School History: Nationalism over Truth?

[Confuzor]

To start this topic off, it's important to determine WHERE you live, cause this topic varies on where you live.

I'm a Chinese-Canadian, (or Kanasian, as I'd like to call it). I'm in grade 10, but I'm currently taking Socials 11 Enriched. From what I've learned in class so far, Canada hasn't always had such a clean history. By this, I mean that our country has commited some pretty bad actions. These include:

- forced deportation of Acadians by British during it's war with the French
- Japanese internment in the west during WWII
- general anti-semite attitude during WWII (most notably the rejection of the ship St. Louis
- horrid Natives history treatment (residential schools)

Of course I'm not proud of what my country has done, but I'm glad that it's not afraid to admit and teach students of the wrongs that were commited. My question though is how much other countries admit and teach in their schools. Of course, I don't know too much about the history taught in other nations, but here's my general impression:

United States - The American Revolution

OK, basically what it seems is that the good guys are the Americans, and the bad guys are the British. How so? What was it that made the king such a "tyrant"? Hmmm... According to a certain site:

The three most important events that led up to, and caused it, were the Boston Massacre, The Boston Tea Party, and The Stamp Act.

- <a href="http://www.ctbw.com/jones.htm" target="_blank">http://www.ctbw.com/jones.htm</a>

OK, let's see the Boston Massacre. Gosh that sounds awful! What happened? Well apparently some colonialists pissing off a private soldier named Montgomery. He was supposed to be under the command of Captain Thomas Preston but went out of control when a club hit him. So he and his companions NOT under the control of Preston at that moment went postal for a second. The result:

Three colonialists were killed and two mortally wounded.

Geez! What a massacre!
- Okay, the text explains that's not the matter of how many people were killed that mattered in making it an important factor in the revolution, but wouldn't you agree that the word "massacre" is exaggerating it?

Boston Tea Party... they raise taxes on tea, the fish get free tea as a result.

The Stamp Act? A tax on pretty much every document. Okay it sounds crazy to me that they'd even go as far as to tax playing cards. BUT COME ON!!!! That's supposed to be enough reason to believe that the British king is evil?

I'm aware that there are more "acts", but mainly, they're just simple taxes! Not that I support Britain, (I mean hiring German mercenaries to shoot your own people is where it gets real bad, but that was later), but the reasons to START the revolution seem pretty weak. And Canada had to deal with it as well...

- <a href="http://www.google.ca/search?q=cache:h56WpGThFj0C:www.tiac.net/users/amerins/mass.htm+Boston+Massacre&hl=en" target="_blank">http://www.google.ca/search?q=cache:h56WpGThFj0C:www.tiac.net/users/amerins/mass.htm+Boston+Massacre&hl=en</a>

Japan - Chinese Holocaust

Well actually, not just to the Chinese, but apparently to Americans and Russians as well.

<a href="http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200203/22/eng20020322_92586.shtml" target="_blank">http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200203/22/eng20020322_92586.shtml</a>
<a href="http://www.technologyartist.com/unit_731/" target="_blank">http://www.technologyartist.com/unit_731/</a>

So the truth is SLOWLY coming out. But until it's fully finished, Japan's education still denies/ makes no mention of it's treatment to enemy civilans/ POW. Yikes.

I'm sure Canada isn't perfect; we probably learn that we're more important than we actually are. :Þ And I still remember my 8th grade Socials teacher saying that in one of his textbooks, it blatantly stated:

Communism is bad.

No definition as to what it was, all that was important to know was that it was bad.

But for the present time, I feel that Canada's education isn't afraid to admit and teach it's wrong-doings. What do you guys think of your country's education?

 

[PorCorpWis]

What you say is true. At least I have noticed that many american "history" textbooks are full of blatant lies. In fact, there are books about how many lies are in history textbooks. It's rather pathetic that the real history is so bad that they have had to lie to cover it up. It's also irritating that they are full of so many biases that they try to pass along to the students, such as your example "communism is bad" textbook. But as you also said, this problem seems to be gradually dissolving. I remember finding a pro-communism book laying around in my american history class. I read it too.

<small>[ June 11, 2002, 06:05 PM: Message edited by: PorCorpWis ]</small>

 

[Massy]

Of course it is. It is in every country's interest to paint as pretty picture of itself as possible, so that its children grow up to be good little patriots believing their country to be the bestest in the whole wide world. It isn't limited to any paticular country either:

America: Glosses over genocide of natives, glorifies the revolution, has convinced itself it won WWI and II, complete and total non-recognition of proxy conflicts, support for dictatorships and atrocities during the Cold War.

Canada: See above. Edit: ( I meant Confuzor's documentation of events that the Canadians should not be proud of, and that I couldn't be bothered to cut-n'-paste.)

