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The Forum > Article Comments > The History Wars: now for the hard part! > Comments

The History Wars: now for the hard part! : Comments

By Mervyn Bendle, published 23/8/2006

Australia desperately needs to promote a unifying sense of national identity.

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There are some major logical leaps at the beginning of this piece that I found very difficult to overcome.

"The attacks, planned by “disaffected British citizens” of Pakistani descent, demonstrate that liberal democracies must work harder to integrate their citizens around the values upon which their political systems are based"

That is a view, certainly, but I don't believe that the connection is in any way proven. Especially when the next sentence is the hook upon which the rest of the article relies:

"In an increasingly dangerous and unpredictable world, Australia desperately needs to promote a unifying sense of national identity."

Name one country where a "unifying sense of national identity" forms some sort of protective barrier against terrorism?

History as described in this article ("[to equip] people “to live useful and dignified lives as citizens and members of Australian society in the twenty first century”) is no more or less than a tool of political control, and it is pointless trying to pretend otherwise.

It would be far more appropriate to place it in some General Studies category, give the kids some understanding of events and important dates, and leave the analyzing, contextualizing and general hand-wringing to their own inclinations.

Be honest, history is simply a form of distorting mirror that we hold up to ourselves, and what we see is what we want to see. There can therefore be no "right" or "wrong" way to teach it.
Posted by Pericles, Wednesday, 23 August 2006 10:33:30 AM
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Do we need a sense of AUSTRALIAN_National_Identity ?

Well, at the Wheelers Hill hotel in Melbourne last saturday, not 1 or 2... not even 4 or 5..but the ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY people were involved in a full on riot/brawl loosely described by the Indian Security bloke as "Wogs against Aussies".

The 'Wogs' in this case were apparently Hungarians_Serbs_Bosnians_Croats etc....and the 'Aussies'....well.. who knows... those 'not' with Eastern European faces ? Presumably, there is sufficient understanding of the term 'Aussie' to suggest that it means "Anglo" in the wider sense of 'UK' (England Wales Scotland Ireland). This alone is a tragic outcome of 'Multi-Culturalism' in that it divides the community, emphasising DIFFERENCE and viola.. we have 150 people belting into each other on tribal lines. One of those being stomped was a woman.

I intend to goto the Wheelers Hill hotel next saturday night (brawl night) and do some interviews and try to determine what is going on.

The only way to counter this kind of thing is by EMPHASIZING UNITY and IDENTITY.

"We are first 'AUSTRALIANS' and our ethnicity is second, if at all relevant"

We need to use Dorothea McKellars poem "My Country" as almost a Biblical text to show how it is possible to have an ethnicity which is over-ridden by an original emerging love for this great land.

Yes..I feel all that it means to be (fill in the ethnic blank)...but I LOVE A SUNBURNT COUNTRY...... etc.

We need a 2 pronged approach to re-establishing national identity.

1/ IMMIGRATION. All applicants must be screened based on their values and WILLINGNESS to commit to a) Placing ethnicity last and b) Placing Australian-ness first !

2/ EDUCATION. We must take an honest look at our local history and derive from this our sense of identity. This canNOT be separated from the founding themes and ethnic predominance which produced the pre-war Austrlia which then invited people from other lands to come and share.

We must consider the actual prevailing culture into which migrants were invited on the CONDITION that they seek to embrace and share our values and identity.
Posted by BOAZ_David, Wednesday, 23 August 2006 10:34:35 AM
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Mervyn Bendle's is a useful paper in that it describes the background to the national history conference and indicates the magnitude of the tasks ahead. A jarring note was struck, however, with his misleading claim that the two discussion papers for the conference revealed among other things that the defenders of the status quo are "defending a set of ramshackle and inefficient education systems operated by the states on behalf of special interest groups with little or no recognition of the nation’s requirements in the crucial area of history education."

