order to complete the teaching. It would be of importance to the new generation of the Africa and its Diasporas to have access to books written by people who have direct connection to the life of Africana peoples and those who can actually do a serious research in presenting the facts about the history of Africa . In the library system there are procedures for selection of information. Thus, in order to select a book that is suitable for the use of library users that material can be evaluated using the following guidelines: Purpose, Target, Content, Date of Publication, Authority, Bibliography, Relevance, Coverage and Illustrations.
a) Purpose of the book:
In selecting texts and information resources for library collection, some questions are pertinent. These include, for example, in dealing with the subject matter of history; (i) In your own view, when reading some parts of a particular history book and you are thinking critically about the history of Africa, do you think the history book is giving you the right sequence of historical events, the true picture of what could have been the historical aspect of the past of the people whose history has been documented? (ii) Do you suspect any form of persuasion or contradiction, in terms of previous information that you have received? (iii) Do you think the book is going to serve your own purpose of truly and objectively informing your patrons? And, (iv) does the information presented in the book or information material ignite a challenge to want to read more, that is, want to research more into the subject matter, or do you just feel frustrated and want to give up reading or looking for information on the subject matter?
Some form of guidance may be provided by the overall policy of the agency, but the librarian or information specialist must exercise discretion in deciding on materials collected, especially bearing in mind the history, nature and culture of the society that is being served. This is where training and professional competence is critical for the performance of the job of librarians and information specialists in schools.
How you answer these questions, given the nature of the client base of the library, will determine whether to consider the material a good addition to the Library collection or not. And sensitivity to the needs of the users of the library, their historical antecedents, contemporary history and potential information need will help guide the choice that is made for acquisition of books and other materials. An individual user must make a decision on the suitability of a book to his or her purpose of consulting it.
b) Content of the book:
Understanding the direction of the content of a book or information material is very important. First of all, it is important that the content of a book should address the title of the book, otherwise there will be deception. Even if the topic is presented in a creative way, what is found in the book should address the implied title. Second, it is also important for the book to address the information need of its user; for example, if there is general or perceived need for information about African Nationalists, it would not be satisfactory for you to to read about the colonists being presented as the nationalists.
Moreover, it is important that the content fit the needs of the clients, as it is with the reading population and their needs in mind, that libraries are often established. For this reason, an information specialist or librarian will ensure that care is taken to procure materials which will speak to the information needs of the clients.
c) Date of publication
It may be said that historical events do not change, but further research may reveal more things that older editions of a book did not cover. For this reason, it is to be expected that new editions will have additional information that old editions did not have.
To apply this to the writing of African history, we know that some books were written, based on the writers' ignorance on the one hand, and biased view of African history; consequently one can meaningfully say that it is now time for the contemporary historians and writers to sit up and conduct authentic research and produce history that the new generation can relate to. Even, in some instances, an old edition needs to be revised and re-written with a modern touch; this will ensure that what is the final product is a book free of bias and misconception.
d) Authorship and authority
There is no doubt that the professional training of authors matter to the integrity of their work. Works done by pretenders to authority often create intellectual problems. This was evident in the ways in which Eurocentric colonial officers became the authorities on the history, religion and cultures of Africa during the colonial period. Thus, the works they produced only served to defend and uphold their cultural heritage by comparison to the heritage of Africa .
In developing library and information agenda for the Africana peoples, it is important that librarians and information specialists be sensitive to the question of authorship and authority of the sources of books and other information that they collect for their readership. This is to know if the author has authority on what he/she writes.
In the context of African history one also needs to know if the author is representing a biased point of view. Is the author a well-known and respected intellectual or a person who usually contradicts himself or herself when presenting his or her views? Or, is the author someone who is disposed to represent opinion as fact, conjecture as truth and belief as knowledge? Thus, it is also essential to know that the writer is not somebody who writes out of conformity to the general prevailing norm, without considering facts and other people's views, especially when these differ from the orthodoxy of the day.
e) Bibliography
A book without reference sources is not worth consulting. There are other views and ideas on whatever one is writing that can be used as background in developing one's concept. All the sources consulted needs to be recognized. In reading an African history text, even if it written by somebody without African connection, the bibliography should show that views of African and Diaspora are not disregarded. The content of a book and the point of direction of a book can be determined by the bibliography, in addition to other relevant parts of a book.
f) Relevance
What is the purpose of using a book to teach African history if it does not meet your target of informing your students and other readership about the true events of African history? A well researched book addressing the need of the particular moment should be consulted and used in teaching students of history.
