Phil’s History:

"Myth Busting" by Richard J Evans, regius professor of history at Cambridge University, in The Guardian's 'Review' section on Saturday 13.07.2013:

The heading of the article says: 

"This week Michael Gove abandoned his attempt to use the teaching of history in schools to impart a tub thumping English nationalism. But with the commemoration of the First World War and Waterloo around the corner , the history wars are far from over"

Another heading says:

"The new history curriculum is a world away from Gove's original list of patriotic stocking fillers"

And now (with that as context) to the first of my selected quotes from the article:

"if we want to help young people to develop a sense of citizenship, they have to be willing and able to think for themselves. The study of history does this. It recognises that children are not empty vessels to be filled with patriotic myths. History isn't a myth-making discipline, it's a myth-busting discipline, and it needs to be taught as such in our schools".

The article goes on to say that the new curriculum neglects Europe, making no mention of the French Revolution, Imperial Germany, the Russian Revolution, the Habsburg Empire, thus hardly recognising "the fact that we also live in Europe". And the article refers to the outrage caused to the patriotic Brits by the government's refusal to provide official support for the commemoration of the Battle of Waterloo when (according to Ian Drury in the Daily Mail): "Led by the Duke of Wellington, UK troops routed Napoleon, a triumph ushering in almost a century of peace and stability in Europe"

The article continues on the same subject:

" And yet, to any historian who knows about the battle, Drury's fury is wrong on any number of counts. To begin with, Wellington did not lead just "UK  troops" but a coalition of 25,000 British, 26,000 German and 17,000 Dutch troops, so the British were actually in a minority in his army, though you would not believe it from most popular accounts. And while Wellington's generalship and the courage of his motley collection of soldiers held Napoleon's 72,000 men at bay through the day, it was only the arrival of more than 45,000 Prussian troops under Marshal Blucher that turned the tide and drove the French from the field. So, with 71,000 German and 42,000 non-German troops in the Allied army, Waterloo was more of a German victory than a British one".(And continues):"Given the pivotal role of the Dutch and Germans in the victory, we could actually celebrate the collaboration it marked with our European allies, rather than claiming it for the cause of Euroscepticism."(And much later, apropos the criticism of the failure to propose celebration of 'victory in WW1' and of the 'good reasons' for going to war):".....the end of the (first world) war in 1918 was a victory for no-one. The major issues were left unresolved until they were taken up agin in 1939. Not without reason do historians nowadays refer to the whole period from 1914 to 1945 as "the thirty years war of the 20th century". As for the First World War itself, modern scholarship regards it as the seminal catastrophe of the entire period, from which all the evils that plagued Europe in the following decades sprang: fascism, communism, racism, anti-semitism, dictatorship, extreme violence, mass murder, genocide, and the wholesale abandonment of civilised values across the continent"(And later, about the creation of  a national identity):"We also have to ask what kind of national identity we want. Do we want a narrow, partisan, isolationist identity, where foreigners and immigrants are regarded with hostility or suspicion , other countries treated as inferior, and triumphalist historical myths are drummed into our children? Or do we want the kind of national identity that presented itself at the London Olympics, a year ago? The Games, noted the Sun, marked "the reclaiming of a national identity not seen since millions packed the Mall in front of Buckingham Palace at the end of the Second World War". During the games, the tabloid commented, "we have seen Great Britain reborn and at its best".For many, this British rebirth was as a modern, multi-ethnic and multicultural nation. Among the most popular athletes at the Games were Jessica Ennis, the daughter of a black Jamaican immigrant and a white British mother, and Mo Farah, who had fled from war-torn Somalia when he was nine. When he was asked by a journalist whether he would have preferred to have run for Somalia rather than Britain, he replied in a much-quoted comment: "Look, mate, this is my country......when I put on the Great Britain vest, I feel proud....very proud."Patriotism became respectable again in the Olympics. But many felt it was a new kind of patriotism: support for a British identity that embraced diversity and was comfortable with an ethnic and cultural mix. The Olympics, said the actor and comedian Eddie Izzard, "redefined how Britain sees itself..... People have understood what modern multi-cultural Britain is all about. "Watching the Games on TV with Britons of Jamaican origin, Guardian writer Hugh Muir noted how they cheered both Jamican and British athletes alike. "This reality of life in parts of 21st century Britain," he concluded, " would appear to be the very antithesis of Norman Tebbitt's cricket test, which demanded that immigrants abandon all previous baggage, or be regarded as people who have failed to fully integrate". For Gove, the 21st century's Norman Tebbitt, the Games might just as well never have happened. The 2012 Olympics as a vindication of people's ability to feel British patriotism while holding on to many of the customs, beliefs and values particular to minorities - the vision it imparted of a modern, 21st century society a ease with its complex, multi-layered sense of identity - seems to vanish from sight when British or English nationalists discuss the role of history in the creation of a national sense of belonging. Yet it is easy enough to find a view of British history that emphasises its open, tolerant, multi-cultural aspects. As the former Labour Party  immigration minister Barbara Roche said when contemplating the multiculturalism of the London Olympics, "the fact is that we are a country of migrants. Originally, there was no one here. People have come. And the only difference is: how long ago? The distinguished archaeologist  Barry Cunliffe has underscored this in his recent epic survey 'Britain Begins'. "The Islanders", he says after surveying millennia of British history " have always been a mongrel race and we are the stronger for it. Waves of immigrants, from the Celts through the Romans, Anglo- Saxons, Vikings and Normans, to the Dutch in the 17th century, Germans in the 18th and 19th, Russian and German Jews fleeing persecution in the 1890s and 1930s,  West Indians, Cypriots, Pakistanis, Indians, Bangladeshis and many others coming to Britain during the disintegration of the empire, and many, many more, have all made their contribution to our multicultural identity. The new history curriculum indeed goes some way towards recognising this fact when it suggests that pupils study " the impact through time of the migration of people to from and within the British Isles".

