Wanted to put the following in the California Textbook thread, since it is tangentially related to that, but don't know if this would break up the continuity of that thread.
Seems Europe Union wants to consolidate a European past (recent past, I'm not talking here about the Ur-Past of 'the Oryans')
3 articles concerning this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/eu/story/0,,2019570,00.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Germany plans new EU-wide history book</b>
Ian Traynor in Brussels
Friday February 23, 2007
The Guardian
Europe is more likely to be agonising about its future, but now it is the past that is proving contentious. Yesterday it emerged that Germany was hoping to exploit its EU presidency to promote a new school history book for the European Union.
At a meeting in Heidelberg next week of EU education ministers, Berlin is to push for the publication of the book on the history of the EU to be used as a standard text in all 27 member countries.
While the plan is likely to prove contentious, charges that Germany is bent on whitewashing its troubled history were abruptly dismissed in Berlin yesterday. Germany has spent decades exploring its Nazi past, using its education system, the media and public debate.
"It is not the idea at all to rewrite history," said a government spokesman, Rainer Rudolph, yesterday. "There would be no suggestion of leaving out anything which might be unpleasant or difficult for the Germans, or for anyone else. That would be ridiculous."
While Chancellor Angela Merkel is said to back the idea, the common EU history book is the brainchild of Annette Schavan, the education minister. European commission officials dealing with education issues in Brussels also support the plan for the book, which would be drawn up by international experts.
But the idea would be decided by national capitals, and in some the proposal is certain to encounter scepticism, not least in Britain. Poland has repeatedly accused Germany of seeking to rewrite history because of a campaign for a museum dedicated to the fate of Germans driven out of eastern Europe at the end of the war. The Czechs would also bridle at the idea of a common history book proposed by Germany. The Dutch and the Danes may also have reservations.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->This is christo influence in their behaviour: force fitting (often conflicting) narratives into one. What is wrong in unity in diversity? It is highly important to continue to let the different views of the same history be taught, as long as each of these are rooted in truth. For instance, WWII was a different experience for the Greeks than it was for the French, which was different again from the British or Polish experiences. If the Greeks will study only generic 'European' history, important aspects related to their nation's experiences during this war for instance will no longer have much (any) time devoted to them. Allied betrayal of Greece in WWII will be ignored then forgotten.
A 'common' history that avoids the difficult or extensive additional details of local countries will essentially negate the unique history (until the time of European unification) of each local country in favour of a single European history only briefly painting various perspectives.
In my view, the real issue is not so much Germany's Nazi past (or the 30 years war between christian denominations, or the 80 years war between NL and ES, or the 100 years war between FR and UK).
I think it is all the more recent nastyness and underhandedness that NATO has indulged in with the US that is spurring on this whole thing and which is the major problem.
And most importantly, will the Serbs (like us Hindus) have to learn a false history of hte last 100 years of their nation and their people? Will they learn the history NATO chooses for them? Is this one of the goals of this whole 'single history' program? It is significant that Germany - whose government even in recent times is not a Serbian ally to say the least - is the one to suggest it. The German suggestion for a history (one which will no doubt be dictated by NATO where it concerns the Balkan affair) will favour Croatia and the ethnic terrorist-Albanians and whitewash their abominable crimes.
A premonition I get is that in Serbia's case they're going to try pulling a Witzellian trick: get some distant government (EU govt) to determine what goes in Serbian textbooks so its children can be brainwashed about how their ancestors were evil and how their history is actually a 'composite culture' of islam, blablabla. Maybe Romila Thappar and her kind will like to sign up to author the history book (cheap Indian 'historians' labour, after all) for Europe. Or not - European governments might prefer that in some regional histories they'd like a semblance to truth, besides, amateurs like India's 'eminent' 'historians' are good enough to doctor Indian history, professionals are required to give the final blow to Serbian identity.
http://www.elsevier.nl/nieuws/europese_uni...n/ja/index.html has the original
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Germany wants a European history book</b>
Friday 23 February 2007
Temporary EU-chairman Germany wants that a uniform European history book will come for all the member states. But critics fear a 'sanitised version' version of the history.