You'll get no argument from me that education systems are ramshackle and inefficient - that's an empirical claim readily tested. But the conspiratorial claim that these systems are operated "on behalf of special interests groups" is a different kettle of smelly fish. The curricula of state education systems have developed over the last century under a wide range of governments of different persuasions and with the collaboration and mostly support of private sector groups. To suggest that such diverse interest groups could have coalesced in such a way as to serve the interests of a unitary ideological elite stretches credulity too thin.

More to the point, Bendle's throwaway line that these interest groups have "little or no recognition of the nation’s requirements in the crucial area of history education" (however 'nation's requirements' might be defined) and his conclusion that "the battle for the hearts and minds of Australia’s future generations is to be won" introduce a disturbing element. I do not send my children to school to be indoctrinated 'heart and mind' by history teachers or anyone else. Bendle's view of history teaching should be strenuously resisted. Education is not about pumping the "right" ideas into children; it's much richer than that.
Posted by FrankGol, Wednesday, 23 August 2006 10:55:24 AM
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Well said FrankGol

History is particularly vulnerable to being used for propaganda purposes. Example: A party in Britain wants to reemphasis history in the schools. They want to examine Britains achivements in the arts, sciences, politics & so on. All laudable aims but in their history they missed out certain aspects. Like the fact that britain was the first major drug pusher [they supplied opium to the Chinese to gain a trade advantage].

Such a history is merely propaganda. Nothing more. I think that's what pericles is getting at when he called History a distorting mirror. Correct me if I'm wrong please.

But history needn't be like that. History can be a frank look at a nations achievements and past attitudes & behaviour. It can show the students that there are other ways of doing things, other world views. Some of them better than the ones we now hold. Some much, much worse. But such value judgements I leave to the students. To me the history teacher's role is to present their students with the evidence & teach them how to interpret it. To read through the bias, the cant, the self-interest & get to the heart of the matter. And to maintain a sceptical midset. These are the benefits of studying history.
Posted by Bosk, Wednesday, 23 August 2006 11:09:36 AM
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Lets stop pussyfooting about. From the beginning of time, people of different races have lived in different parts of the world, and the separation of race and creed has enabled us to live relatively peacefully. We traded with each other, visited each other and appreciated the differences.

Now, thanks to unnecessary mass migration and the social experimentation of the multicultural maniacs, the mainly Western countries that have been subjected to this lunacy are worried because the totally inappropriate incomers don’t share our ‘values’ and couldn’t give a damn about those values and our history. Well, what a surprise!

Now, the very same spoilers who preach cultural relativism and denigrate our own culture think that a dose of Australian history will solve it all.

All that will come out of this latest brainstorm will be an unseemly spat over whose version of history will be taught, and students will continue to take their cues from crap television as they do now.

You cannot badmouth your own country for generations, and then suddenly expect teaching history to repair the damage.

With all due respect to the likes of Greg Melleuish who is a worthy participant in the process, it’s a little too late. We should have stuck to earlier history when: West (was) West and East (was) East and never the twain shall meet.
Posted by Leigh, Wednesday, 23 August 2006 11:29:35 AM
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If you are going to "to promote a unifying sense of national identity" you cannot rely on history, unless you want to base unity on xenophobia. Europeans supplanted indigenous Australians; the British and Irish hated each other; on the goldfields the British and Irish hated the Chinese; the Protestants hated the Catholics; the Catholics hated the Masons; Conservatives hated the Socialists; after WWII, second and third generation Australians hated the Italians and then the Greeks; they all hated the Turks and the Lebanese; the Serbs hated the Croats and rioted at soccer games; then everyone hated the Vietnamese. Now there is unity in fearing the Muslims. And, the largest Muslim nation in the world is on our doorstep.

