Britain's view of its history 'dangerous' - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

Wandering the information superhighway, he came upon the last refuge of civilization, PoFo, the only forum on the internet ...

'Cold war' communist versus capitalist ideological struggle (1946 - 1990) and everything else in the post World War II era (1946 onwards).
Forum rules: No one line posts please.
#14725191
Britain's view of its history 'dangerous', says former museum director

Neil MacGregor, once of British Museum, says Britain has focus on ‘sunny side’ rather than German-like appraisal of past

Friday 7 October 2016 18.41 BST Last modified on Friday 7 October 2016 19.18 BST

Neil MacGregor, the former director of the British Museum, has bemoaned Britain’s narrow view of its own history, calling it “dangerous and regrettable” for focusing almost exclusively on the “sunny side”.

Speaking before the Berlin opening of his highly popular exhibition Germany – Memories of a Nation, MacGregor expressed his admiration for Germany’s rigorous appraisal of its history which he said could not be more different to that of Britain.

“In Britain we use our history in order to comfort us to make us feel stronger, to remind ourselves that we were always, always deep down, good people,” he said. “Maybe we mention a little bit of slave trade here and there, a few wars here and there, but the chapters we insist on are the sunny ones,” he said.

Germany’s approach towards accounting for its Nazi past had been in contrast “rigorous and courageous”, and had earned it admiration around the world, he said, speaking in fluent German.

He said Germans had given expression to their the worst chapter of their history in extensive memorials and Mahnmale (‘monuments to national shame’). “It’s telling that in English we don’t even have a word like ‘Mahnmal’,” he said. “The term is just too alien to us.”

MacGregor said that an example of how Britain was selective with the truth was the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte at the Battle of Waterloo. “We learn in school that it was the Britons who finally, finally beat Bonaparte in Waterloo and got rid of him,” he said. But it was often forgotten that it had been an Anglo-Prussian alliance that defeated him. “As Wellington himself said, without Blücher, (the commander of the Prussian army, Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher) we wouldn’t have managed to defeat him ... This was joint German-British effort, but we don’t learn it that way”.

Gereon Sievernich, director of the Martin Gropius Bau where the exhibition is due to open on Saturday, thanked MacGregor and the exhibition’s curator, Barrie Cook, for having “given the Britons another view of Germany, and for giving the Germans their Germany back.”

Memories of a Nation, which showed at the British Museum and was accompanied by a BBC Radio series, explores the memories of a united Germany through 200 diverse objects, including the first motor car, from the 1880s, the entry gate to the Buchenwald concentration camp, and a wet suit used by someone trying to escape communist East Germany via the Baltic Sea.

MacGregor said the exhibition was conceived some time before the EU referendum. But he said the exhibition’s glimpse at Germany’s long tradition of decentralisation of power – for hundreds of years it consisted of many kingdoms each with their own currency – highlighted one of the major differences between Britain and Germany. “If you’re looking for reasons for Brexit, just the idea there were no hard and fast borders in Germany explains ... how Europe is shaped today, but makes an island folk like ours panic,” he said.

MacGregor, who is also involved in creating the Humboldt Forum in Berlin, a new German equivalent to the British Museum, said he was curious to see how the British view of German history would be received by the public in Berlin, following the success of its London run. He said he would welcome a similar exhibition about British history from a German perspective, “precisely because it be helpful for us to have our own history explained to us from an outside perspective,” he said.


Perhaps not all is lost if there are Brits like MacGregor capable of seeing outside the Anglophone bubble.

Today's interpretation of national history is used by national politicians to shape the future of a nation. In 2014, Cameron spent 100 million pounds to commemorate the 100 anniversary of the start of WWI in order to tell the people that Britain is always fighting the just war. Against the protest of historians and teachers, Michael Gove wanted to rewrite school history books to show that Britain was right. A country with global geopolitical ambitions needs to prepare the people for war. If it was right to fight WWI, then Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, etc, must also be right because the British always fight the just war. Perhaps Brexit was the last battle.
#14725201
The British imperialists still believe that the Britain has a global role to play within the empire (commonwealth). The imperialists believe that Britain will return to its global position of power through the reconstruction of its Navy and Financial instruments, especially when done in opposition to European "hegemony" as demonstrated by the recent referendum. The long term goal of the neo-imperialists is to reincorporate America into the British Empire. The expectation is that a limited nuclear war with China or Russia (oppositional cultures) will create the conditions that will eventually achieve this.

