CRITICAL REVIEW 3

Devising Something from Mr. Zinn

author : Ema Wilianti Dewi

INTRODUCTION

            This paper is designed to give some critic within Howard Zinn’s article entitled “Speaking Truth to Power with Books”. Inside of this article, Howard Zinn wrote about one chapter in his book which title is “A People History of United States”. This book has one chapter that stands to be a controversial chapter and the primary chapter in his book.

SUMMARY

            There is one point that mostly discussed in the article of “Speaking Truth to Power with Books”. The point is, Howard Zinn wrote that “A Book Can Change Somebody’s Life by Changing Somebody’s Consciousness”. This statement blew up because Zinn have heard some people said that “This book change my life”. This moment happened when he invited to speak at the University of Hawaii and afterwards he was sitting in the cafeteria. There was a student sitting across the table from him and she was reading a book. At that time, Zinn said to the student “what do you thing about that book?” she answered, “This book changed my life”. Therefore he convinced that book can do that.

            Zinn has a book that stand to be a controversy in the world especially in America. This book entitled “A People History of United States”. The biggest controversy is in the first chapter that Zinn’s talk about Christopher Columbus. There are two points that have to lift up about Columbus from Zinn’s writing.

            First, Zinn wrote that Columbus take some of Arawak men and women aboard ship as prisoners because he insisted that they guide him to the source of the gold.

Columbus wrote: As soon as I arrived in the Indies, on the first Island which I found, I took some of the natives by force in order that they might learn and might give me information of whatever there is in these parts.

The information that Columbus wanted most was: Where is the gold? He had persuaded the king and queen of Spain to finance an expedition to the lands, the wealth, he expected would be on the other side of the Atlantic-the Indies and Asia, gold and spices. For, like other informed people of his time, he knew the world was round and he could sail west in order to get to the Far East.

Second, not all of us know that Columbus is very cruel. Christopher Columbus said within his logbook that Arawak men and women do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane.... They would make fine servants....With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want. With this writing that written by Howard Zinn, many people’s mind and heart opened and know the other side of the discoverer of America.

MAIN BODY (CRITIQUE)

            There are some cases that forgotten in Zinn’s writing, both in his article and his book. First, inside the article entitled “Speaking Truth to Power with Books” Howard Zinn seems forgot to look at the other aspect before he said that books can changed somebody’s life. Everybody have their own ideology, different ideology can affected the assumption. For the example, the book entitled “A People History of United States”, this book not fully can changed somebody’s life. Instead this book can make some controversies in the people’s life. This thing can happen because the ideology that Zinn and the reader have is different, moreover Zinn wrote about the black side of Christopher Columbus who has big image in the historical story. Zinn absolutely can wrote about this, but it will be better if he did not impose his ideology to be accepted and it will be easy to accepted by the reader if he use more polite language in describing the black side of Columbus.

            Second, Howard Zinn seems has a strong ideology especially in religion aspect. We know that he is born as a Jewish, so he wrote his book in the Jewish point of view. Columbus is also Jewish, no wonder if Zinn wrote about him although he wrote about the badness of Columbus. Whereas, seventy years before Columbus arrive to America and declared if he is the discoverer of America, Admiral Cheng Ho a sailor and a propagator of Islam from the Ming Dynasty, has come first. This was disclosed by Gavin Menzies, a navigation expert and former commander of British naval submarine at a seminar in London that organized by the Royal Geographical Society. Menzies revealed that Cheng Ho reached the American continent between 1421 and 1423 by first sailing south down the path passes through Africa and South America. Menzies could conclude that after analyzing astronomical Cheng Ho cruise map using Starry Night software program. Actually, Admiral Cheng Ho is not the first settlers who come to the America. There is a lot of literature that says Muslims have come to America since five centuries before Columbus. This opinion expressed by Dr.Youssef Mrouch entitled Pre-Columbian Muslims in America (1996). He stated "A number of facts indicate that Muslims from Spain and West Africa arrived in the America at least five centuries before Columbus”.

            Third, this book is not suitable for students who are still attending school. Their age is under 17 years old, they are not mature enough to accept some new information and they have old information that has been told by their teacher before. Zinn’s book entitled “A People History of United States” is more suitable for people whose age is more than 17 years old. They can accept and throw the information with a critical thinking. Zinn wrote that he has ever sent a letter from the teacher who teaches in California. The teacher told Zinn that there is a mother of the student who thought that the teacher is a communist, because the teacher gives a book that tells about something strange about Columbus to her child. This is the evidence that this book should not distribute to the school.

CONCLUTION

There is one big point that can be concluded in Zinn’s article. The point is as a writer, we cannot impose our opinion and ideology to another people. Like, Zinn who really impose people to agree with his writing and show his ideology too much. Moreover, Zinn should not bring his religion and race to his writing because it will be very sensitive.

REFERENCES

Waterston, A.Vesperi, M (2009). Anthropology off the Shelf Anthropologists on Writing. Pages: 15-20. UK: Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Zinn, Howard (1980). A People’s History of United States.

Farhanta (2012).  Columbus Penemu Benua Amerika (?). http://pilgrim74.wordpress.com/, 03 Maret 2014, 21:38