According to the British paper The Guardian, Germany wants to make use of the chairmanship this present half-year to launch a European history book.
<b>Ridiculous</b>
Next week, the European ministers of Education will gather together in the German university town of Heidelberg and the Germans would want to use this occasion to make their proposal. But the proposal to prescribe a uniform history will probably call up/give rise to much resistance .
Rainer Rudolph, spokesperson for the German government, stresses that it is certainly not the intention to rewrite European history: 'The suggestion that certain events will be omitted which will be uncomfortable for Germans or others, is ridiculous.'
<b>Nazi past</b>
Rudolph refers particularly to the German nazi past, and the recently growing attention for the German victims of World War II. Critics, especially in neighbouring Poland and the Czech Republic, are afraid of a 'sanitised' version, wherein the dark sides of European history will be softened or even omitted.
Graham Brady, spokesperson of the European conservatives, additionally calls the idea of a uniform history book a 'typically bureaucratic mission which gives him the creeps.'
<b>Museum</b>
Germany is putting all efforts in to make the half-year chairmanship a success and to get the European project moving (forward?) again. In this way, one of the goals of German chancellor Angela Merkel is to once again blow new life into the European Constitution.
And the new chairman of the European Parliament, the German Hans-Gert Poettering, pleaded at his swearing-in last week for a museum of the European Unification. That's where the memory of the 'unique story of the European Unification would have to be kept alive.' This museum would have to, just like the European history book, strengthen European identity.
By Robbert de Witt<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
http://www.elsevier.nl/nieuws/europese_uni...1591/index.html contains the original
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Divided reactions to European history book</b>
Thursday 1 March 2007
The European Union (EU) is condering to write a European history book, but not everyone's been waiting for this.
That turned out to be the case today at an informal EU-meeting of ministers of Education in Germany's Heidelberg.
The German minister of Education, Annette Schavan, pleaded a short time ago for a EU-history book in all of the the EU-member states.
<b>According to Schavan, a centrally-written history book can strengthen the cultural identity of Europeans and contribute to the growing-closer/coming-together of the inhabitants of the member states.</b> But not all member states have the same views on this.
<b>'Different points of view'</b>
Poles turned down the idea. 'We do not believe in this possibility. Poles and Germans already have different points of view about central questions. Then it will become difficult to endorse European values and societal perspectives,' the Polish minister of Education Roman Giertych reacted.
Also the Netherlands is 'holding back greatly', according to top-official Gerard Maas of the ministry of Education. 'It does not fit in with the Dutch (ways of doing things?) that men make such a history book centrally.'
<b>'Valuable contribution'</b>
Austria and Belgium did react enthusiastically. 'The citizens know too little about European history. Thus far/for that a common history book will certainly be a valuable contribution,' said the Belgian minister Oliver Paasch.
There already exists a joint history book of Germany and France that is being used in different schools in those countries.
By Claudia van Zanten<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Now, if this were India and Nepal (and Thailand or SE Asia, say) planning a joint book on our shared history, <i>you know</i> that the usual suspects (FOSA, FOIL, Herr Commandant WitSSel, Schutz-Abteilung Farmer, Indian communists) will show up from nowhere and form an international board of 'scholars' to petition and protest at the UN about the Hypertutvas who 'plan to commit sacrilege' against history and 'are trying to be communalist' against the christoislamaniacs and India's composite culture.
Another question, from the back of my mind:
Is this another reason why Europe's been pushing so hard for the Oryan theories recently? A shared Ur-history would make all those massive genocidal wars after christianisation seem irrelevant when seen from this 'grander' perspective. If so, rewriting the facts by creating a 'historical European' identity (one that never existed) would make it seem like the formation of the EU was an inevitable joining up - a 'return to historical' oneness, if you will.
Or maybe the extra push for IE is but a coincidence.
