Introduction about this site-history, and social cohesion and toleration in a multicultural society

This site would be a part of public history and primarily to help equip citizens with basic historical knowledge. As the world population is becoming more educated, global and digitalised, every individual is a social and political activist, whether information acquired from a source that went through empirical research or a source that is part of the misinformation and disinformation and spread falsehood. This means attaining historical knowledge by the authorities and political activists is not enough, as Tosh asserted in his 'Why History Matters' well-written book, in which he emphasises only active citizens or political activists require historical knowledge.[i] We are living in an era when efficient use of Twitter feed and Facebook can help to elect the president of the United States of America. Even in democratic systems, politicians use opinion polls to accept, adapt and implement a popular and electable policy rather than the conviction and rationality of the issues. To counter construed history or misinformation, more verified history should be available in the public square, IG., on the Internet, Twitter, Facebook and other digital media, in which information is not factually verified. Also, parents and carers can help children with the current civic and social state of affairs on religion, gender, and politics. For many of those issues that social cohesion and toleration undermine, the democratic judiciary system protects citizens from discrimination. Information about citizens' rights, social cohesion, and civic and social duty to fellow citizens is not widely publicised, causing hesitation and confusion within ethnic groups. Writing history should be checked and verified even if it is not solely for academic purposes. The public should be capable of recognising the false information and challenging it, if necessary. It requires citizens to be proactive and vigilant in verifying the source.

I want to philosophise how we have populated this world and become tribes, communities, and countries without scientific and anthropological explanation. Let's think logically, as we observe a single nucleus family, and imagine what happens in our lifetime- we witness its expansion and further growth, which entail further expansion of families, tribes, and communities. The earliest Human settlement was found in Jordan and Israel around 14000 BCE, and the transition to farming began around 9500-8500 BCE. Those two factors enabled humans to establish a dwelling with a nucleus family, which then grew to tribes, communities, and beyond.[ii]

Contemporary historical writing is based on empirical research analogy. History is not static; instead, it is a dynamic academic subject. Every topic goes through constantly being challenged and revaluated. Dynamic means when new evidence appears in the form of a book, essay, thesis, or archaeology in the historical sphere, it goes through scholarly verification rather than theory or pure logic. The newfound evidence must be proven by empirical research to change or shift and turns in a new direction. Interpreting past, contemporary politics and social agenda can be crucial factors for shifting a historical narrative. Throughout history- various empires, dynasties, and tribes invaded and occupied land by force and caused death, humiliation, hunger, and suffering to peoples. However, invasion and occupation are accompanied by cross-cultural interaction and introducing and encountering new civic, social, and religious ideas that transform our culture and society beyond borders. Those events are also part of our shared history and made us who we are.

In the modern democratic countries, including France, Germany, Spain, Japan, Canada, United Kingdom, United States of America, India and Bangladesh, social cohesion, toleration and equality between gender, ethnicity, skin colour, sexual orientation, and religious harmonies enshrined in law in the judiciary system, which translate as, equality as a citizen, and it obliged citizen to be respectful to others, despite differences. All citizens must understand that nobody is above the law and everybody is equal to others. It is also the duty of the carer and parents to teach the basic concept of social interaction between various groups in correlation to toleration and social cohesion, as mentioned above, to the children. It would equip future citizens to understand how a multicultural society works, and learn that it is prohibited to discriminate against fellow citizens by the law. So, it is not only to observe social harmony to be respectful to others but also illegal to discriminate on gender, ethnicity, skin colour, sexual orientation, and religious views. It would boost confidence in children of any ethnicity and motivate them to participate in civic duties, knowing being equal to others. To engage in civic duties, it is also crucial to be law-abiding and concurrently harmonious and cohesive. A feature of ideology that does not support inclusiveness and social cohesion should not teach to the children, hence it would contradict social, civic and political values of the contemporary world, and it would aid future citizens in law-breaking.

Different ideas, religions, skin colour and cultures make the world a dynamic and vibrant place to live, admire and interact, and that brings more beautiful features to our societies, countries and world to blend and transform. Those differences are an integral part of humanity and must be celebrated. I respect and adore those differences; let's love and respect others. Therefore, it would never be an intention to subjugate a group or groups of people in my writing and podcast wittingly on the above features. However, it is part of scholarly writing to scrutinise a historical event and not to humiliate other than the event and its protagonists themselves. Basic historical knowledge can enhance civic and communal discussions and debates to clarification, toleration, commonality and uniformity on races, ideas and cultures that unite us rather than divide. I think public history can have a crucial role in the illuminating public about our past events in terms of social, political, cultural, religious, economic, scientific, technological, medical, intellectual and military developments to compare and contrast the past with current and future policies debate.

Through this site, I aim to promote cohesion and toleration between tribes, cultures, religions and communities and elucidate historical knowledge to pursue my aim. As I wrote earlier, our attitudes and behaviours consist of minor differences, which are not evolutionary. However, on the larger scale, we are not detached from each other; instead, we are strongly interconnected through our ancestral roots and descended from a single family.[iii] Migration shapes who we are, where we live, and determines which religions, skin colour and culture we belong to in a short time. In the long term, those features come with interaction with other peoples in the migrated country; it also blends and transforms local lives, creating a new identity and cultural values for a multi-ethnic community. The history of migration, therefore, is a crucial feature of the history of everything.

In a multicultural society, in the digital and globalised era, all citizens should have basic knowledge of history, disregard of their ethnicity and level of education. History teaches us we are descended from single mothers, migrated to populate the world, started settlements to build tribes, communities and beyond, established civic institutions to provide civic needs, innovated technologies to improve our lives, re-engaged again in colonies and occupation, empowered and illuminated by cross-cultural interactions, which shaped our ethnicity. As active citizens, our duty is to evaluate the past and influence the present to help implement better policies for the future and every citizen can contribute to it, by empowering historical knowledge.

[i] Tosh, John Why History Matters (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008) [ii] Harari, Yuval N Sapiens : a Brief History of Humankind (New York :Harper, 2015), p 89 [iii] Kenny, Kevin Diaspora: A Very Short Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp.18-19