[Robert Guyver (ed.)
(2016). Teaching
History and the Changing Nation State: Transnational and Intranational
Perspectives. London (UK) : Bloomsbury.]
Can history be owned by
anyone? Jordanova explicitly discusses this question in her History in Practice, pointing at the
examples of women’s history, black history and Jewish history. Can only a woman
write women’s history, should the director of a Jewish museum always be a Jew?
This would imply that the key to a true understanding of the past would be
experiencing a shared identity, which in some mysterious way extends beyond the
vicissitudes of time. Rightly, Jordanova (2006) repudiates this view, stating
that the only dispositions a historian should have are ‘to be humane, accurate, self-aware and judicious’ (p. 144). For
the rest, history is publicly owned knowledge open to anyone, regardless of
race, sex, creed or ethnicity. The same should apply for the school subject of
history: there should be no history which is the exclusive domain of a certain
group of people any more than there is anyone’s specific mathematics.
However, the collection
of essays edited by Robert Guyver in the volume Teaching History and the Changing Nation State shows a strikingly
different reality. If there is one paramount impression after reading them, it
is the extent to which history, especially school history, is the plaything of
political and ideological forces everywhere in the world, even in the most
advanced democratic countries. The creation of national identities by means of
forging stories about the past seems a need so urgently felt by politicians,
that there can be no escape from it. This may appear obvious in cases of open
conflict, such as the Israeli-Palestinian issue or the conflict between Russia
and Ukraine – two of the topics which are dealt with in this volume. Sensitive
histories, whether recent or not, may also provide understandable reasons why
coming to terms with past realities can be a difficult effort, like in the case
of the genocide in Rwanda, the apartheid history in South Africa, or even the
awareness of ‘an American Holocaust’ (Mottola Poole on page 152 of this
volume), meaning the virtual annihilation of the culture and lives of millions of
native Americans in the present territory of the United States. But why should
there be historical myths or even ‘history wars’ in stable modern democracies
such as Australia, New Zealand or the United Kingdom? Why can’t these nations
just teach about the experiences of mankind relevant to democratic world
citizens today, without exhausting themselves in pointless debates about how
their national identities find their origins in unique past events pertaining
exclusively to themselves?
The pointlessness of these
endeavours is illustrated in a striking way by a passage in the chapter by
Guyver himself about the UK describing the descent of present Britons in the
analysis of Pocock: ‘simple ethnic
categories prove impossible to define where there were normanized Irish and
hibernicized Normans, bilingual Anglo-Welsh, monoglot Welsh and English (…),
Celts who entered a Norse world and Norsemen assimilated to the Celtic pattern
and the expansion of government at the expense of kinship’ (p.161). The
ethnic conundrum indicated here suggests that ethnicity or race may be just as
futile as national identity, of which we all know by now that it rests mainly
on ‘imagined communities’ (Benedict Anderson). Yet, as soon as modern Spain
emerged from the Franco dictatorship in the period after 1975 as a democratic
state composed of a number of different communities, each of the communities
started to construct its own (Catalonian, Basque, Valencian or Galician) past,
of course extending as far back as prehistory – so we learn from the chapter
about Spain in this volume, written by López Facal and Sáiz Serrano.
This indicates one of
the two bottom lines present throughout the papers collected here. First, the
histories taught in schools do not reflect what actually happened in the past,
but the current political needs felt by the authorities of a country. Second,
the chance of any veracity in the accounts presented about past events is
greatest in countries where democracies are more developed: history and
democracy are mutually dependent upon each other. This is very obvious in the
first section of the volume in which the reader is confronted with the
contested histories of Israel/Palestine, Russia/Ukraine, Greece/Turkey, South
Africa and Rwanda, and Ireland. The situation in Russia, Rwanda, and Palestine
is close to totalitarian, Ukraine, Turkey, Greece could be considered as ‘on
their way’ towards more historically sound interpretations, while Ireland and
South Africa are clearly the most advanced countries in the group represented
here. Especially South Africa’s achievement is impressive in this respect and
corresponds well with the thoughtful and peaceful process by which it has
created a democracy out of the ashes of a defunct apartheid.
Yet, democracies are
not exempt of the idiosyncrasies of political pressure. This is clearly visible
from the chapters about the UK and Australia. Tony Taylor, the author of one of
the Australian papers, even goes as far as comparing the situation during Prime
Minister John Howard’s term with Putin’s Russia. Both Putin and Howard strived
for a school curriculum capable of enhancing feelings of national pride among
students, even if this implied smuggling away certain less favourable elements
of the past. The main difference between Australia and Russia is then that in
the last case there were no checks and balances, resulting in Putin having his
way, while Howard was halted by Australian democratic institutions. How far
Putin’s influence reaches is also evident in the other chapter in which Russia
figures in a comparison with Ukraine.