Russia: Seems to vary according to who's in charge at the time. Used to ignore the existence of a police state and covered up WWII massacres, now depicts all communists as evil.

Britain: "Empire, what empire?"

Japan: Recent fall-out with Korea over the non-appearance of Japanese atrocities in Korea in History textbooks. Well documented.

Turkey: "No siree, ain't heard of no Armenian genocide here."

However the point of the interesting and kind of sad list of shame, my point is that they all do it. The only defence is an open mind, which far too many people lack completely.

Go to indymedia.org or something, now. I'm not claiming for a second that what you read there is the gospel truth, merely that it it important to view as many sources of information as are available, painting all the different sides of an argument and then making up your own mind. Because what you are taught is quite possibly a facade for Agenda X.

There's some quote I was going to put in here about "he who controls the present controls the past" or vice versa, or something, but I've forgotten how it goes. ********.

<small>[ June 15, 2002, 02:26 PM: Message edited by: Massy ]</small>

 

[bball2012]

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by Confuzor:
<strong>

I'm aware that there are more "acts", but mainly, they're just simple taxes! Not that I support Britain, (I mean hiring German mercenaries to shoot your own people is where it gets real bad, but that was later), but the reasons to START the revolution seem pretty weak. And Canada had to deal with it as well...</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">America revolted against Britain for several reasons, one being they had no say in the government. They did not elect officials, they had no one to represent them in Parliament (sp?). So basically if Britain wants to raises the taxes, America has no say whatsoever. One of the main reasons for the revolution. Other reasons include British troops were blocking migration to the west, and British soldiers occupying American homes in places like Boston and Philadelphia, when they were suppose to be out westward defending America from Indians. I really don't think it's fair for you to judge some things in American history without having taken extensive classes on the subject, just as it isn't fair for me to judge Canadian history without knowing everything that went down.

But anyway, back to the subject at hand. It is quite obvious that in most history books, a country's wrongdoings are covered quite briefly. We'll take WWII as an example. In my book, there is about one page on the relocation camps for Japanese Americans, and about a dozen other pages covering the brighter aspects of WWII. It's the same way with the Trail of Tears and Native Americans.

Each country will look at world history a little differently. I'm sure Japan portrays themselves as "the victim" (which I believe wholeheartedly) in WWII with the dropping of the atomic bomb, while the U.S. looks at them merely as "the enemy." I'm also sure that nowhere in a Japanese history book would you find information telling you that the U.S. flew over Japan during WWII and dropped pamphlets warning of their "terrible weapon" and telling them to surrender. The country telling the story will almost always be the good guy, and the enemy is always looked at as the bad guy. Simple as that.

 

[Ender_Wiggen]

I guess I was lucky this year. My teacher taught us all about England's colonism (opium anyone?), L.B.J.'s war (aka vietnam), and all the other acts of the various world powers. Well somewhat off topic, but the same thing happens in the us with our science. But this time its the religous zealots who publish our books who are too afarid that people might not believe after they learn. So they edit our text and cut out what they think is unexceptable.

 

[Confuzor]

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> America: Glosses over genocide of natives, glorifies the revolution, has convinced itself it won WWI and II, complete and total non-recognition of proxy conflicts, support for dictatorships and atrocities during the Cold War.

Canada: See above. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Canada glosses over genocide of Natives? Well for this grade, and the previous grade, it was anything but glossy.

Unlike the massacring on the Natives in U.S. The British attempted to help the Natives. They had contracts between Natives entitling them the right to take their land. Unfortunately, the whole idea of a land contract to Natives was completely foreign. Their take on land was that they humans belonged to the land, not the other way around. Opposite of what the Natives thought. In addition, in my province, (British Columbia), we didn't even BOTHER to sign contracts with Natives.

Assuming that the Natives did understand the concept, this would have made no affect whatsoever except perhaps to delay the inevitable. The Natives depended on the buffalo for survival. The Europeans came and slaughtered their buffalo. So they're stuck in a Catch 22 - Starving vs. No independence (and as expected by racism, no rights either)

Even in the 20th century, things still aren't great. Residential schools - what can I say. The government forcefully takes Native children away from their family to be "assimilated" into white man culture. How so? Physical, sexual, and mental abuse by Catholics.

Glossy? On the contrary...

- We covered quite a lot on this, both for Grade 9 and 10. It wasn't just a quick skim. I think we also did a good deal on the Japanese Internment in B.C. Definetely more than just half an hour on the subject...

 

[AoE Freaky dude]

He meant see above as what you were posting, which was ABOVE his post, (not directly, but still. He meant what you were saying... Because Canada (I HOPE) doesn't think it won WW2 <img border="0" alt="[ROTFL]" title="" src="graemlins/rotfl.gif" /> )

Well anyway, here where I live, we have very sarcastic and pessimist teachers who don't lie... America did alot of crap it shouldn't, but hey - that's life.