A book that contradicts itself is not something that can be used to teach; if used then wrong knowledge of how African history should be written and how events in African history evolved would be passed on to the learners with catastrophic consequences about African past.
Through research, the teacher should be able to have a good knowledge of the chronology of events in African history from a combination of sources before selecting a particular text for use for teaching the learners. Any book that diverges dramatically from the general historiography would be suspect. Hence, a book that has the wrong presentation of historical events should be avoided. If it is detected that a text in use has such issues, the use of the book should be discontinued, in the interest of learners.
The task of detecting this is also on the shoulders of the librarian and information specialists. If the teachers are not aware of such problems, then the astute librarian and information specialist should bring such to the attention of the institution and the teacher. There can be no gainsaying the fact that librarians and information specialists are critical to the intellectual, social, psychological and cultural development of their societies. This responsibility is critical in facilitating the positive and healthy development of the sense of identity, social cohesion and intellectual awareness of society.
g) Coverage
In most cases students prefer books in which they can find most of the information that is needed on a subject matter. It is not a matter of encouraging laziness. Various books can be selected for students' consultation, but they have to cover a lot of areas that are being treated. For example, if West African history or Caribbean history is to be taught, a good book should cover the people, culture, customs and economic aspects of the society. Besides using this criterion for library acquisition, it can also be used by persons to determine validity of material.
h) Target
The suitability of a book for the intended group depends on the author's target in writing the book. If an Africana history book intended for tertiary level students is recommended for high school students, it may lead to lack of comprehension of the content. This may lead to a lack of interest in the learning of Africana history and may lead to total misconception of the information being presented. This is not disregarding the fact that that there are different levels of readers and learners.
i) Illustrations
Young students would prefer illustrated books, but this does not make a difference for adult students. This is because younger people would find illustrated books easier to read, as it will hold their attention and imagination.
It is therefore the responsibility of the librarian and information specialist to ensure a proper blend of content and illustration for the different levels of users of the collection in the information centre. For school libraries, there are just sections for fiction, non-fiction and reference, while in public libraries there are sections for the various categories of users. The librarian should use professional judgment to stock materials.
2. Television
It is important to emphasize that the peoples of African origin should promote their history, ideas, beliefs and culture through writing. There are many ways of documenting and making known ones historical background and future projection. I referred to the future because in many cases the knowledge of the past assists in charting the future direction. Television is one way that America 's culture enters and dictates the lives of many non-Americans. Children watch television programmes believing that what they view is accurate and authentic.
The culture of a nation is part of what constitute the history of the nation. The culture being displayed on the television today becomes part of the history of tomorrow. Parents are busy looking for ways to better their financial standing while the television is rebuilding today and tomorrow for them and their off-springs. The proliferation of Cable Television in Jamaica , for example, has discouraged the urge to watch local television stations in Jamaica , and some of the programmes shown on local television stations are borrowed ones.
In the early 1990s in Jamaica there were plays by Oliver Samuels, a local comedian, which were shown on the television which children can sit and enjoy and at the same time build the knowledge they have of their nation's culture which will become their frame of reference for the future. Given the influx of Cable Television, this has been crowded out, especially as the cost of production for competition with the mass-produced Cable is difficult to meet; while at the same time, local sponsorship in a contracting economy is a challenge for the television stations to access.
One positive development, though, is the fact that there is rapid growth of African movies, but when one looks at some of them they are not totally depicting African culture. It can be argued that we are in a global village, but when the global village starts showing concentration on one side of the globe, is it still a global village?
Imagine an African movie showing African Cinderella, where she was dancing with her prince not to an African music but a borrowed one. Almost every culture has its own Cinderella story tailored to show the beliefs, values and attitudes of its people. We must encourage the telling of our own epics with the flavour of our indigenous culture, even when we use tools that are borrowed from other parts of the world.
Hence, as indicated earlier, television serves as a way of transmitting beliefs and culture of people which is a tool of writing the history of a nation. Africa and its Diaspora have not been fully represented in this arena, and where represented, often negative imagery and mythology is presented of Africa
What can be done to make the right impact on how Africa is represented to the rest of the world is to get involved in this way of writing and documenting history and culture. We must bear in mind that the future of the next generation depends largely on these efforts being correctly pursued. Africa owes its future generations this much, and this can only be accomplished by bringing their history to them through their culture and into their playground.
