Integrating history: the power of questioning

BY TARA MYSHRALL

I sat there shocked when my name was called to the stage in my grade 8 graduation. I had won the history award. As Miss Dixon stood on the stage with her raspy voice, she said “Tara is receiving this award because she always asks questions and is curious.”

Even from that young age, I had a desire to understand why people did what they did, and how we are conditioned. I believe this inquiring state of mind will be the only way that we can bring about the change we want in the world.

We must first learn what it is that the books are teaching us and then ask questions about what’s missing. We must understand that we have the right to look at a situation in our history from all points of view to truly get an understanding of what’s taken place and how that has created the people that we are today. I believe it’s this love of history and people and understanding that fuels my desire for travel.

When I went to Peru on the way to Machu Picchu, we stayed in Cusco. Our guide took us to this magnificent church with altars and beautiful deities. Dennis, our guide, was telling us about the Peruvian painters who were hired by the Spanish to paint pictures of Mother Mary and Jesus. The painters had never seen a white, angelic, slim woman that they were asked to paint, nor did they share the views of this Catholic Church at the time. They had to do what they were told, but they were smart enough to embed some of their belief systems into the paintings. You see for the natives there is nothing more beautiful than Mother Earth, Pacha Mama and so instead of painting a small, slim Mother Mary, they painted her as a big robust mountain.

As I was coming to the end of the church, I saw this large statue of a white horse and a Spanish soldier with reigns pulled and sword drawn. As I got closer, I noticed a Peruvian man underneath the horse’s back legs and he was being trampled into the earth.

This sent a violent surge of anger mixed with confusion through my body and I had to get out of the church. As I stood outside and took a deep breath of the thin mountain air, I wondered why the Peruvian people would keep such a tormenting reminder at the gates of this church.

As Dennis found me, he calmly explained that we have to remember our history, even the unspeakable events that transpired, to learn from them. I couldn’t believe at the time that he would go to this church every Sunday and pray with his community while knowing that the statue was there. He decided to take the sense of community from the church, he decided to remember the pains inflicted on his people and he decided to be like those native painters’ centuries earlier. He would know his history and embed his teachings from his grandfathers and medicine men with his current knowledge and stay on his quest to share this knowledge with others.

If we are compelled to change our future we must continue to learn all of our past, the part we learned in the history books and all the pieces left out to preserve the power of the few.

We must continue to question, to seek answers and to think critically about what we learn. We must judge what we find with both compassion and conviction and not merely accept the status quo. Change happens when we integrate our ideas and make them our own. When we decide how we will use the past to shape the future and inform the people we want to become.