First off, sincere apologies for the whole delay after the new year, I had completely forgotten about this blog until a colleague of mine reminded me of it.
Anyways, at School, often a times I get frustrated. Not because of some lousy test (that does occasionally happen) or a rude teacher or anything but because of this ; Ignorance. I see a guy from class and I asked him whether he had ever heard of the Ottoman Empire before. He replied no. I then asked him if he had known anything about the Safavids, he replied no. I asked him what did he know ? He replied," Bahrain was once British!".
Smart man...
But really, I must say that it is either that this person genuinely does not know about them (this proved false after I've 'questioned' other students) or is messing with me. I was in total shock. At school, we're taught of the Royal Family of Britain, the House of Windsor, the House of Tudors and all that. We've been taught about Union Jack and of Winston Churchill, of Bonny Prince Charles and the New Model Army. But never had I seen nor experienced a lecture about the history of the Middle East. Nothing about Arabia, nothing about the Mongols ever invading the Middle East (in fact, my teacher denied it!) nor anything about the Ottomans! (Refer to the previous paragraph)
How can we really have a generation that had forgotten its heritage ? I'm not saying I'm against them learning about the Brits, but really, Regional History first!
Oh God, I'm not going to tell you guys the story of the time when someone asked me what was the significance of the Nile.