Historically motivated movies need to be produced and distributed. It is in this regard that we must note that, in spite of the laudable achievements of libraries in the Caribbean, it is regrettable that public libraries in the Caribbean do not have multimedia collection that could cater to the needs of the electronically dependent generation. When one goes to public libraries in the United States one would see different audiovisual materials that depicted different groups, and each community library stores mostly videos of movies about the ethnic groups represented in the community.
In this regard, it is necessary for those people in the business of making of movies in Africa to promote the culture of the Africa and its Diaspora. It is also of utmost importance for libraries to store materials that will rejuvenate the belief in oneself, as descendants of people with a great past.
3. The Internet
The Internet is the trend in information storage, searching and retrieval for many people, especially the younger generation. What many young people do not know is that not all the information on the Net is edited and not all the information is authentic. It is remarkable that in today's world, anybody, whether genuine or counterfeit, who has access to the Internet can publish something and make it accessible to others who access the Internet.
Individual's perception has a part to play in how one thinks, speak and how one's idea is documented. There are articles on the Internet which are written in ways that portray the values and attitudes of the writer. When an individual writes about another people's history definitely his/her perception of the people and their ways of life would be brought into the work. Students have put their school essays on the Internet. It does not mean that lecturers have read them and approve the idea of putting them on the Internet, but the student just feel compelled to make his/her contribution to the information that can be accessed online.
It has seriously been emphasized that the current technologies have various effects on the lives of individuals but the information retrieved via technology also play a major role in determining how we live and express ourselves. As a result of this, it is very important to be empowered on managing the information retrieved from the Internet. The guidelines listed below, similar to what we looked at for books but with special technology-driven nature, can be followed in deciding what to read and what not to read:
a) Authorship
The author's name should appear on the work posted on the Internet. This would enable you to verify if the writer has any authority on what is written. Check the email, phone number or the organization sponsoring the page if there is any. It is very important to know the credibility of what is posted on the net.
Knowing the sponsor is very essential. An organization would like to sponsor and be associated with what it stands for. Check if the organization's approval is stated on the information you are using.
The qualification of the author should be checked to know what training and authority the person has in writing what he/she wrote. One would not want to accept as a fact if a medical practitioner writes something about history, without previous qualification on the subject or actually engaging in activities that involve historical events.
b) Purpose
Each site is set up for a purpose. You need to know the intention of the site in which you find the information. Is it just to inform, teach or persuade? Is the site known for junk material? In reading the information, do you sense that the information is biased, impartial or not presenting a proper representation of the topic being treated?
In the case of African and African Diaspora history, do you think the author is representing the history in an opinionated way? Is the writer presenting too much of negativity and judgments as facts? Do you think the person is trying to rewrite history in the way that it did not happen, based on your previous knowledge?
c) Objectivity
One may likely say that it is not possible to sway facts in writing history, but it is possible not to present the actual fact in an objective way. As it was mentioned earlier people's perception affect what they write and ways in which their ideas are presented. It is also important to check if the site is free of advertisement or sponsored link. If there are connections with organizations, it is important to ensure that what one is reading is not presented in a biased way; it is not a covered fact, opinion or propaganda.
d) Accuracy
Any information with credibility must have sources; reliable information must be well researched; therefore, it is very important to check if the writer listed materials that were consulted during the preparation of the work. Based on your previous knowledge and other information sources, are you able to say that the information is reliable and error-free?
What can also give much credibility to a work is if it is reviewed or refereed. Information on the Internet are largely not monitored or coordinated. A reference librarian can be contacted, to see if the type of historical information that one gets online can be found in any print form for verification.
e) Coverage
It is also good to know the depth of the information retrieved, and to compare it with the depth needed. Check if the information is relevant and useful to meet the requirements that compel you initially to seek the information.
Some information on the Internet just mention some items on a topic, without going in-depth and, because of this superficial nature of what they provide the seriousness of what they cover may not be easily determined. This needs to be checked.
f) Currency
Different types of dates in relation to the publication of information on the net can be provided; these may be the date it was first written, the date it was first published on the web and the date of last revision made to the information or document. For historical information or any other educational information, a revision date should mean that additional information has been added, which should show that further information seeking process has been conducted.
The references provided should also give a guide on the currency of the information being used. Just as in a print format, dated information should not be depended upon, because such information has become obsolete or overtaken by time and growth of knowledge.
