Germany seeks joint history book

[Menydh]

Germany seeks joint history book

BBC News
March 2, 2007

The German Education Minister, Annette Schavan, is to raise the possibility of creating a common European history book for use in schools across the EU.

The idea is being discussed on the margins of a meeting of EU education ministers in Heidelberg, Germany.

Germany currently holds the EU presidency.

A common history book is already being used in French and German schools. Each chapter is written by two historians, one French, one German.

The idea is that pupils across Europe would learn about events and their causes from all sides - not just their own country's version.

But in practice, it is almost bound to be controversial. There are no details yet about the possible content or the authors.

The Franco-German book in use in schools for the first time this year covers European history since 1945. It gives both countries' points of view and is used in the final years of secondary school.

Germany has traditionally viewed the EU as a peace project, a bulwark against the kinds of wars that devastated the continent before 1945.

A spokesman for the German EU presidency pointed out that the proposed book would be a history of Europe, not of the European Union.

But getting anything onto the printed page will be nightmarishly complicated. The EU has very limited powers in the field of education; the final say rests with national governments.

Moreover, there is no getting away from the fact that precisely because the idea comes from Germany, other countries are likely to have their reservations.

The historian Dr David Starkey told the BBC that what made Europe exciting was its differences, even though these had contributed to conflict, and the proposed book would seek to brush those differences away.


[source]

[Marulus]

More moronic twaddle from high priests of multiculaturalism, antinationalism and european-unionism. We should all think uniformly, national history should be completely abolished, EU commissaries will decide the contents of history books from now on.

Maybe a reason to consider home-schooling of our children. I don't want my children (if I ever have any) to go to school, where they will be indoctrinated with such nonsense like the "holocaust" being the worst crime in the history of mankind, uncomparable to anything else; where they will attend lessons of sex-education, on which they will be told that homosexuality is normal, even desirable...

[Menydh]

Yes, it looks suspiciously as an attempt to introduce the German sado-masochistic guilt complex of the holocaust in the EU. Notice that recently Germany tried to impose their laws on holocaust denial to the rest of the EU countries.

[M.R.]

Indeed, if anyone is guilty of holocaust then this are Germans and no one else.

Our history and how we see things is completly our thing. We'll write our own schoolbooks.

[Errigal]

The current political class in Germany is a real menace to everyone. These initiatives are the work of the delightful “68’ers” who are now in full bloom and holding top positions in government, academia and journalism.

I was speaking to my father about this and he remembered a conversation in the early Eighties he had with a German businessman who had been an officer in the army during the war. The businessman said he found he could not trust the 68’ers with confidential projects. He felt older Germans could be trusted, and there were several younger Germans who gave him confidence, but the 68’ers were unreliable. He said they could suddenly turn over confidential documents to the media or government like good little spies for anti-nationalism and anti-militarism or might even assist “direct action” groups in sabotage against his company. They were taught by their professors at university it is their duty as New Germans to stop projects they considered bad by any methods necessary.

This is not unique to Germany (just look at Tony Blair) but it is very strong there. The children who spied on their “Nazi” parents are now at the top of the power structure and are using it to persecute the enemies of “tolerance”.

[Menydh]

Originally Posted by A Fist Full of Snow

The current political class in Germany is a real menace to everyone. These initiatives are the work of the delightful “68’ers” who are now in full bloom and holding top positions in government, academia and journalism.

I wouldn't point just to the German political class. I've had no few clashes with Germans when arguing about politics.

As soon as they detect that you are a nationalist, they come with the holocaust and the nazis. At that point, you have no alternative but to slap them with reality and remind them that it is them the Germans, not us.

[Errigal]

Originally Posted by Mynydd

I wouldn't point just to the German political class. I've had no few clashes with Germans when arguing about politics.

As soon as they detect that you are a nationalist, they come with the holocaust and the nazis. At that point, you have no alternative but to slap them with reality and remind them that it is them the Germans, not us.

Yes, like reformed alcoholics who think no one else should be allowed to drink.

[Susi]

I think it is good to have "other persepectives" in the textbook (Yeah, right, like they won't help eliminate bias... I'll post some quotations from my lovely textbook on Monday [I left it at school])... but not one textbook for everyone.. that would lead to a consistency in viewpoint that is conduisive to extreme bias. Showing both sides doesn't matter if both sides agree with each other.

[Errigal]

The best thing to teach a student is that bias almost always exists in encyclopedias, textbooks and media reports. It does not always have to be deliberate and some sources are more reliable than others, but it is there.

Unfortunately the current generation in power was taught that bias always exists so they might as well go ahead and invent their own reality. They seem to think that if they force everyone to put an opinion in textbooks very soon that opinion will become reality; like a kind of magic spell.

[Marulus]

Originally Posted by Mynydd

I wouldn't point just to the German political class. I've had no few clashes with Germans when arguing about politics.

As soon as they detect that you are a nationalist, they come with the holocaust and the nazis. At that point, you have no alternative but to slap them with reality and remind them that it is them the Germans, not us.

From a logical and a rational point of view you are right.
But things are not as simple as that.

The ruling class of Europe and America decided that "Holocaust" is the foundational myth of all modern policy. They "decided" that all Europeans (not only Germans) and the rest of the world must be held accountable for the "Holocaust" and that the whole world should eternally "apologise" to the Chosen People. It is, in their view, the most sacred event in the modern history. It serves as justification to many things like multiculturalism, American occupation of Europe, destryoing national identities, abolishing sovereignity etc.

If you haven't seen it yet, look at what our friend Elstner/Eriugena had to say on the issue, in the Irish Nationalism Forum:

The Wider relevance of Holocaust Revisionism

[wilpuri]

Originally Posted by A Fist Full of Snow

The current political class in Germany is a real menace to everyone. These initiatives are the work of the delightful “68’ers” who are now in full bloom and holding top positions in government, academia and journalism.

I was speaking to my father about this and he remembered a conversation in the early Eighties he had with a German businessman who had been an officer in the army during the war. The businessman said he found he could not trust the 68’ers with confidential projects. He felt older Germans could be trusted, and there were several younger Germans who gave him confidence, but the 68’ers were unreliable. He said they could suddenly turn over confidential documents to the media or government like good little spies for anti-nationalism and anti-militarism or might even assist “direct action” groups in sabotage against his company. They were taught by their professors at university it is their duty as New Germans to stop projects they considered bad by any methods necessary.

This is not unique to Germany (just look at Tony Blair) but it is very strong there. The children who spied on their “Nazi” parents are now at the top of the power structure and are using it to persecute the enemies of “tolerance”.

Sweden is right there on par with Germany. The 68ers of Sweden have ruled the country for ages and managed to set the status quo. Can you imagine Swedish ministers, even prime ministers, who regularily belittle Swedes and Swedish culture, with comments like "I hate everything typically Swedish." (Mona Sahlin) or "Everything purely Swedish is pure barbarism" (Fredrik Reinfeldt).

[Marulus]

Originally Posted by wilpuri

Sweden is right there on par with Germany. The 68ers of Sweden have ruled the country for ages and managed to set the status quo. Can you imagine Swedish ministers, even prime ministers, who regularily belittle Swedes and Swedish culture, with comments like "I hate everything typically Swedish." (Mona Sahlin) or "Everything purely Swedish is pure barbarism" (Fredrik Reinfeldt).

That is the one-world ideology. It seems the Swedes absorbed it to the utmost, along with the whole Scandinavia.