[Irffanblog's brilliant 'Hypertutvas' used above without permission.]
Seems Europe Union wants to consolidate a European past (recent past, I'm not talking here about the Ur-Past of 'the Oryans')
3 articles concerning this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/eu/story/0,,2019570,00.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Germany plans new EU-wide history book</b>
Ian Traynor in Brussels
Friday February 23, 2007
The Guardian
Europe is more likely to be agonising about its future, but now it is the past that is proving contentious. Yesterday it emerged that Germany was hoping to exploit its EU presidency to promote a new school history book for the European Union.
At a meeting in Heidelberg next week of EU education ministers, Berlin is to push for the publication of the book on the history of the EU to be used as a standard text in all 27 member countries.
While the plan is likely to prove contentious, charges that Germany is bent on whitewashing its troubled history were abruptly dismissed in Berlin yesterday. Germany has spent decades exploring its Nazi past, using its education system, the media and public debate.
"It is not the idea at all to rewrite history," said a government spokesman, Rainer Rudolph, yesterday. "There would be no suggestion of leaving out anything which might be unpleasant or difficult for the Germans, or for anyone else. That would be ridiculous."
While Chancellor Angela Merkel is said to back the idea, the common EU history book is the brainchild of Annette Schavan, the education minister. European commission officials dealing with education issues in Brussels also support the plan for the book, which would be drawn up by international experts.
But the idea would be decided by national capitals, and in some the proposal is certain to encounter scepticism, not least in Britain. Poland has repeatedly accused Germany of seeking to rewrite history because of a campaign for a museum dedicated to the fate of Germans driven out of eastern Europe at the end of the war. The Czechs would also bridle at the idea of a common history book proposed by Germany. The Dutch and the Danes may also have reservations.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->This is christo influence in their behaviour: force fitting (often conflicting) narratives into one. What is wrong in unity in diversity? It is highly important to continue to let the different views of the same history be taught, as long as each of these are rooted in truth. For instance, WWII was a different experience for the Greeks than it was for the French, which was different again from the British or Polish experiences. If the Greeks will study only generic 'European' history, important aspects related to their nation's experiences during this war for instance will no longer have much (any) time devoted to them. Allied betrayal of Greece in WWII will be ignored then forgotten.
A 'common' history that avoids the difficult or extensive additional details of local countries will essentially negate the unique history (until the time of European unification) of each local country in favour of a single European history only briefly painting various perspectives.
In my view, the real issue is not so much Germany's Nazi past (or the 30 years war between christian denominations, or the 80 years war between NL and ES, or the 100 years war between FR and UK).
I think it is all the more recent nastyness and underhandedness that NATO has indulged in with the US that is spurring on this whole thing and which is the major problem.
And most importantly, will the Serbs (like us Hindus) have to learn a false history of hte last 100 years of their nation and their people? Will they learn the history NATO chooses for them? Is this one of the goals of this whole 'single history' program? It is significant that Germany - whose government even in recent times is not a Serbian ally to say the least - is the one to suggest it. The German suggestion for a history (one which will no doubt be dictated by NATO where it concerns the Balkan affair) will favour Croatia and the ethnic terrorist-Albanians and whitewash their abominable crimes.
A premonition I get is that in Serbia's case they're going to try pulling a Witzellian trick: get some distant government (EU govt) to determine what goes in Serbian textbooks so its children can be brainwashed about how their ancestors were evil and how their history is actually a 'composite culture' of islam, blablabla. Maybe Romila Thappar and her kind will like to sign up to author the history book (cheap Indian 'historians' labour, after all) for Europe. Or not - European governments might prefer that in some regional histories they'd like a semblance to truth, besides, amateurs like India's 'eminent' 'historians' are good enough to doctor Indian history, professionals are required to give the final blow to Serbian identity.
http://www.elsevier.nl/nieuws/europese_uni...n/ja/index.html has the original
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Germany wants a European history book</b>
Friday 23 February 2007
Temporary EU-chairman Germany wants that a uniform European history book will come for all the member states. But critics fear a 'sanitised version' version of the history.
