Comments on: Culture wars go meta in Oz

By: Emma

Emma — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 23:19:28 +0000

The other thing is that most of the debate in Australian broadsheet newspapers about history teaching is written by people writing about the pronouncements of politicians, none of whom have any idea of what or how history is being taught. Teachers are doing a fine job in the schools I know of teaching interesting, nuanced, complex historical curriculum and emphasising critical, intelligent research by their students. If any of these bozos had ever been in a school or talked to a secondary student, or even downloaded the Year 9 and 10 Australian history syllabus from the NSW Board of Studies website, they’d know that. But that would be journalism. Or research. Or critical thinking. Year 10 students tend to be better at it than journalists or politicians.
If I sound exasperated, that’s exactly the feeling JQ is reporting.

By: Tracy W

Tracy W — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 21:34:37 +0000

Thanks for explaining in more detail. It’s nice to know that I haven’t completely misunderstood what’s happening across the Ditch. Though I do think that what’s taught in schools will be a political football as long as there are schools.

By: John Quiggin

John Quiggin — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 20:39:28 +0000

TracyW, if you read the link to my long post on the subject, you’ll get a better idea of what the culture wars are about.

On the points you mention, economic policy in Australia is considered orthogonal to the culture wars. The relationship between the government and Aborigines is a big and horribly difficult question – we’re just sick of it being dealt with in the manner of the culture wars,as my post explains.

On history teaching, the general feeling is indeed that we have spent too long fighting over questions like “Was Australia ‘invaded’ or ‘settled’?’, and that very little remains to be said. If the rightwing culture warriors will shut up about this kind of question, I don’t think many on the left really want to reopen them.

By: Steve LaBonne

Steve LaBonne — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 18:56:41 +0000

I’ve always liked Bertrand Russell’s suggestion that each country’s history should be taught in its schools exclusively by natives of other countries.

By: Tom Scudder

Tom Scudder — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 18:21:32 +0000

11, 17 – Lebanon has huge culture war issues (is it an “Arab” country? What does that mean? Is it “Mediterranean”? Ditto. Was the country created artificially by the French in 1920? Or was it only expanded from a core that had a peculiarly Lebanese culture, history, et cetera? Were the precursor kingdoms in the present Lebanon’s territories distinct from other local mini-dynasties that had cropped up over the course of the Ottoman empire’s history? Et cetera.

By: Chris Stiles

Chris Stiles — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 18:03:25 +0000

It wouldn’t surprise me were the Scots curriculum rather different from the English one when it came to mentioning the Empire – the English are (very very slightly) better at admitting that we did it than the Scots are, despite equal culpability.

Or – from the point of view of Indian – arguably more.

By: Chris Stiles

Chris Stiles — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 18:01:31 +0000

When were you at school in the UK? I studied history up to GCSE level between 1990 and 1995

I studied history between 1985 and 1990 – mostly it was World War II, World War I and the Industrial Revolution.

almost everyone from the centre to the far Right are united in their belief that the British Empire was a prolonged exercise in benevolence and philanthropy,

I would tend to agree – I think this is partly because both (fairly averagely passionate) pro and anti Empire views are more evenly spread between left and right than one might first assume. The really rabid right wing types who see it as a totemistic issue and fairly few and far between in the general population. Even when these views are held they are often combined with oddly (from a polarised point of view) socially-democratic views on other issues.

By: Grand Moff Texan

Grand Moff Texan — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 17:56:12 +0000

I recall when the right in the UK attempted to import American style “family values” rhetoric in the early 90’s. One of their rising stars turned up dead on his kitchen table wearing stockings and a garter-belt, a bag over his head.

That sounds about right.
.

By: john b

john b — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 16:51:44 +0000

Hmm. It wouldn’t surprise me were the Scots curriculum rather different from the English one when it came to mentioning the Empire – the English are (very very slightly) better at admitting that we did it than the Scots are, despite equal culpability.

By: Hidari

Hidari — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 16:41:28 +0000

‘When were you at school in the UK? I studied history up to GCSE level between 1990 and 1995, and there was a lot of emphasis on the slave trade and our activities in the Americas (starting it, as well as stopping it) – everyone I’ve asked about it who was at school later has said the same.’

I was in Scotland which had a different curriculum. To back up Katherine and Stuart’s points: yeah ok if you want to stretch a point we did cover a few issues that related, tangentially, to the British Empire. But there were no modules (or the equivalent) devoted to the Empire specifically, at all.

By: SamChevre

SamChevre — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 16:14:19 +0000

do these ‘culture war’ issues only arise in countries which were invaded (or ‘invaded’ depending on your point of view) by Europeans

No; Japan and India both have pretty significant culture war issues. (Hindutava in India, remembrance of WWII in Japan.)

By: stuart

stuart — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 14:55:45 +0000

History in school in the UK 1985-90 in a public school, subjects covered were (in no particular order): Corn Laws, Enclosure, Battle of Hastings, Roman Britain, Irish Potato Famine, English Civil War, French/American/Russian Revolutions, World Wars, Age of Exploration (mostly British explorers), Boer War, Napoleonic Era, Suez, League of Nations and the mandates after WWI, formation of Israel, Spanish Armada, and no doubt many more I forget about. I don’t remember any explicit discussion of Empire particularly (except maybe a couple of lessons about Victoria and that era), but there were quite a few related topics covered.

By: Katherine

Katherine — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 14:28:44 +0000

Did history up to A Level in 1994 in the UK and there was narry a mention of the British Empire. We did the industrial revolution (mostly) at GCSE and up the Second World War (mostly) at A Level. We did quite a bit about Ireland, but America, India, China, anywhere in Africa (apart from a passing mention of the Boer War)? Nope.

By: john b

john b — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 12:58:50 +0000

I did history at school until I was 17 and the British Empire was not mentioned at all, at any point: although there was quite a lot about the Corn Laws and how ‘we’ defeated the Nazis.

When were you at school in the UK? I studied history up to GCSE level between 1990 and 1995, and there was a lot of emphasis on the slave trade and our activities in the Americas (starting it, as well as stopping it) – everyone I’ve asked about it who was at school later has said the same.

Not so much on India or China, but still hardly an uncritical suggestion that Britain never ruled anywhere or did anything bad…

By: Tracy W

Tracy W — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 12:50:25 +0000

12. – I do think that schools’ history curriculum are important. This is why John Quiggin’s assertion that the broadly unanimous centre/left position is “it’s over, no one cares any more, let’s get on with serious business” surprised me and makes me think that in the past I have completely misunderstood what the Australian “culture wars” were about. I thought they were about things like the way Australian history should be taught, and things like the relationship between the Australian Government and Aborgines, and economic policy and the like, which are things I can’t see the Australian left and centre suddenly and broadly unanimously deciding are unserious topics that they don’t care about anymore.