Use whatever synonyms you like for for my perhaps overstated word, "hate": but in the end it spells at the same time diversity in identity accompanied by unity in fear - a strong undercurrent in Australian social history that the Howard model of conservative history oversimplifies.
Posted by Seamus, Wednesday, 23 August 2006 11:42:54 AM
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At the risk of you telling me to mind my own opinion, Leigh, the first two paragraphs of your post are appallingly ignorant of the basic facts of world and Australian history. Mass migration and inter-ethnic, inter-racial marriage have been a significant feature of world history for millenia. Consider the histories of Great Britain, South Africa, the Americas, various European countries, to name a few examples. Australian history has been dominated by mass migration from hundreds of countries and all major political parties have supported it especially in the post-1945 period. No reputable historian or major political figure in Australia today would argue that mass migration to Australia was, as you put it, "unnecessary".

Your denial of history - accompanied by your intemperate language to describe what you deny ("multicultural maniacs", "lunacy", "totally inappropriate incomers") - suggests to me that your experience of history at school was utterly defective.

Now why do I have the feeling I've just been wasting my time writing about facts?
Posted by FrankGol, Wednesday, 23 August 2006 12:04:18 PM
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Just a quick note on Greg Melluishe

I was in 2 of his classes at UOW, pretty nice guy, but an utterly single minded right-wing zealot who is at loggerheads with basically the whole arts faculty at UOW.

Its like he was convinced that every University in Australia was packed full of Commies who were out to get him and Keith Windschuttle.

He is a Machiavellian who believed it was ok for the Govt.to lie about WMD to take us into Iraq.

After hearing he was involved in this history summit thing I lost interest altogether.
Posted by Carl, Wednesday, 23 August 2006 1:48:11 PM
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Well we all know where you coming from.
We all live happily ever together, after eating different national dishes at the local park for the Multi cultural festival.
Life outside the park is different.
Britain has had a longer tradition, than even Australia of Multi culturism,yet the traditional British sport of" Paki-bashing" is alive and well and in a suburb near you.
From Perth in WA to Bondi,Paki Bashing,or Wog Bashing is still practised every week end in a suburb near you.
To blame the History teachers is an insult to all teachers.
We have taught every child in Germany that six million jews died to the Nazis and indeed it is agaist the law to teach the history of the second world war.
So despite these strict laws anti-semitism is wide spead in Germany today.Zenophobia is I believe at the same levels in Germany today as it was under Uncle Adolf.
Zenophobia is now in Australia stronger than at any time in its history.
The more history that is taught the better informed our young people
will become and the more tolerant they might show others.
Australian School history is full of untruths,such as our nations identity was forged at Gallipoli,What rubbish.They were Britishers fighting a British war.It was a defeat,like the Vietnam war.
The use of spin by our politicians is now going to be used by History teachers.Jingoism is going to be put forward,instead of fact.
Australia,had the highest number of dissertions than any other allied Army on the Western Front,fact but you will not find it in Australian history books.As a percentage Australian soilders had the highest of cowardiest reports of any Allied army in the First and second world wars.
.

It is time for all Australian History teachers to read Professor Runcimans "History of the Crusades."Then we may find out what real history is all about warts and all.
Posted by BROCK, Wednesday, 23 August 2006 3:00:49 PM
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I do object to this forum being used by participants for the pupose of propogating untrue and perhaps defamatory views. The post by Carl, whoever he may, and who may or may not have been in my classes, is not the sort of post that should be made. As I do not teach in the area of Australian foreign policy or international relations I have never made any comments to my students regarding WMD or Australian involvement in Iraq. His other views regarding Windschuttle and my relationship to the rest of the faculty can only have one source which is other staff members who, for whatever reason, have made comments to him. He should not be using this forum to enage in spreading scurrilous gossip.
Posted by GregM, Wednesday, 23 August 2006 3:25:08 PM
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GregM,

I apoplogise and I take your point. I meant nothing personal, only that when I heard of your involvement in the history summit I lost interest.

To clarify, my comments about you being at loggerheads with your faculty was only an obvservation that I made based on your ideological views compared with theirs. I can assure you that no member of your faculty has ever expressed their feelings about you with me, it was merely an observation that myself and some other students made
Posted by Carl, Wednesday, 23 August 2006 3:42:50 PM
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Why stop at high-school history?

There's a lot of thoughtcrimes being committed by adults too.

