The Role of History in Shaping Cultural Identity and Heritage

History, they say, is the study of the past, and I personally believe it's crucial because it provides us with insight and roadmaps of human experience; it's an important part of our education system that teaches and helps us understand human evolution, where we have been, where we're, and as even shown through the years, it can help understand and handle the present-day, the fact that some nations are planning to eradicate history from the curriculum for me is a sign of an impending disaster for such nations because history plays an important role to us, helping us learn about our diverse culture, our origin, how we migrate to where we're, and more, which goes on to foster a sense of identity and more amongst students and citizens.

History is a course that not only teaches one about the past but also leaves students in a state of fascination about the past occurrence, helping them to feel the struggle of those in the past, understand how their present-day society came to be, and many more. I'm a big fan of history, and it's a subject I always look forward to, probably because I love learning about old and new things.

And due to history, we get to know that the Benni kingdom here in Nigeria had a wall that's far greater and longer than the wall of China but was brought down by the Portuguese during their invasion and colonization. Without history, such heritage wouldn't have been known, and we would have thought that our forefathers weren't special in any way like those of the western world.

But with history, we get to learn a lot of things, including about various races, people, and cultures, how they migrate from one place to another, and what leads to it. We also get to learn about different artifacts and cultural beliefs; that's the bedrock of our traditions. Even though I'm a Christian, sometimes I can't help but look at our traditional religion and feel like it's not entirely bad as the western religions as made it seems.

I mean, prior to colonization, we all were living in peace and harmony without any issues, despite our traditional religion, but with colonization, most of what was upheld by our forefathers is now mostly forsaken and thrown aside as being evil. I don't entirely see them in the same light even though I don't practice them, and my reasons are because it's part of our history and what kept us going.

I remember my grandparents used to sit down and tell me tales of their ordeals in the village when they're much younger and how things were despite the local religion's beliefs. It's quite fascinating to learn about different things from our past; there used to be war between villages who're fighting over territory, slave trade, and several others. This is a core part of our lives that can't just be thrown in the garbage.

With history, you learn of what led to disaster or conflict between people of the past, and you try as much as possible not to let the same thing repeat itself for the same sake of peace. Even though we've been told to be more concerned about the future, that doesn't render the past useless; the past is a combination of experience that leads us to where we're today, and completely neglecting it or passing the knowledge to young ones is like exposing them to failure.

Even though humans are bound to make mistakes, history lessons can as well play the role of a manual and roadmap that can help us avoid some of those mistakes and be able to walk on the right path. History isn't only pecking at culture and traditions alone; the same is the case with experience and different professionals. When the first set of people who experience something doesn't pass on the results of what happened after their experience, it means more people will keep trying the same thing over and over and failing, rather than avoid it and seek a better pace to success.

So with that being said, I believe history is very essential and shouldn't be stopped; instead, it should be held in high esteem for students to know and utilize it to have a sense of identity, as well as connecting them with struggles and values people of the past undergo, which help birth empathy amongst young ones as they learn of what those before them went through and how they've sacrificed a lot for us to arrive at where we're at the moment.

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All photos are taken and edited on canva.

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