I agree that this is a dangerous fantasy.
#14725207
I was taught, in an English school with a very traditional approach to teaching history, that Blucher was vital to winning Waterloo - that Wellington's forces had to hold on until Blucher could arrive, which he did. MacGregor is assuming things he doesn't know. Maybe he just forgot that bit of history himself at some time, and assumed he was never taught it.
#14725210
Beren wrote:What global geopolitical ambitions could Britain still have? The British Empire is completely over and the heirs just want to inherit a glorious legacy.

Why do you think Blair wanted to invade Iraq? And why do you think Cameron wanted to bomb Libya and Syria?

In a confidential note before the Iraq invasion, Blair wrote to Bush "if we are successful in Iraq, we will be successful elsewhere in the ME" (I quote from memory).

There is no point in maintaining armed forces the size of the UK's and modernizing the UK's nuclear forces without global geopolitical ambitions.

MB. wrote:The long term goal of the neo-imperialists is to reincorporate America into the British Empire.

For a continental, all of the phantom pain from the British empire is hard to understand (I remember the disbelieve on the continent, especially in Germany, when Thatcher set out to reconquer those rocks in the South Atlantic). But it is a very real if delusional fantasy. While the revival of the Anglosphere as a trading block for beating the EU is not very realistic, nothing could be more delusional than to think the Americans can be "reincorporated into the British Empire." That is a point the Brits haven't really though through in their plans for imperial grandeur.

I think Britain needs the Brexit shock to become a normal country. Perhaps the sclerotic political structures of the empire cannot be dismantled without dismembering the United Kingdom into its constituent parts.
#14725864
OK lets see how well Atlantis and anyone else knows his history.

Wiki wrote:Planning the conference

On 29 November 1941, Heydrich sent invitations for a ministerial conference to be held on 9 December at the offices of Interpol at 16 Am Kleinen Wannsee

So what's significant about that date?
#14725871
Beren wrote:The British Empire is completely over


No it's not. Britain still has colonies. From the Falkland Islands to Gibraltar to the British Virgin Islands.
#14725884
No it's not. Britain still has colonies. From the Falkland Islands to Gibraltar to the British Virgin Islands.

Shhhh!, redcarpet. The Krauts must never be allowed to know.... ;)
#14725899
redcarpet wrote:No it's not. Britain still has colonies. From the Falkland Islands to Gibraltar to the British Virgin Islands.

What's more important than the few rocks in the Ocean still held by the British (aside from British controlled tax heavens, which are very important to the City of London), are privileged relations to the former colonies. For example, when there is a big infrastructure project, like a high speed train link in Morocco, it goes without saying that the French will get the contract. Japanese, German, Spanish or Chinese manufacturers don't even have to come for the bidder's conference. The French will get the contract from their former colony anyways. The same applies to Britain.

Pretending that today's Britain has nothing to do with the colonial empire is hypocritical.

Potemkin wrote:Shhhh!, redcarpet. The Krauts must never be allowed to know.... ;)

Don't worry Pote, the Krauts are far too dumb to notice.
#14725923
“In Britain we use our history in order to comfort us to make us feel stronger, to remind ourselves that we were always, always deep down, good people,” he said.

That's because we were. :?: Don't give us a hard time because the natives weren't quick enough to incorporate the virtues of Anglicanism, black tea and cricket. Sometimes unruly children need a stern headmaster. Spare the rod, spoil the child. :)

“In Britain we use our history in order to comfort us to make us feel stronger, to remind ourselves that we were always, always deep down, good people,” he said. “Maybe we mention a little bit of slave trade here and there, a few wars here and there, but the chapters we insist on are the sunny ones,” he said.

Germany’s approach towards accounting for its Nazi past had been in contrast “rigorous and courageous”, and had earned it admiration around the world, he said, speaking in fluent German.