Collaboration between Librarians, Information Specialists and Libraries :
There is no doubt that there is a huge gulf in terms of knowledge of, about and concerning Africa on the part of peoples of Africa Diaspora. The situation is also the same for Africans regarding peoples of the African Diaspora. The fact that information is controlled by the Western media and agencies mean that whatever information is available may not reflect the truth about both sides. It is for this reason that there is need for deliberate policy, on the part of leaders and governments of African countries and Africana societies to collaborate in the education of the youth and public. This will help to counter the negative stereotypes about Africa to African Diasporas, and with regard to the Diaspora about Africans.
There are many ways of doing this. But I will mention a few here. First, there is need to carefully examine and revise the curricular regarding African history, and history of the African Diaspora, to ensure that such history reflect the truth from the perspective of Africana peoples, not as mere objects, but as subjects with agency in the course of their own history. Second, there is need for librarians and information specialists to interact formally and informally to share, deliberate on and experience first hand the information challenges in their various societies as it affects users and as it affects the outcomes of information usage. Third, there is need to look into the question of deliberately promoting the structures that facilitate the publication and dissemination of knowledge, information and ideas relating to the cultures and beliefs of Africans both in Africa and in the Diaspora. Currently, most agencies for information and knowledge publication that have clout and influence in Africa and in the Diaspora are located and controlled by the colonial metropoles, with agendas that are not necessarily conducive to the development and independence of Africana societies. Finally, research institutes and centres that will promote the growth of knowledge on and about Africana peoples are needed. It is only when there is adequate funding for such agencies, and the independence of such agencies from controls by political interest groups are guaranteed that true knowledge on and about Africana peoples will emerge and be properly disseminated.
For the above suggestions to become meaningful there is need for recognition of the role of libraries, librarians and information specialists in the existence of Africa , Africans and the African Diaspora. It is sad that when there is a financial crunch, libraries are easily the target of funding cuts, because the effect of such cuts is not easily obvious. But a society that does not fund properly the process of information and knowledge creation, development, storage, retrieval and dissemination is only digging the grave for its own development and the enslavement of its posterity. It is for this reason that the controllers of resources must be mindful of the adverse effects of the underdevelopment of information facilities in Africa and linkages with the Diaspora.
It is clear that a lot of the leadership challenges facing many Africana societies are a product of ignorance with regard to African historic greatness and contribution to the development of human civilization. It is through the deliberate development, propagation and dissemination of such information, especially through a reorientation and preparation of potential Africana leadership, that the future of African societies, as independent and not dependent, can be assured. As the repository of knowledge and information, libraries in Africa and African Diaspora, must be empowered to take the leadership role in this regard.
Conclusion :
It is clear that the knowledge and information sources discussed above are not exhaustive. They are some of the ways in which Africa and its Diaspora history can be collected, stored and accessed. History has been made and recorded in the previous generations and to a certain extent we can say we did not contribute much to the making of the history and neither did we write it by ourselves, but history is being made in this generation by us and others, even if by default we are passive participants.
We can (should) not complain if we are unlucky to read negative things which are not true about us in the future what is being recorded now, if we fail to make our impact by contributing our own perspective to the documentation of our history. For example, in Jamaica, Usain Bolt completed the 100m men in 9.69 seconds at the last Olympics in Beijing in August 2008, with this he has made a new Olympic and World record; while Shelly-Ann Fraser, who came first in the 100m women made a record with Sherone Simpson and Kerron Stewart when they became the first female set from any country to lead the same race – winning First, Second and Second in the race. The success of these ladies met some complaints from their counterpart from another country when they claimed their own athlete false-started in the race and the race should have been called back.
If this part of Jamaican history is going to be written by somebody from the country that raised the challenge, the version would be different from how a Jamaican historian would have written it. On the front page of the sports section of The Gleaner of Thursday, August 21, 2008, there was a caption “9.69 + 19.30 = History”. This was with regard to the World Records set by Usain Bolt in the 100 and 200 meter dash at the same Olympics.
We may be complaining about the representation from the past but this time a future generation can be fed with the unbiased story, through the efforts that we make to be our own mouth-piece. So take your pen and make it happen, write, produce and disseminate our history from our own perspective.
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End Notes
1 Meredith , Martin . The State of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence . London : Free Press, 2005. pg. 93.
2 Gross, Lynne Schafer. Preface. Telecommunications: An Introduction to Electronic Media . 7 th ed . By Gross. Boston : McGraw Hill, 2000. pg. xv.
