History books and history education: why we can't communicate with each other?

This is great to be here in the Washington Center program in DC. Last week we visited the nonprofit organization Machik which sends volunteers to Tibet plateau to teach the students in summer schools. And on the coming Monday, we're going to have a joint program with Taiwan students to talk about facilitating dialogue and communications. I always believe what I've seen and people I've talked to. That's how I get ideas and insights of things. And I will continue talking to people at different places to hear what they think and what they want.

But here comes another question: why couldn't we talk to each other in the past? What hindered the channels of communication? I had no idea just before this weekend and then I realized that there's something very important which we'd taken for granted for a long time.

I have been reading the book Imperial Crusades: Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia. And then I suddenly bumped into the topic of Korean war. I was very familiar with it, not only because my hometown was only miles from North Korea and my grandparents worked as doctors during the Korean war, but also because I was an art student in high school, which meant that the compulsory curriculum for me included History, Geography, and Politics. I remembered how the Korean war processed and how many Chinese soldiers fought and died, and finally we "won" the war and driven the American invaders out of the Korean land. But then, I barely remembered nothing about how the war broke out? What caused the war? Why American soldiers were there? My memory was blank.

Then I tried my best and squeezed some crumbs out of my faded memory of high school history classes. It seemed that there were some disputes between the North and South Korean and then? What happened? I couldn't remember anything from the textbook. And then I went online and googled. I was a little surprised and embarrassed. Surprised because I didn't know it. Embarrassed because it was a little different than what I had thought of it.

Then I felt being cheated. Why didn't I know it? I'm not being conceited, but if from the higher education of history that I didn't get it, there must have been at least a third Chinese students who don't know it, including those who don't care about it.

And here are some other facts that makes me uneasy.

1. History book of Japan. We've long been criticizing the Japanese Rightists of “distorting history” by deleting the crucial facts of massacres in World War II and "beautifying their intentions of war".

2. Knowledge gap. We educate our students to believe A and they educate the students to believe B. Both of us believe that our educations are righteous and our students believe that they're well-educated and they know the "truth".

So how could we expect that our generation and the following generations can communicate each other smoothly and effectively when both of our knowledge is based on biased and manipulated facts? And this explains partly why many Chinese people boycott Japanese goods, go on a parade of anti-independence-of-Taiwan-province, and ignore Tibetans' religious freedom (the history books in China teach us that the people's liberation army liberated the backward feudal Tibet plateau and brought new opportunities for them to thrive).

Behind the deep misunderstandings among different nations and peoples, history books and history education play an important role. It is pretty surreal for all the governments around the world to come up with a set of "standardized, unbiased and disinterested" history books and history education curriculum, because history itself is largely shaped by human's wills and limitations, according to the Social Constructivism Theory.

Then how can we deal with the "natural barriers" that set people apart at the first place? Reforms of history education? No way. The whole education system is by and large serving the national interest. By displaying "objective facts" to the young generations and publicly denunciating the past political leaders are considered to be suicidal madness.

Then HOW! If we can't rely on governments' action, who should we turn to? Non-governmental organizations? International non-governmental organizations? Then how will these organizations survive? Apparently they won't receive any funding from "biased governments". Who will donate? How many people are willing to "pay for the truth"?

Well, I guess I'm getting more and more confused right now.