It's about time we finished this history war with a Final Solution. First, a committee for the investigation of UnAustralian activities. Those who are in violation will be sent to re-education camps at a disused immigration detention facility, and won't be re-admitted to Australian society until they have confirmed their love of football, meat pies, kangaroos and Holden cars and can bellow at the top of their lungs "this is the greatest country in the world, maaaate."

Only then will we be safe from terrorists.
Posted by Mercurius, Wednesday, 23 August 2006 5:29:27 PM
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By the way, the History Summit seems to have pleased nobody, so on balance, it looks like the delegates got things just about right.
Posted by Mercurius, Wednesday, 23 August 2006 5:35:12 PM
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>Lets stop pussyfooting about. From the beginning of time, people of different races have
>lived in different parts of the world, and the separation of race and creed has enabled us to
>live relatively peacefully. We traded with each other, visited each other and appreciated the
>differences.

This is utter racist rubbish. How would you explain the European settlement of Australia with this model of history? Then again, maybe Leigh is a closet leftie who thinks Australia should have been left to the aborigines.

Anyway, Brendle's piece is a confusing mess of assumptions about the nature of history, its purpose, and its practice. It history merely a tool of poorly defined policy as he suggests or is it an objective and independent academic displine? Who does history? teachers? historians? politicians? And does history do all the things he wants it do? Is a lack of coherent history teaching in schools what undermines Australian identity, or is it a generation of kids growing up on CSI and The Simpsons and Grand Theft Auto?

5/10. Must try harder.
Posted by mhar, Wednesday, 23 August 2006 6:36:47 PM
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Whose version of history is the author talking about.

I am all for more ACURATE history being taught.

Will the true history tell of of the policies of dispossession, slavery, cultural and physical genocide of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders by the colonists and their governments?

Will this history reveal the presence of official documented policies of stealing Indigenous children to breed out their colour and or turn the children into a servant class.

Will the history tell of how govternment officials ignored children being stolen and kept as sexual slaves, some as young as 8, by some poor lonley white male 'settlers'.

These are all provable via the colonialists desire to write everything down.

And before you ask me for references etc I suggest interested people can find ample information if they want to. You could try 'Broken Circles' by Anna Haebich.
Posted by Aka, Wednesday, 23 August 2006 6:41:47 PM
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I'd be prepared to take this Australian History Summit a bit more seriously if the Fed Govt was prepared to put its money where its mouth is. However, as they fund something in the order of 10% of public education, this is just political grandstanding. I had to scratch my head over the participants in the summit; no State education ministers, but they invited Bob Carr? I suppose Bob promised not to ask any awkward questions.

As far as the threat to tie funding to a national curriculum, I seem to remember a similar threat about schools flying flags. Really, the Fed education ministers only seem to have one trick.

The end result of the Summit was a pile of motherhood statements, which you can read here http://www.dest.gov.au/Ministers/Media/Bishop/2006/08/b002170806.asp They also recommended:

"1.The development of a series of open-ended questions to guide further curriculum developments. 2. The development of a chronological framework of key events." (some of the best history brains in the country and that was the best they could come up with?)

A national history curriculum? Funnily enough, Australian history is the one curriculum area where you CAN justify different state curricula. After all, NSW has a different history from WA or the NT (for example).

Really, this whole thing deserves to be forgotten as quickly as the Centenary of Federation. Do you folk really care when James Cook sailed from Albion's shore or who Australia's first Prime Minister was? No, I didn't think so.
Posted by Johnj, Wednesday, 23 August 2006 9:56:48 PM
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BROCKY
we don't need a policy of Multi culturalism in order for people to bring their own preferred food to the park :) It just happens.

Such things have nothing to do with a sense of national Identity.

WHAT YOU MISSED. In the middle of your mini diatribe about all of our ancestors hating each other, you missed the sense of love of this land that I'm sure most of them shared. You failed to point out the basis for the attitude that caused young men from all those backgrounds to volunteer to fight together against the common enemy.

