Sasha and Zamani

Once I reached WWI and WWII in history books, I considered myself to have reached the end of textbooks since I felt no need to read about more recent events that my parents, teachers or even I have experienced. Why read about it in textbooks if I “know” about them or can easily ask my parents and teachers about it? However, this chapter and also the LLA classes by Rab reversed this idea. For example, I realized that I only know a small portion of the Iraqi War from television and newspapers, the portion that the U.S. government thinks it benign to present to the public. Recent history must be more censored by the government than older history, which makes it even more vital for us to learn about it in class and for textbooks to include them. Loewen claims that teachers and textbook authors are cautious when they touch on the sasha or the living-dead, and I agree with him. In school, I do think that teachers are extremely cautious in offending students, especially in a multicultural classroom. However, teachers would only offend students or their parents if they insisted on only one answer and compelled students to agree with them, in my opinion. As long as they present various views on the issue, and the teachers stay unbiased it should not be such a problem. Offending their country may be a more sensitive subject for teachers and textbook authors than offending their students because they are liable to lose their jobs. For example, if textbook authors revealed in their textbooks that the U.S. government gave tremendous amount of money to Vice President Cheney’s company, Halliburton in rebuilding Iraq, that textbook would probably be banned and the author would be fired. Many textbooks being vague about the cause of the Iraqi War tell me that authors act out of self-interest. Protecting him/herself from government criticism is more important than cultivating students with the ability to critically assess history. Then, it seems to me that textbooks are more like biographies of their own country where in the end, they conclude that “our country is great”, thus erasing all the negative parts. This also brings up another surprising fact about some parts of the some textbooks are written by or “fabricated” by underlings. We are being told by people who produce their works in the “wikipedian” way not to use Wikipedia as a source for our history papers.

This chapter vastly covered the 9/11 and the Iraqi War, and I discovered many surprising things. First of all, I didn’t know that the Iraqi War and the 9/11 terrorism were not connected. It was interesting to read the part where Loewen says, “Bin Laden had nothing but contempt for Saddam Hussein”. It was also intriguing to know that there were U.S. policies and actions that explain how the 9/11 was not an unexpected event. However, textbooks still seem tentative to concisely present the true reasons. The excerpt from Pageant subtly implies that Bin Laden was envious of the U.S. When I read what President Bush said to the Congress as an explanation for why the U.S. was attacked, I was astonished. Bin Laden attacked the U.S. because he envies the freedom U.S. has sounds like an explanation for a five-year old. However, at the time where many people lost their families and friends from the 9/11, I am sure many were satisfied with this reason.

I honestly do feel sorry for all the losses in the 9/11 terrorism attack, but personally I think there are too many movies and documentaries made to empathize with the victims and their families. I think they naturally produce within the viewers a strong animosity towards Muslims, which I believe will further exacerbate the conflict between Americans and Muslims. Some movies that I watched are Ladder 49, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and United 93. Ladder 49 is about a firefighter who dies saving victims from the World Trade Center, and the ending made me cry. The first thing that I thought when I finished watching the movie was how cruel these terrorists were. In my opinion, these movies all conclude how devastating the 9/11 attack was on Americans physically and mentally, and of course none of them mention the Muslim side of the story. I think these movies encourage Americans to unify by “fabricating” a common enemy, and I believe some textbooks are essentially doing the same thing, if at a lesser level. The recent Boston bombing and people cheering the police as the suspect was caught told me the conflict between Americans and Muslims have not been alleviated at all. Textbooks are academic tools; they should be addressing the question “why did the terrorists attacked the World Trade Center” instead of merely presenting U.S. as the victim.

I like Loewen’s use of sarcasm in his writing. It makes it easier for me to see the controversial way textbooks are made and written.