amusing spam

This one actually made me laugh. The first line reads:

Hello,
i am MRS Janet Cole.i am a business man based in europe

History as we are taught it

In 'Thought Experiments' issues 2, Genava Melzack is discussing the reasons why people study history. Several reasons were suggested by herself and her friends:

1. We study history to learn from our past mistakes.

2. We study history inotder to know where we came from and thus to know ourselves better.

3. We study history in otder to learn about human nature.

I would argue that for most people, none of the above are true.

My hypothesis is that we study history in order to reinforce our desired image of ourselves as a nation. In this hypothesis, I may be partly deviating from Geneva's original intent as I'm focusing largely on what governments desire us to learn, but the history we choose to study for ourselves is also often chosen to reinforce our prefered image of ourselves.

I was collecting information from other Livejournallers on what they had studied at school and it was generally reinforcing my hypotheses, when along came a news item that demonstrated it perfectly.

In Russia, a history book by Igor Dolutsky recently lost its licence from the Ministry of Education, as it mentioned among other things the crimes perpetuated by the Soviet era against millions of Russian citizens, and the participation of Allied forces in WW2 (didn't you know Russia won the war single-handed?).

Putin's directive to historians stated: 'Textbooks should provide historical facts, and they must cultivate a sense of pride among youth in their history and country.'

In China, there have been similar moves to whitewash history. Chinese school history texts fail to mention the 1979 invasion of Vietnam, the 1989 crackdown on democracy, or the 30 million Chinese who starved to death during the 'Great Leap Forward'. Ironically, there have been protests in China regarding a new Japanese history book that omits details such as the Chinese women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese during the war.

Are Western democracies any better in what they teach their children? No. We too bias our history to fit Putin's directive perfectly.

Let's look at a few examples.

A friend of mine said to me recently: "We were on the wrong side in World War II and we lost." I told him he was crazy.

He replied that we went to war to defend Poland when it was invaded by Germany. After the war, we gave Poland to Russia. Ergo, we lost as we did not achieve what we had joined the war to do.

We sided against Hitler who massacred 6 million people. We sided against Stalin who massacred 20-30 million (deliberate death by starvation still counts as massacre).

I had to admit that my friend had a point. The way we in Britain are taught the history of WW2 tends to gloss over the facts that we betrayed Poland and our responsibility for the deaths of the one million Soviet prisoners that we forcibly repatriated (we knew what might happen to them).

American history books have their own slant (didn't you know America won the war single-handed?) and we all know what American movies about WWII do by way of blatently distorting history.

Australian history doesn't win the war single-handed, but focuses heavily on the Gallipoli landings which is where the greatest involvement of the ANZAC troops was.

No nation comes out well on the history study.

The main eras studied in the UK appear to be Egypt (ancient of course - none of those Islamic people to confuse things), Greece, Rome (because we see their civilisations as precursors to our own and they are regarded as very civilised. If you regard demcracy as important, then you focus on where it first developed). The Norman conquest (possibly because historians so love the Domesday book - we can trace your village to nearly a thousand years ago - we're a very old culture). The Magna Carta (look, our democracy is older than yours). Elizabethans (Britannia rules the waves - we have better explorers and navies than anyone else). The Tudors and the War of the Roses (Haven't quite worked that one out yet, but I'm open to suggestions). The Civil War (we're very democratic as Parliament won, but we're also kind to monarchs as long as they don't want too much power). The industrial revolution (everything useful was invented in Britain and we industrialised first). American war of Independence (but not in too much detail and making sure we know that lots of Americans were loyal to the crown). French Revolution (you can't trust the French, they guillotine aristocrats and murder lots of people - long live the Scarlet Pimpernel!) WWI + WWII (We won)

I had a flash of hope when cobrabay said he'd done some modern Chinese history, but a quick check of the dates confirmed that he'd only done safe stuff well after the Opium Wars were history. (The Opium Wars can briefly be summed up as Britain fighting a war to be allowed to sell massive quantities of opium to Chinese drug addicts as we were making a massive profit out of it. This at a time when opium use was outlawed in England.)

Other periods that we never study: the Boer War (Britain invents the concentration camp); colonisation of sub-Saharan Africa (a lot of very underhand stuff); the 1812 war with America (apart from the bit where we're protecting Canada - our impressing American sailors seems to get missed out)

On the other hand, Americans (certainly some of them) are, of course, taught about British colonisation, not just of sub-Saharan Africa, but also about the British in China and the Opium Wars and India under the British (see, the British are evil bastards, colonilism is evil and we were proud freedom fighters when we kicked them out) They'll also get the War of Independence, the US Civil War (of course, it was all fought to end slavery, you know), the industrial revolution (everything useful was invented in America and we industrialised first), WWI and WWII (America won).

Sadly, America too has missing chunks. I had a flash of hope when redstarrobot said she'd done South and Central American history, but it was all about the Aztecs, Incas, etc. (we've got some old civilisation too, so sucks to Europe). Nothing about more recent history and the CIA's role in setting up repressive dictatorships. Nothing about the invasion of Canada.

Are Australians any better?

The older Australians in particular had a very Eurocentric version of history (we've got more history than the Aborigines and we've brought our culture with us including the Greeks and the Romans) They get the explorers of Australia, European, Dutch and British (this continent was discovered by brave, heroic men and there wasn't really anyone here before they discovered it). Then there's the inland explorers and the early settlers (no one used to have convicts as ancestors, but it's more fashionable now to have at least one in the family tree as eveyone knows the English courts would transport people for trivial crimes). They used to jump straight from there to Gallipoli (we suffered, but we won a pyrrhic victory), but now Australia is allowed some modern history (see, we're democratic too).

As Australia develops much closer political and economic links with Indonesia, Australian school children have discovered, to their surprise, that Indonesia has a history too.

Aborigines? Who are they? (this isn't their country - it's ours! We found it.)

This is an extremely potted version of what we are taught at school and I'd liketo thank greengolux, kat_erine, cobrabay, temeres, reapermum, wychwood, lexin, mistraltoes, redstarrobot, sallymn, hawkeye7 and kerravonsen for their input on their respective countries. The information was theirs, the interpretation and sarky comments are all mine.

I'll finish with a story my husband told me. I haven't been able to track down a reference to know if it is true or false. He said that in a private document, Churchill wrote what he could never say in public. We lost the war.