HISTORY AND WHAT IT TEACHES!!

History is an interesting subject. It not only tells stories of people and civilizations but also teaches what life is all about. We read about cultures, how they were born, developed and flourished into dominating civilizations and later, finally, waned or faded away, with only the remnants buried under soil or mud. It is the story of a single human being as well.

Also one striking thing about History is the struggle for survival of mankind. The trials, the tests, the hardships that mankind passes through and also the zeal and jest with which it overcomes those trials and tests and survive to live another day and tell another tale. We are too well aware of the stories of wars in the old and medieval world, Nazi holocaust, the vast number of graves of old Russia under Josef Stalin, the ills of imperialism and fascism as well. Yet through it all one lesson that comes shining through is the indomitable nature of the human spirit.

At the micro level, life is all about the fight for survival of a human being. A man fights to survive against all odds and rivals whether it is for the attention of the parents at home, or the teacher at school or the best girl in the neighborhood. The ends always justified the means. It is always a matter of kill or be killed.

The world is indebted to Charles Darwin. It is survival of the fittest all the way, right from the time a child leave the mother’s womb till the day it breathes its last as an old man or woman. What is more an interesting study is not about the ends but the means. The list is endless.

The world has not changed in the real sense. Yes, talking strictly in terms of invention, discoveries etc yes, it has changed by leaps and bounds. When we put the microscope only on human nature, we observe there has hardly been any change. The basic ends for which the generations of men have fought and killed each other remained the same and so do the means utilized by them. What the cave man fought for we still fight for today. The more things change the more they stay the same.

No matter how much we want to believe in human philanthropy it is a cut-throat world out there. The struggle is for the fittest to survive. And each has a shelf life. The skills for survival have not changed through out the centuries. Have we read between the lines?