Preserving the Past

I've mentioned in my earlier writing that I enjoy watching historical documentary program. One of those is "Treasure Seekers", which tells about legends, personal quests, archeological expeditions and explorations. I remember in one episode, an archeology professor (whose name I couldn't recall) said that in the beginning of the 20th century, Sanskrit held a place similar to IT does nowadays. "Similar position", in the sense that they both attract so many people to learn them.

The widespread interest towards Sanskrit cannot be separated from the emergence of archeology in mid 1800s to early 1900s. Some of the most prominent archeological discoveries were made in the early 1900s, such as Macchu Pichu in Peru (1911) and King Tut's tomb in Egypt (1922). Explorations in search of remnants from ancient civilizations had been made for years; most of them were driven by the explorer’s romantic notion. Prior to the 1800s, it used to be very difficult to gain funds needed to undertake archeological explorations because most of them were often based on legends (that might never happened), therefore there's no guarantee that the expedition would be successful in finding something of worth. Due to large amount of profitable archeological discoveries (whether in terms of economic or historical value, the publicity surrounding them, etc) made in that period, more fundraiser began to show their interest and started to fund archeological expeditions.

Indonesia hadn't been immune to archeological explorations either. In the first half of the 20th century, archeologists had made some interesting archeological discoveries in Indonesia. The most famous was the discovery of the prehistoric human fossil, Megantropus paleojavanicus, by von Koenigswald in the 1930s. Of course, archeological expeditions in Indonesia in the early 20th century were performed by Dutch archeologists. The native inhabitants (or inlander, as the Dutch colonial used to say) were unconcerned in that kind of activity. Being the oppressed side in a Dutch colony, it's more important to find (or even beg for) a decent job to feed yourself and your family, like being a low-ranked official for the Dutch colonial government, instead of digging the earth to find objects from the pasts which had nothing to do with their present life. The funny thing is, it remains to be the case, even today.

Anything “historical” in general still fails to attract most Indonesians nowadays. The past formed the present. Any events that had occurred in the past, whether it took place yesterday or centuries ago, bring consequences to our life today. Unfortunately, most people don’t realize that. For them, the past is passed; therefore it’s often considered as being completely separated from the present and had no influence in their daily life. Without historical consciousness (the consciousness that the past does affect us), it’s impossible to understand the importance of preserving the past. Incidents like the destruction of historical sites for commercial uses (real estate developments, office buildings, etc) or historical objects sale to foreign collectors showed just how indifferent most of us are in that area. When I said “preserving the past”, I’m not only referring to preservation of historical objects in their physical form (you know, buildings, statues, things like that) but the preservation of meanings as well: why and how past events managed to happen, the importance of those events, and what we learn from them. Historical objects are representation of the past; therefore the consciousness to preserving them will emerge if people have realized their meanings.

If you randomly picked a high school student and asked them what the most boring lesson is according to their opinion, I’m quite sure most of them would pick History. And who can blame them for that? From my personal experience, it looked as if that the main aim in learning History was simply gaining as much information (dates, events, historical figures, etc) as possible so that you can pass the exam; nothing beyond that. The main objectives, which are to analyze why certain events had occurred, what impact it brought (in short-term or long-term), and most importantly: learning from the past in order to avoid the mistakes made by our predecessors so that we could be a much wiser person, seemed to be (or intentionally?) forgotten. With that kind of teaching methods, how do we expect the younger generation to take interest in History?

First step towards History comprehension might not be started from school, but there are other means of encounter with History. For example, the recent trend amongst the retail and tourism industries in my hometown is recreating and/or restorating old-fashioned building, mostly the Victorian (?) and art-deco buildings. In order to make the atmosphere more “antique”, the interior are designed to resemble the period in which the building belongs to and most of the times, old photos that portray my hometown in the past are displayed. By doing that, they have brought sentimental and romantic feelings about the past for present generation, and that could lead to more interest towards History. So, I’m optimistic. We’ll probably be able to learn from the past anyway, someday.