He said Germans had given expression to their the worst chapter of their history in extensive memorials and Mahnmale (‘monuments to national shame’). “It’s telling that in English we don’t even have a word like ‘Mahnmal’,” he said. “The term is just too alien to us.”

:lol: Don't mention the fact that this "courageous" approach required a crushing defeat in a total war and several decades of foreign occupation to enforce, of course. We don't have a word like "Mahnmal" because we literally haven't been forced to have one. This isn't intended as gloating - I'll cheerfully admit we're an incredibly arrogant country - but there's a big difference between "confronting" your past voluntarily and being forced to by occupying foreign powers. The idea that Germany is a uniquely humble country is just hilarious.
#14725925
Potemkin wrote:Shhhh!, redcarpet. The Krauts must never be allowed to know.... ;)

Why do Brits always have the Krauts in mind, Potemkin? It wasn't them who dismantled your empire. Roosevelt insisted on annihilating any British privileges on the world stage, while Hitler didn't.
#14725947
Atlantis wrote:Don't worry Pote, the Krauts are far too dumb to notice.


Or perhaps not all of us are so obsessed with hating on the Brits as you. :roll:

Heisenberg wrote: :lol: Don't mention the fact that this "courageous" approach required a crushing defeat in a total war and several decades of foreign occupation to enforce, of course. We don't have a word like "Mahnmal" because we literally haven't been forced to have one. This isn't intended as gloating - I'll cheerfully admit we're an incredibly arrogant country - but there's a big difference between "confronting" your past voluntarily and being forced to by occupying foreign powers.


So, how's Japan doing with its Mahnmale? :hmm:
#14725954
Frollein wrote:So, how's Japan doing with its Mahnmale? :hmm:

Fair point, but wasn't "Denazification" in Germany much more forceful than the equivalent in Japan? Hirohito was left on the throne, the country wasn't divided, and the Allies weren't as united in their resolve to punish Japan as they were with Germany.
#14726068
Heisenberg wrote:there's a big difference between "confronting" your past voluntarily and being forced to by occupying foreign powers.

:lol:
I guess the irony is lost on you. But you prove what MacGregor said right by the ignorance of all things outside of your Anglophone bubble.
#14726241
Image

The Japanese mainly see themselves as victims because of Hiroshima. The Atomic Bomb Dome is part of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park that Obama visited earlier this year. Obama intended to enter the Atomic Bomb Dome to inspect the interior but he wasn't allowed to do so.
#14726264
ThirdTerm wrote:The Japanese mainly see themselves as victims because of Hiroshima.

That's true. I remember the history lesson at a Japanese language school in Tokyo. The text book gave a short resume about how Japan had been forced into the war by an uprising in China against the Japanese. When I asked the Japanese teacher how the Japanese came to be in China and Korea, he replied, oh well, we have been there for a very long time. Then he explained how European fascism had caused a small group of Japanese officers to stage a coup and that the majority of Japanese had nothing to do with Japanese militarism. Finally the text explained how Japan had become the victim in WWII because millions of Japanese had been killed and because of Hiroshima. It didn't say that most Japanese had been killed as occupiers abroad and there was no mention of Pearl Harbor. Obviously there was no mentioning of the Nanjing massacre, medical experiments conducted on POW, or other crimes committed by the Japanese army.

You can imagine what they teach Japanese kids if they teach crap like that to foreign students.

Heisenberg wrote:there's a big difference between "confronting" your past voluntarily and being forced to by occupying foreign powers.

For what it's worth. The allies didn't mind the nazis. Beyond the show process of a dozen of leading Nazis in Nuernberg, the allies didn't care much about de-nazification. On the contrary, the allies made liberal use of the Nazis for their own political objectives. For example, they used nazis for intelligence and for technical programs. Almost all space programs started with nazi engineers and scientists. The British released fascist collaborators from prison in Greece to run post-occupation Greece, and as recently as two years ago, the US made use of Ukrainian fascists to topple a pro-Russian regime in Ukraine. No, the allies have nothing to do with Germany's reflection of its nazi past.

It is implausible that the IDF could not or would[…]

Moving on to the next misuse of language that sho[…]

@JohnRawls What if your assumption is wrong??? […]

There is no reason to have a state at all unless w[…]