" the idea of multiculturalism was defined long ago, in 1966, by the then Home Secretary, Roy Jenkins, when he said that integration did not mean "the loss, by immigrants, of their own national characteristics and culture". Britain did not need to be a " melting pot",  which will turn everybody in a common mould as one of a series of carbon copies of someone's misplaced vision of the stereotyped Englishman".

"Retreating from Scotland and Wales, where they have enjoyed almost no support for the last decade or more, and long since divorced from the unionists of Northern Ireland , Conservative little Englanders have taken refuge in an isolationist mono cultural English nationalism, which regards mainland Europe with hostility, celebrates our supposed victories over continental powers, and writes history backwards according to a euro sceptic agenda that justifies leaving the European Union on the grounds that we have never had anything to do with those who live on the other side of the Channel except to have wars with them."

"What is striking about the history wars of recent months, is that the jingoists have not, in the end,managed to impose their views on the coalition government. The new national history curriculum is a world away from Gove's original list of patriotic stocking fillers. The government is remaining neutral on the questions of how to commemorate Waterloo and how to mark the centenary of the first world war. That, in the end, is as it should be. Its role is surely to allow British people to think about these issues for themselves, not impose on them a particular reading of events.

(And in the final a paragraph, discussing the Labour Party's approach to these  questions): "......it needs explicitly to endorse the teaching of history in our schools as a critical sceptical discipline, situating the British in its wider European and global context and recognising all its regional and national diversity. Above all. As the only political party that is strong in Scotland and Wales as well as in England, it needs to assert its unionist credentials: it needs to insist that British identity is more important than English, Scottish or Welsh identity. The only way to do this is to embrace the kind of multicultural ideal proclaimed by Roy Jenkins so many years ago. I for one hope that it does so.

Richard Jenkins is regius professor of history at the University of Cambridge

22.5.14:Percentages:Total troops at Waterloo:EN: 25K = 13.5%DE: 71K =  38.4%FR: 72K =  38.9%NL: 17K =  9.2%Total 185KAnti-French coalition 113K = 61%Of which EN = 13.5%


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