 

[Confuzor]

***Smashes self with mallet***

^ That made more sense! (For those of you who might make the same mistake, I mean the post above this post) - Didn't think we'd care about another country's revolution too much <img border="0" alt="[Laugh]" title="" src="graemlins/laugh.gif" />

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Except for the fact that they had annexation on their mind... <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="frown.gif" />

<small>[ June 12, 2002, 02:03 AM: Message edited by: Confuzor ]</small>

 

[Bumble Bee Tuna]

I believe the quote goes along the lines of "he who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future."
But that might be off by a bit.

I think, Confuzor, that if you'd like to see why Americans had the Revolution, you need only read the Declaration of Independence. It doesn't really say much of anything except essentially a bulleted list of each thing that the King had done wrong to us. Obviously, we glorify it and vilify Britain past what was probably true, but the essence of it is truth.

And while we're speculating on the intent of Massy, I honestly don't think he meant to see Confuzor's post...that doesn't make much sense.

-B

 

[PorCorpWis]

Not that I want to turn this into a debate about the american revolution, but I just have to say something since that's being discussed. Even if all of the stories about how the Britan treated the colonies *were* true, that's not an excuse for a war. The immense death, suffering, etc. etc. of that war was in no way a fair trade for "independence." **** , some guys come and bully you around, take your house even, tax you without representation... oh that's horrible... I know how to fix it! Let's go to war about about a million (approx. )dead people later everything will be fine.

If you want to free a colony from British rule, follow Mahatma Ghandi's example.

 

[Extreme Fighter]

Luckily, my school doesn't gloss over the truth. I like it that way because I'd rather learn about history, even if it is bad, than some sugar-coated crap that isn't true. However, I'm sure quite a lot of schools are biased. Also, don't criticize things you don't know all the facts about. Of course the people in America should have found a peaceful solution for the Revolutionary War, but it isn't quite that easy. There were lots of protests and talks with England, but the king did not want to lose power over his colonies. That is why the war started.

 

[PorCorpWis]

Exteme Fighter, maybe you should follow your own advice. I'm quite sure I know a bit more about it than you do; maybe you shouldn't citicize my opinion if you don't know enough about it. If Mahatma Ghandi had been as short tempered at those colonial dudes, there likley would have been an additional war in India. You can't just say, "Oh, they aren't listening, boo hoo, now let's all go murder a lot of people..."

There's almost never an excuse for war.

 

[Misto-Roboto]

Honestly, we may have not the full truth on our past history, but we shouldn't let what our fore fathers did or didn't do change what we can do now. I honestly think the past and constantly looking back on it will do nothing but hurt us from the inside. This by all means does not mean we should not tyr to learn about the past, but if we keep bringing the past back up we will never move onto the future as humans.

-Misto

P.S - Sorry if this was over sentimental, but I have found people who bring up the past alot usually do it as an excuse to cause some kind of trouble.

 

[Bumble Bee Tuna]

Yeah...So India had numbers, but no arms. America didn't have nearly as many numbers, but they had arms. Never mind the huge difference in international and national attitudes toward colonization and empires. I imagine this difference in means to achieve their ends is why Americans had no choice but to fight for their rights and why Indians had no choice but to peacefully protest for their rights.

Comparing two completely different situations as equal is pretty much silly. I imagine the view that war and violence are never necessary and "can't we all just get along?" is an easy one to have, and one that really makes you feel morally superior, but in the real world, it doesn't work. For the peaceful solution to work all the time, you have to make the assumption that everyone in the world is peaceful and will listen to your protests. If this HUGE what if were true, there would never be conflict of any sort to begin with.

-B

 

[Massy]

Misto. Of course, we don't have to dwell on the past and let it **** up what we're trying to do now. But History is important, and massively so. Those who do not learn from the their mistakes are doomed to repeat them. But if all the mistakes have been airbrushed out by a white-out-happy government trying to make its country look better, people will carry on in their illusions of infallibility. Every country has ****ed up, some badly. It's important that everyone realises this next time a president wants to carry out a "police action" in Asia.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">For the peaceful solution to work all the time, you have to make the assumption that everyone in the world is peaceful and will listen to your protests. If this HUGE what if were true, there would never be conflict of any sort to begin with. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">While this is true in the strictest sense, in that sometimes you have to fight against an enemy who will not negotiate, the vast majority of the time that isn't true. Of all the countless wars in the 20th century, the only major conflict to have a viable moral basis is possibly WWII. More often than not, you don't have to go to war, it'll just help you get elected again. (Thatcher, Bush, Bush, etc.)