Monday, March 31, 2014
Created By:
#Progress Test 2,
Susi Nurjanah
A Light of Candle for Howard Zinn
Author: Susi Nurjanah
Introduction
The
truth will never be shown at the first glance, people need more lights and so
many arrows. Similarly in history, it needs long and long and very long time to
be uncovered, and there are several cases still holding on and will be
discussed in this essay related to the issue on how a controversial tattler did.
Nowadays there is a name have been so famous in student’s surrounding, that
name still stand in the first chart of student’s discussion forum since four
weeks ago, still be the main focus in students mind, still flow in every
rhythms of daily life.
So
this is the time for welcoming Howard Zinn in this critical zone, the only name
that contained a big controversy through a book- A People History of United States. Since a tautology showed that
there is no someone perfect, even an expert should be criticized as a kind of
way to get their expertise and Zinn is going to be center of analysis in this lines.
Actually as a historian, he has succeed in transforming people paradigm, drawing
a dreadful story of Christopher Columbus and finally uncovering the truth of
America, but there always some reasons to say “unfortunately” on every single
masterpiece. For some reasons, Zinn’s
notions will be classified as the one of less qualification content.
Summary
Based
on several points of view, some percent of Zinn was right in proposing his book
toward citizens, but in the other hand he got a trouble in showing the fact.
This will not say that Zinn is bad, but there are some reasons for Zinn why he
should be criticized. Focusing on his article entitled Speaking
Truth to Power with Books, he made a notions that book is an
important role to change people specifically and the world as a whole. He told
so many examples of books that affected him so then he was labeled as a
socially conscious person, not only that he also brought a massive voice of America
as the one of his believe.
Capturing
an example on how Zinn was affected by book is exist in Columbus case, there
are still a big question from where he had an idea to against the hero, why he
was so conscious in history that happened in a very long time ago before he
born, and why he was so brave in showing the bad side of Columbus, there are
many ‘why questions’ for him. Surprisingly for all of those questions, he just
came to an explanation: he read certain books.
Main Body (Critique)
So far from the article Speaking
Truth to Power with Books, this essay will focus on one
major question. The first is why Zinn didn’t show clearly on how exactly a book
will affect public policy? Since he stated that there is a direct and indirect
line between a writing of book and the changing of a policy, that point should
be an important point to pour in a whole article, even he haven’t showed how
the way to get consciousness from book because all people want to be conscious
and in what condition book will give the power toward people who read that.
Some
linguist like Halliday and Nancy C. Kula argued that there is a special thing
namely context that will catch people to go to write certain books or article,
and the essence of meaning is not exist in a book but from circumstances before
the author begin to write. This case also happen in reader, they will not be affected
directly to read certain politics book when they are not like in book or they
have no interest in politics itself. Similarly Chaedar alwasilah told that most
of teenager always read certain books which contain their interest as proper
background. So meaning that the process of book influence is not begin in book
but what happen before the reader choose to read.
Unfortunately, Zinn stated that the
cycles of book influence is start from book, it is proved by “… there are books that seriously affected you.
Now how to make a connection between how they affected you, and what you then
did, and then the connection between what you then did and what other people
did, and then what connection between what everybody did and then what happened
in the world.” As a simple example, when there are so many teacher in Indonesia
teach a series of history of Indonesia and they let their students to read
certain module related with its history. Books showed that there was an ironic
condition before 1945, when it was colonized by the Dutch for 350 years and
Japan for a half of three years, not only that after freedom there was also a
case from the one of leader who famous by authoritarian namely Muhammad
Soeharto, he held the office for
31 years from 1967 following Sukarno's removal until his resignation in 1998
and killed more than 500,000 people.
However,
since Elementary until senior high school or even in the university, every
student always hear that notion but what happen in the reality is definitely
different. When the purposes of history subject is to construct student’s
consciousness but when students are asked by some questions of history they are
so far away from the consciousness. For once more time, this is proved that
consciousness is not start from book.
The
policymaking system begins with people who have interests, problems, and
concerns. These interests, problems, and concerns are expressed through linkage
institutions, which are the political channels through which people’s concerns
become political issues on the policy agenda. Parties, elections, interest
groups, and the media are key linkage institutions between the preferences of
citizens and the government’s policy agenda. The policy agenda consists of the
issues that attract the serious attention of public officials and other people
actually involved in politics at any given point in time. A political issue
arises when people disagree about a problem or public policy choice made to
combat a problem.
Conclusion
At
the last part of this essay, there is a big point should be restated in
conclusion. A missing part of Zinn’s notions about book influence was
completed. There is a special role of context beforehand that takes an
important part in affected reader. On how in the public policy, people will not
easy to construct their consciousness on that, and a book is not the
beginning. People interest, problem or
some social signals are required to construct consciousness in politic case,
and a book is a following power to change the world.
References
http://wps.ablongman.com/long_edwards_government_11/0,7701,718367-,00.html
accessed on Monday 7.30 p.m.
http://file.upi.edu/Direktori/FPIPS/JUR._PEND._SEJARAH/196207181986012-ERLINA_WIJANARTI/CTL_DLM__PMBLRAN_SEJARAH.pdf. Accesed on Monday 9.50 p.m.
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