Atrocities denied, censored, and forgotten
The world is a funny place. In Austria, Irving is to be prosecuted for denying a genocide occurred. In Turkey, Orhan Pamuk is to be prosecuting for admitting a genocide occurred. As I noted previously, Irving’s trial is a bad idea which may have the regrettable effect of giving his lies more attention than they deserve, especially seeing as his professional reputation is already in tatters. Pamuk’s trial for publicly denigrating the Turkish identity in a Swiss newspaper magazine, on the other hand, is a terrible idea which may yet have good effects. As George Monbiot optimistically notes in today’s Guardian, ‘If there is one course of action that could be calculated to turn these massacres [of Armenians by the Turks] into live issues, it is the trial of the country’s foremost novelist for mentioning them.’ Monbiot suggests that the British have developed a more effective approach to dealing with their own imperial attrocities: they have largely forgotten all about them. This truth makes the rise of media-friendly, revisionist historians who emphasize the blessings of empire, and the commonly heard, yet erroneous, complaint that the treatment of British history in education and by the media makes people ‘ashamed to be English’ by dwelling on the bad bits, all the more disturbing. Something to think about the next time you hear Peter Hitchens ranting on about how good things were in the old days, or Niall Ferguson offering the Americans foreign policy advice.
February 22nd, 2006 at 10.40 am
Growing up in Britain one is constantly reminded how dreadful Britain and its Empire are/were both in the education system and mass media. We are constantly exhorted to apologise for every aspect of our history.
I suggest that George Moonbat shut up, I certainly dont listen to anything he has to say anymore.
February 23rd, 2006 at 12.04 pm
Well, thanks for the comment, ‘Lurker’. Clearly, its elements of obvious exaggeration (‘constantly’ and ‘every aspect’) are required if you are to shame the odd dissenting voice like Monbiot into silence. But if we leave aside the exaggeration, what is your evidence that (a) the education system and (b) the mass media frequently remind us how dreadful Britain and the Empire were or exhort us to apologise for our history? Further, do you have any evidence that they do this more than the education systems and media in other former colonial powers? And further still, do you have any evidence that such a focus, if it exists, is disproportionate to the dreadfulness of Britain and the Empire?
Don’t cultural phenomena like the deliberately unapologetic assertions of pride in British history from politicians like Michael Howard and David Blunkett, David Starkey’s seemingly endless output of celebratory soap operas about the English monarchy, Britain’s refusal, at the forefront of other European countries, to officially apologise for their part in the slave trade at the UN Conference against Racism in 2001, the 2002 BBC poll to name the greatest Briton of all time, and Niall Ferguson’s defence of the British Empire on Channel 4 in 2003 suggest to you that there is (to say the least) another side to the official and media presentation of British and imperial history? Be honest.