A Long
Trajectory to Change the World
INTRODUCTION
This paper offers a critical insight on
Howard Zinn’s article entitled “Speaking Truth to Power with Books.” Zinn’s
article explains the most crucial issue of practices literacy including reading
and writing books. Firstly, he introduces the most crucial issue of all with
regard to writing that is, what in world does it do? What effect does it have? Does
it help change the world? In his articles he wrote to find a direct line
between the writing of a book and changing of a policy it is very rare, but we
can find indirect line that writing appeared and people’s consciousness was
raised and policies were changed some times after decades had passed.
Howard Zinn (August 24, 1922-January 27, 2010) was
an American historian, author, playwright, and social activist. He was a political science professor at Boston University for 24 years and taught history at Spelman College for 7 years. He was also a bombardier in the Air
Force in World War II and he dropped bombs on cities, towns, and people. Zinn was born to a Jewish immigrant family in Brooklyn.
Based on Zinn’s experience “I am
persuaded about the importance of reading books simply by my own experience,”
he states. At the same time, Zinn acknowledges that it can be hard to
comprehend fully what reading book do. Image others people have had the same
experience with Zinn. There are books that seriously affected people. How to
make a connection between how reading books affected people, what people then
did, and then the connection between what people then did, what other people
did, and then what connection between what everybody did and then what happened
in the world, that is too complicated. But, it means there is a long trajectory
between practices literacy and changing consciousness, policies then it is
going to have an effect on the world.
SUMMARY
Practices literacy operates in many
ways to change people’s consciousness. There are a number of ways in which it can
change consciousness. First, reading books can introduce an idea that the
reader never thought before, especially if they have read unorthodox history. It
is going to shock the readers who do not have the same interests. This is not
an easy thing because people confronted with language that presumes a common
interest for everyone in the nation. In the history of humanity, writing is a
much later acquisition than speaking (Lehtonen,2000:53). There are set of data
which people just had no idea about and which they were revealed in a book. It
will shock reader into an important awareness.
In
Zinn’s article, he croaks something about Christopher Colombus. When his book “A
People’s History of the United State” (1980) was published, people was shocked
because at the first chapter (Columbus, The Indians, and
Human Progress) they read about Colombus as
a murderer, torture, a kidnapper, a mutilator of negative people, a
hypocrite, a greedy man looking for gold, willing to kill people and mutilate
people. It was upsetting in the United State who learnt about Colombus as the
hero, the great discoverer, and the pious Bible reader.
There are several basic points that
Zinn wrote on Columbus, whom we ridiculously perceive as the hero or the
discoverer of America.
First, for the first time Colombus and his sailor
arrived in the an island, actually they were not coming into an empty
wilderness, but into a world which in some places was as densely populated as
Europe itself, where the culture was complex, where human relations were more
egalitarian than in Europe, and where the relations among men, women, children,
and nature were more beautifully worked out than perhaps any place in the
world. They were people without a written language, but with their own laws,
their poetry, their history kept in memory and passed on, in an oral vocabulary
more complex than Europe’s, accompanied by song, dance, and ceremonial drama.
They paid careful attention to the development of personality, intensity of
will, independence and flexibility, passion and potency, to their partnership
with one another and with nature.
Second, on the first island that Colombus found,
he took some of natives by force in order to that they give the information of
whatever there in those islands. The information that Colombus wanted most was
“where is the gold?”
Third, Colombus 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.
Fourth, Colombus’s report was
extravagant. Columbus fleet reached land near
Cuba on October 12, and returned with claims and he reported to the
Court in Madrid that they had reached the
islands at the eastern end of Asia. Because
of Columbus’s exaggerated report and promises, his second expedition was given
seventeen ships and more than twelve hundred men. Colombus’s aim was clear that
was slaves and gold.
Fifth, on Haiti Columbus
sent expedition after expedition into the interior. They found no gold fields,
but had to fill up the ships returning to Spain with some kind of dividend. Too
many of the slaves died in captivity and so Columbus, desperate to pay back
dividends to those who had invested, had to make good his promise to fill the
ships with gold. The Indians had been given an
impossible task. The only gold around was bits of dust garnered from the
streams. So they fled, were hunted down with dogs, and were killed.
MAIN BODY (CRITIQUE)
There
are several points on Columbus that are neglected in Zinn’s article.
First, Zinn does not explain who
the real discover of United State. Especially in his book “A
People’s History of the United State,” at the first chapter (Columbus, The Indians, and Human Progress) Zinn only explain about
early Native American civilization in North America and the Bahamas, the genocide, enslavement committed by the crew of Christopher Columbus, incidents of violent
colonization by early settlers. Topics include the Arawaks, Bartolomé de las
Casas, the Aztecs, Hernán Cortés, Pizarro, Powhatan, the Pequot, the Narragansett, Metacom, King Philip’s War, and the Iroquois. Factually, seventy years before Columbus set foot in United
State, he thought the Indian mainland, Muslim Chinese admiral named Ceng Ho (
Zhenghe ) has landed in United State. Even before centuries Ceng Ho, Muslim
sailors from Spain and West Africa have made the villages in United State and
peacefully assimilated with the locals there.
This means the historian can
avoid emphasis of some facts. The historian’s distortion is more than
technical, it is ideological. Ideology is of course both a medium and an instrument
of historical processes (Fowler,1996:12) it is released into a world of
contending interests, where any chosen emphasis supports (whether the historian
means to or not) some kind of interest, whether economic, political, racial or
national.
We can consider why Zinn does not
write Muslim Chinese admiral named Ceng Ho (Zhenghe) as
the first discoverer of United State continent that is because Zinn was born to a Jewish immigrant family in Brooklyn.
If only Zinn as a Muslim definitely he will write Ceng Ho on his book, but
unfortunately Zinn is not.
Second, Colombus’s destination sailed was clear that was slaves and gold, but we do not know
the reason why Colombus did that. Factually, in Zinn’s book (A People’s
History of the United State) Colombus was given seventeen ships and more than
twelve hundred men by the Court in Madrid so that, some questions come “who is
Colombus before he sailed?” and “what does Colombus have relation with Court in
Madrid?” these questions never explained in detail on Zinn’s book.
Third,
in the 15th and 16th centuries, the Europeans wanted to
find sea routes to the East and Colombus have the same destination it is to
find a new route to the east exactly to Asia (India, China, Japan and the Spice
Islands). If he could reach these islands, he would be able to bring back gold,
rich cargoes of silks and spices. But, why Colombus choose the Asia as his
destination in his sailing to find gold, rich cargoes of silks and spices ?
There is no answer of this question on Zinn’s.
CONCLUSION
There is an
essential basic point that can be concluded from Zinn’s article. There is still
another way that practices literacy has an effect through the literature of
absurdity then it can change people’s consciousness, policies then it is going
to change the world. Very often, people believe they know something when they
really do not. For example, if they have read unorthodox history. It may shock
the readers who do not have the same interests then it will change their
consciousness.
REFFERENCES
Waterston,
A.Vesperi, M (2009). Anthropology Off the
Shelf Anthropologists or Writing. UK: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Lehtonen, Mikko. (2000). Cultural Analysis of Texts. London: SAGE
Publications Ltd
Howard Zinn (1980). History is a
Weapon. A People’s History of the United States. (Columbus,
The Indians, and Human Progress). Retrieved March 20, 2014 from http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinncol1.html
Royal Museums Greenwich.
Christopher Columbus (1451-1506). Retrieved March 20, 2014 from
Howard/Zinn. Retrieved March 20, 2014
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