Here is another example of how education, especially the teaching of history, can become a hot political topic. This really reminds me of the dispute over textbooks in Hungarian language schools here in Slovakia and also the diplomatic row a few years ago between Japan and China about how Japanese textbooks whitewashed the Japanese role in WWII. Even in this article, there is a link to another interesting article about how Texas officials have decided not to allow textbooks that paint Islam in too favorable a light (which you are also free to read and comment on rather than, or in addition to, this article). What do you think? Should government and the public have a role in how teachers teach history and what textbooks they choose, or should teachers have the power to decide? Can the teaching of history ever be completely neutral? Is teaching pride in our country part of teaching history? Or, on the other hand, is it more important to teach students to be critical towards their country?
Also, this article mainly deals with how the textbooks treat the founding of Israel. Is there something special about the circumstances surrounding the founding of a country? Slovakia seems pretty sensitive about criticisms toward the first Slovakia (during WWII) and also seems eager to claim the Great Moravian Empire as a sort of proto-Slovakia. Americans are free to criticize any period or president, but our "founding fathers" are held as sacred (beyond reproach) even though it is fairly clear that much of our early history has to do with the subjugation, if not elimination, of the native population. Are people becoming more ashamed of their countrys origins because conquest and war is perceived as less noble nowadays than it was in the past?
"We study the past to understand the present; we understand the present to guide the future." -- William Lund. This is why history’s role shouldn’t only be about the raising of national of national pride, but mainly about avoiding the mistakes that were done in past. But the problem is, that the mistake for one side, means a victory to the other one. The Palestinian Israeli conflict certainly conveys this fact. Israeli won the land occupied by Palestinians in 1948, with the significant help of Allies. As written in the article, 700 000 Arab Palestinians were expelled from their homeland. Israelis write about the mass exodus of Arabs as the most significant step to their independence, for Palestinians it is a catastrophe. And now, let’s try to walk in the shoes of the historian, that is supposed to write a history book, in which this event should be objectively described. If the historian complies with the government’s interest to write the book from the subjective pro-Israeli point of view, he will loose his credit for being subjective. On the other hand, if he describes the event in the textbooks objectively, with little critics also towards Israeli, then the book will be perfectly objective, but provide Israeli students with such a strong national pride, what the Israeli government doesn’t like. And behind this, the solution of Israeli- Palestinian conflict emerges, from my point of view. Strong nationalism has been the cause of many wars all over the world, including the two world wars. And if continuously, the new generations will be led to the precedence of their nation over all the other ones, the history will repeat. Thus, Israeli students should be able to critically analyze what their ancestors have done, they should learn from their mistakes and look towards future, to cooperation between Israel and Palestine as the only solution. Consequently, the Israeli government shouldn’t have pulled out of the schools the books that presented the points of view of their enemies as well. Instead, they are publishing misleading books “that have typically focused on the heroism of Israeli forces and glossed over the Palestinian flight, attributing the mass exile to voluntary escape if mentioning it at all”. All in all, history is great tool to influence peoples beliefs and opinions. Some governments misuse this great power of history what may lead to horrendous conclusions. Although Israeli- Palestinian conflict is a conflict between two very dangerous ideologies- Nationalism vs. Radical Islam, the conflict isn’t insoluble, objective history in schools should be the first step towards peace.
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