According to the British paper The Guardian, Germany wants to make use of the chairmanship this present half-year to launch a European history book.
<b>Ridiculous</b>
Next week, the European ministers of Education will gather together in the German university town of Heidelberg and the Germans would want to use this occasion to make their proposal. But the proposal to prescribe a uniform history will probably call up/give rise to much resistance .
Rainer Rudolph, spokesperson for the German government, stresses that it is certainly not the intention to rewrite European history: 'The suggestion that certain events will be omitted which will be uncomfortable for Germans or others, is ridiculous.'
<b>Nazi past</b>
Rudolph refers particularly to the German nazi past, and the recently growing attention for the German victims of World War II. Critics, especially in neighbouring Poland and the Czech Republic, are afraid of a 'sanitised' version, wherein the dark sides of European history will be softened or even omitted.
Graham Brady, spokesperson of the European conservatives, additionally calls the idea of a uniform history book a 'typically bureaucratic mission which gives him the creeps.'
<b>Museum</b>
Germany is putting all efforts in to make the half-year chairmanship a success and to get the European project moving (forward?) again. In this way, one of the goals of German chancellor Angela Merkel is to once again blow new life into the European Constitution.
And the new chairman of the European Parliament, the German Hans-Gert Poettering, pleaded at his swearing-in last week for a museum of the European Unification. That's where the memory of the 'unique story of the European Unification would have to be kept alive.' This museum would have to, just like the European history book, strengthen European identity.
By Robbert de Witt<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
http://www.elsevier.nl/nieuws/europese_uni...1591/index.html contains the original
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Divided reactions to European history book</b>
Thursday 1 March 2007
The European Union (EU) is condering to write a European history book, but not everyone's been waiting for this.
That turned out to be the case today at an informal EU-meeting of ministers of Education in Germany's Heidelberg.
The German minister of Education, Annette Schavan, pleaded a short time ago for a EU-history book in all of the the EU-member states.
<b>According to Schavan, a centrally-written history book can strengthen the cultural identity of Europeans and contribute to the growing-closer/coming-together of the inhabitants of the member states.</b> But not all member states have the same views on this.
<b>'Different points of view'</b>
Poles turned down the idea. 'We do not believe in this possibility. Poles and Germans already have different points of view about central questions. Then it will become difficult to endorse European values and societal perspectives,' the Polish minister of Education Roman Giertych reacted.
Also the Netherlands is 'holding back greatly', according to top-official Gerard Maas of the ministry of Education. 'It does not fit in with the Dutch (ways of doing things?) that men make such a history book centrally.'
<b>'Valuable contribution'</b>
Austria and Belgium did react enthusiastically. 'The citizens know too little about European history. Thus far/for that a common history book will certainly be a valuable contribution,' said the Belgian minister Oliver Paasch.
There already exists a joint history book of Germany and France that is being used in different schools in those countries.
By Claudia van Zanten<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Now, if this were India and Nepal (and Thailand or SE Asia, say) planning a joint book on our shared history, <i>you know</i> that the usual suspects (FOSA, FOIL, Herr Commandant WitSSel, Schutz-Abteilung Farmer, Indian communists) will show up from nowhere and form an international board of 'scholars' to petition and protest at the UN about the Hypertutvas who 'plan to commit sacrilege' against history and 'are trying to be communalist' against the christoislamaniacs and India's composite culture.
Another question, from the back of my mind:
Is this another reason why Europe's been pushing so hard for the Oryan theories recently? A shared Ur-history would make all those massive genocidal wars after christianisation seem irrelevant when seen from this 'grander' perspective. If so, rewriting the facts by creating a 'historical European' identity (one that never existed) would make it seem like the formation of the EU was an inevitable joining up - a 'return to historical' oneness, if you will.
Or maybe the extra push for IE is but a coincidence.
[Irffanblog's brilliant 'Hypertutvas' used above without permission.]