Comparing situations in
different countries, sometimes within one paper, sometimes between different
papers, is one of the hallmarks of this volume. It must be noted, however, that
the volume authors and its editor have not always succeeded in getting the
maximum out of these comparisons. In some of the chapters, for example the one
about Australia and New Zealand (written by the Australian author Tony Taylor
and the New Zealand author Mark Sheehan respectively), no effort is made to
really compare what is described or even come to joint conclusions. The two
‘bottom lines’ indicated above are not as such present in this book, they are
left to the reader to be drawn. The analysis is often lacking as authors are
caught up in describing the peculiarities of each national situation, taking
the existence of national perspectives more or less for granted. In some cases,
authors are clearly partisan and as such less apt to analyse the problems at
stake in this volume, for example in the case of the chapter about
Israel/Palestine in which the authors clearly choose for the Palestinian side
and even come up with one ‘right solution’ to the problem of the historiography
of the Middle East conflict at the end of their contribution.
Another suboptimal
aspect of the collection is a certain degree of imbalance. The Australian case,
for example, is expounded in no less than three of the twelve chapters in such
a way that after completing the reading of this book, one is thoroughly aware
of the existence of the curious phenomenon of an ‘Anzac legend’, even if one
had never heard of it before. It has to do with the renowned raid on Gallipoli
during the First World War, a battlefield on which of course Turkey was the
adversary at that time. But even though one of the Australian chapters calls
for a clear representation of the Turkish point of view on this issue in
Australian history teaching, no Turkish author is represented here to clarify
how Gallipoli is described in Turkish history books. The Australian (western)
perspective is in this respect clearly over-represented. Even if modern
Australian history teaching advocates multiperspectivity and demythologization
in dealing with Gallipoli and the Anzac legend, the fact that they deal with this
topic at all (while other nations in the world have probably never heard of
it), is not questioned. Apparently, modern democratic history teaching does not
necessarily dispute the self-evidence of the national character of history
curricula.
This is the main asset
of this collection, which in spite of a few drawbacks offers a fascinating
insight into the international situation of history teaching these days: the
reader is left with a strong feeling of discomfort by the very fact that so
many peculiar national situations are confronted with each other. Each in their
own context, they would bear a certain degree of self-evidence. Only after
reading them all, the reader is left behind puzzled, asking himself: why do
people do these absurd things with stories about the past? Why is there such a
bad need for people to comfort themselves with myths and legends which are
clearly untrue, but can stimulate feelings of belonging, of identity, or even
national pride? Some of the most respected researchers in history education,
Barton and Levstik, contend in their Teaching History for the Common Good
that democratic nations need historical myths in order to give their citizens a
sense of belonging to a state, if only to make them ready to pay their taxes
(2004, p. 59). This is a rather cynical view of the duties of the history
teacher. But also in the volume reviewed here, national perspectives are
omnipresent. Only the Spanish authors (Lópz Facal and Sáiz Serrano) at the end
of their contribution come up with the questions that should be asked:
‘- Can we promote
a post-national history education that opposes the survival of teaching
routines and age-old cultural traditions based on national myths?
- Should history
education question the dominant thought that seeks to become the only form of
thought through exclusion or rejection of any possible alternatives or
different points of view?
- Can this task be
carried out from the territorial framework of national states?
- Is world history
the alternative to national histories? How can we integrate the local dimension
into it?’ (pages 213-214).
It is high time that
history educators should start taking these questions seriously.
Arie Wilschut
Professor in Social
Studies Education
Amsterdam University of
Applied Sciences, School of Education
I
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion it is almost inevitable that there are contradictions and differences of approach in a work as ambitious, complex and plural. This does not detract from the whole.
A critical review, like this by Arie Wilschut, is worthy of appreciation. This is a stimulating intellectual exercise that always gives us arguments for intellectual debate and therefore serves to advance our reflection on historical education.
Arie Wilschut would like to read a different book. The problem he proposes to discuss has to do with the kind of historical education that should be studied in each country. Or worldwide. And indeed, the book is more concerned with describing what exists and why it exists, not what it should be. I imagine there are chapters with which we identify more than others, and that there are deficiencies in explaining the situation. This is inevitable.
I think that, at least, there are two different but connected problems: the crisis of history (the historical knowledge born as a science in the nineteenth century) and the crisis of historical education (what is taught and what should be taught in the schools).
Historical knowledge, and public use made of it, is a major concern for those who intend to promote oriented understanding of social problems as a base or tool to build a better future education.
I agree with Maria Auxiliadora Schmidt (following on from Jörn Rüsen) that academic historians have abandoned reflection on the nature and usefulness of their profession. This has been replaced by reflection on the methodology of historical research. The result has been a divorce between teaching and research. Historical education has been considered a minor, secondary activity, without “scientific” status, limited to the mere reproduction of academic knowledge to contribute to the goals that have been applied since those in power expected schooling primarily to train patriots
That separation ended up leaving a void for academic historical knowledge, an emptiness in this function, because since the nineteenth century, “when historians were [devoted to] this discipline, [they] began to lose sight of an important principle … that history needs to be connected with the need to target social life within a temporary structure”(Rüsen, 2010: 31). It has justified the existence of historical knowledge for ‘scholars’ [school students] as a basis for teaching, but this justification for the teaching of history has been unsatisfactory, because its function for practical life was lost. That has led to a ‘disconnect’ between courses of history and practicality, if on the one hand the status of an erudite history discipline was offered, on the other it generated a vacuum in the role of teaching history at school. This view came to a climax in the mid-twentieth century, at which time formal history was not directed to the essence of school historical knowledge. Historians believed that their discipline would be legitimized by its mere existence. Historical studies and production would be like a tree that produces leaves: “The tree lives long as it has leaves, it is your destiny to live and have leaves”. What was omitted was the need to give history any practical use or real function in cultural areas where it can serve as a means to explicitly provide a collective identity and orientation to life.
