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@mrwbw
invited me to respond a Q of apologising for the past here are some rambling thoughts not an answer & not a critique of the wonderful
@SamSlater
I have inclu
@hannahcusworth
@MissFolorunsho
@Abdul_Mohamud
&
@PamCanning
who I think were part of original convo
invited me to respond a Q of apologising for the past here are some rambling thoughts not an answer & not a critique of the wonderful
@SamSlater
I have inclu
@hannahcusworth
@MissFolorunsho
@Abdul_Mohamud
&
@PamCanning
who I think were part of original convo
I agree broadly with @hannahcusworth vis apologies and centenaries, which are essentially about the present rather than the past,& we should always take care of the agendas being set in the present.
Sometimes they can be good starting points in the classroom as example of historical interpretation or manifestations of significance but they are rarely I think conducive to an honest and nuanced reckoning with history.
@KimAtiWagner tackles the specific example of India and Tharoor here: https://www.historyextra.com/period/20th-century/amritsar-massacre-india-british-empires-darkest-day-churchill-general-dyer/
In the aftermath of the FWW, the word reparations was associated with the punishing payments demanded by the victors from the defeated. Sitting behind is also problematic binary idea of perpetrator and victim.
This binary thinking can be evident in preconceptions of the Holocaust reinforced by unhelpful representations popular culture but tackled in excellent @UCL_Holocaust UCL resources ‘being human’ challenging preconceptions to open a more complex understanding
inclu the motivations of people in the past, & the many levels of complicity that are often neglected in accounts of the Holocaust which focus on moral lessons based on mono-causal explanations they introduce the idea of bystanders offering a useful disruption to binary thinking.
In a similar vein Michael Rothberg has proposed the term ‘implicated subjects' he extends the bystanders idea to the present
This invites us to think, for example with slavery, about how those of us living in the rich societies of the West have all, albeit profoundly unequally, enjoyed the fruits of racial capitalism.
John Torpey makes a helpful distinction between ‘reparations’ (plural) in the more literal meaning of rectifying past injustices, and ‘reparation’ (the singular noun), that is about repair. https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674019430&content=reviews
Cath Hall the 1st chair @UCL legacies project takes these ideas and suggests reparatory history as a way forward. This is about taking account of this past is its fullest sense. Of recognising the historical antecedence of white privilege.
To ask What did it mean to be a coloniser: how central was that identity, that sense of power over others who were thought lesser, to notions of Englishness and Britishness? How were white identities constituted in relation to black?
She says “Reparatory history must be about more than identifying wrongdoers and seeking redress: it begins with the descendants, with trauma and loss” it means an end to denial about the how Britain benefited from empire but also the profound moral and psychic costs.
And similarly to the complexity above these costs don’t operate in binary or unidirectional ways ways. Toni Morrison in this clip articulates how the persistence of racism affects all parts of society, esp white americans, as a profound neurosis. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/toni-morrison-on-race-motherhood-and-writing/vi-AAFA07h
Mod racism reminds us as Colley1 of the simple reasons why we all need to stop approaching empire in simple “good” or “bad” thing terms, & instead think intelligently & enquiringly about its many and intrinsic paradoxes, is that versions of the phenomenon are still with us today”
There is also a tension here that should be acknowledged between the overarching aims of history teachers to allow students to reach independent historical judgements yet we also need to do justice to the very clear moral dimensions of the topics being studied.
Also need to recognise a difference between pedagogical intent & the individual appropriation of knowledge—i.e. what is taught is not always what is learned! Considerations need 2 be given to the positioning of ourselves as the teacher & the pedagogy we adopt in the classroom
This postioning will be contingent but consideration need to be given to the asymmetric roles of teacher and student, the issues of lesson time & if the topic is being presented as an open-ended (historical) problem, or as pre-determined material for (moral) instruction.
Pedagogy will also be contingent on the classes and the times we live in. Many have argued that Germany is serious about reckoning with its dark past yet this has changed over time.
Students are required to take classes on 20th-CGerman history, including the Nazi era & the Holocaust. Recently ‘At the Educational and Memorial Site House of the Wannsee-Conference’ in Berlin, they have shifted to an approach which deviates from one that ‘blames the learners’.
What we need then is to help students to arrive at new & complex understandings that recognises the interplay of the past with the presents. One way can be to use the @LBS_at_UCL website I think #meanwhilenearby initiative is a good step.
My worry about apologies as a vehicle in the classroom is that it can lead to binary & ahistorical answers. & it detracts from more pressing questions about trying to understand for example- about how racial thinking works, what are its logics& its mechanics-seeking understanding
Hall ends her piece pt 1“This understanding can never undo the devastation & loss that was suffered in the past &that lives on for descendants in the present."
Hall Pt2"But thinking differently can perhaps awaken a sense of the responsibilities of ‘implicated subjects’ who have benefitted culturally, economically and politically from the hurts inflicted on others, in the hope that change can happen, racisms could be eradicated.”
