Hasnet
Lais`s excellent article on the way the national curriculum prevents history
teachers from teaching "the brutal legacy of empire" provides yet another piece
of evidence to illustrate the way British history is still being manipulated (As
a history teacher, I`m horrified by the whitewashing of my curriculum,
30/10/17). It was bad enough when Michael Gove was insisting on factual history
taking precedence over analysis and evaluation, but when the facts to be taught
are prescriptive, and when essential events are omitted, the history learned is
bound to be inaccurate and misleading.
This is not a new phenomenon, and the Brexit vote was, in part, the result of a
distorted view of our history, seemingly desirous of our so-called "glorious
past", when wars were won by "Britain alone", when empires were gained to
"civilise", when atrocities were only committed by enemies or "barbarians", and
when the economy boomed without the need for European co-operation or
labour.
Of course history involves, as Lais reminded us, a "dispassionate and authentic
inquiry into the past", but unlike other countries like Germany which insist on facing up to their past
and refusing to mislead students with "colonial amnesia", however uncomfortable,
Britain
In fact, the thirty year rule has been ignored so often by the Foreign and
Commonwealth Office, that there now exists an archive containing 1.2 million
files, going back to the end of the Crimean War, hidden from the prying eyes of
historians, and, of course, from barristers aiming to get justice for their
clients.
Two things are essential: first, the release of
the "secret" files, and second, an admission that our history has been
manipulated for years, and that a re-write is
required.
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