FRANKGOL The 'Hearts and Minds' issue is important. The idea that our history is not currently being used or.. deliberately neglected..or.. selectively used to bludgeon young minds into a sense of 'We are a pack of evil thieves and culture killers who should feel continual shame' by political influences coming from the Education Unions etc... is a bit naive mate.

History should be taught warts and all, to teach us honesty about ourselves and our nation and our identity. But if we limited it to just our own short history, without connecting it with that of other places, and times, we may indeed gain a distorted view on things.

Tragic (such as the lack of resistance of Aboriginals to our diseases)or Cruel incidents (like the killing of 'pesky boongs' by Squatters) all need to be faced up to so we don't repeat such things, and indeed, to the extent that it would not rip the country apart, make some kind of restitution for these things.

MERCURIOUS We should add to the list of 'things to be avoided' in history classes a 'hyper negative mindset' :) Now off you go to Woomera for a stint in 'Australian-ness' re-education. Diet.. PIES PIES PIES..and daily practice of Aussie rools. Morning assembly singing 'Australia RUUULS'
Posted by BOAZ_David, Thursday, 24 August 2006 6:07:44 AM
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Sounds good, Boaz. As long as there's free beer and tomato sauce, I'll be re-educated in no time!
Posted by Mercurius, Thursday, 24 August 2006 8:08:23 PM
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As one who has written a series of three books on WA history since the first official Swan River landing, it was very difficult to avoid showing too much sympathy for Aborigines who were shot or treated harshly in official reports, and in today's language virtually regarded as terrorists because they refused to give in to white domination.

One particular character in mind was Midgerecoo, who was father of Yagan, the youngster who after escaping from Carnac Island out from Fremantle, where he was held for not obeying the new law of the land, but was never captured again and finally shot by a farm lad.

However, while on Carnac, with two other native prisoners and a military guard, they were also accompanied by Robert Lyon, an enigmatic figure in early colonial history, who while Yagan was almost a year on the run, wrote an article about the young native, praising him to the point for his appearance, his friendliness and his ability to learn English, that Dr CT Stannage in his New history of Western Australia writes how Yagan achieved lasting fame as an outlaw and patriot.

There is a very different story about Yagan's father, Midgericoo, who was shot outside the gates of the Perth military barracks before what is said to have been an audience of both whites and blacks. Midgericoo was executed as the leader of a group who had ambushed and killed two white settlers as a reprisal for the death of Yagan's brother Domjun who was shot while breaking into a Fremantle store.

Now as the books were written under supervision for an elective as part of a post-grad in Social Science, and expected to be read by a public, there were parts of the thesis which had to be toned down. And it is so interesting as other historians will agree, that the tendency while writing, is to treat whom we might call the invaders more harshly than the invaded.

Were the truth lies, as Socrates might say, it lies deep down in our thoughts, or in our consciences.
Posted by bushbred, Thursday, 31 August 2006 5:13:09 PM
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I am not a historian just a parent with school age children. What I see my daughter in Y10 studying for Australian History really scares me. The views presented as so biased and one sided it makes me worry about how future generations will ever be able to see the world in a clear and objective manner. For example the Stage 5 Australian History textbook my daughter uses talks about the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in a couple of paragraphs. They are made to learn about how difficult WWII was for the Aussies soldiers and yet no mention was make of the fire bombings of Tokyo during this same period during which tens of thousands of civilians were killed. It seems to me that the last ten years has seen a complete rewriting of some of our history. War - in particular the ANZAC tradition has been glorified and backed up by both state and federal parliaments to the extent we have seen a huge increase in the number of young people believing the myths that are being put to us. History is being taught piecemeal under the current system giving a distorted view of the world. My daughter for example said they did not study the Crusades or the Industrial revolution but are now learning about Germaine Greer and rock and roll. It is madness. What we want is a balanced and factual view of history. Unfortunately there is already a generation who have missed out.
Posted by Mionaonthehill, Sunday, 3 September 2006 11:56:52 AM
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