I would not have liked o read a different book. I think the book as it is is very enlightening. It gives food for thought, and it is just that which I have discussed in my comments. Of course it is necessary to explain and analyze the situation in histry teaching as it exists today. This is the merit of this book, as I also explained in my review. I have only a few critical remarks in paragraph 6 and 7. Whether a national history is still needed in the future is a matter of debate. This book provides arguments for this debate, and that is important. My conclusion from this book is that we should be rather critical of national histories. Arie Wilschut.
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ReplyDeleteThere is a small book (136 pages) of Raimundo Cuesta entitled La venganza de la memoria y las paradojas de la historia (the pdf is available online because the author has permitted open distribution). In my opinion it is of great interest, and in it there is a very interesting analysis of the resurgence of the politics of memory, sometimes opposed by great historians such as Pierre Nora, Tony Judt and Margaret MacMillan. Raimundo Cuesta takes an enlightening path to track the origins of memory retrieval as a necessary tool to explain the past, from Halwachs, Habermas and Traverso, through Walter Benjamin and Horkheimer.
To some extent it seems that the new categorical imperative statement by Adorno (“The premier demand upon all education is that Auschwitz not happen again. Its priority before any other requirement is such that I believe I need not and should not justify it”) is transmuted and becomes a guide to educate against barbarism through the promotion of emancipation, by cultivating and advocating the duty of memory. (p. 80)
The philosophy of memory emerges and assumes: solidarity with the victims, with the pain of others, with the rejection of instrumental reason (“reason [that] in science and material gain one last ratio above the ideal of a just human being”, p. 79). The memory thus considered is not only or primarily a tool to know what has happened in the past but a future project: the release tool to build what you need to understand how the suffering and pain of the victims were perceived.
The most important contribution of the work is a new concept to develop a “history with memory”:
The combination of “positivistic accuracy” and attention to the suffering must be main reason for a “history with memory”. Cuesta proposes a new alliance of memory and history under the sign of critical thinking. “Scientific” rigour and emancipatory interest are strictly necessary and are welded to the case of a genealogical research of our social problems today. (p. 100).
In my opinion, a historic education useful for life, to help children and young people to imagine a better future, must incorporate this policy perspective of memory. This should “settle accounts” with the past, not be complacent towards it.
As you can perceive such reflections might have led us lead us to draft a completely different chapter. But I think it was something else in this case. We still have much work to do.
References:
Raimundo Cuesta (2015) La venganza de la memoria y las paradojas de la historia. Salamnaca: Lulu.com
Rüsen, J. (2010), Didática da História: passado, presente e perspectivas a partir do caso alemão. (2010) In Schmidt, M.A.; Barca, I.; Martins, E.R. Jörn Rüsen e o ensino de História. Curitiba: Editora da UFPR.
Schmidt, María Auxiliadora (2015), Globalización y la política de formación del profesor de historia en Brasil. Revista Perspectiva Educacional, vol. 55, 1, p. 40
Spain: History Education and Nationalism Conflicts, Ramón Lopez-Facal, University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain and Jorge Sáiz Serrano, University of Valencia, Spain -
Disclaimer: The above comments relate to Ramon Lopez Facal, a professor at the University of Santiago de Compostela and co-author of Chapter Spain: Conflicts and Nationalism History Education. Mistakenly they have been incorporated anonymously with nick "Kant palleiro".
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ReplyDeleteI completely agree with professor Ramón López Facal about the complexity and importance of our book. I agree that professor Arie Wilschut was expecting other kinds of contributions in the book, mainly to critique the prevalence of national perspectives in history teaching today. But as we can see in the chapters, national history still provides a frame of hard importance as a reference in history teaching. As I have defended in my doctoral thesis last November (Jorge Sáiz Serrano "History Education and National Narrative",University of Valencia, 2015 directed by Ramón López Facal and another professor of history teaching, Rafael Valls), there is still going to be a national narrative as a canon in history teaching in different nation-states: in Spain, in the history curricula & textbooks, and in students’ narratives & representations of the national past (and even in future teachers’ minds), it's possible to find a Spanish history as a national narrative with stereotypes and traditional points of view which link present and past as a perennial "imagined communnity" as a Spanish nation. We, as History teachers, must teach students to think historically about the national past in the schools, especially to break this perennial link; and the best way is to teach future teachers to demystify or demythologize national narratives and learn historical thinking. In fact, if we don't teach future teachers in this way nationalization will remain as the principal role of teaching history at school; anyway banal nationalism (Spanish or English) gives teaching history at school this function
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