History Education in Croatia: EUROCLIO Press Release

The resulting EUROCLIO press release:

Stirrings of Bias in Croatia?

In September the Croatian Ministry of Education approved a proposal by a group of former special police officers, called “Association Tigar 90/91”, to let war veterans teach about the 1991-1995 Serbo-Croatian war in elementary schools.
Some compare this method of nationalistic history teaching with old communist methods and even fear the re-appearance of shooting practice at school. Others think the negative reactions are out of proportion and that having former special police officers teach about the war is like inviting poets to advice on poetry.

Although the schools are free to choose whether or not to adopt these lessons, to EUROCLIO, the Standing Conference of History Teachers’ Associations, this proposal is questionable because of the ethnic and nationalistic implications it can have. The fierce public debate which has arisen over this issue, especially in the newspapers, exposes the complex situation of history education in Croatia especially on this sensitive subject. There is strong public pressure to maximize a nationalistic approach. The Ministry has now stated only those with a pedagogical qualification can teach.


Special Textbook for Danube basin region put on hold
After the integration of the Danube basin region (the most eastern part of the former province of Krajina) into the Croat State in 1998 a moratorium on teaching contemporary history to the local Serb population until 2003 was put into effect. A governmental commission started in 2002 to produce a new supplement. Knowing the sensitivity of the subject and after failed attempts in 2002 and 2003 the commission finally assigned text writers to write an unbiased and balanced supplement on contemporary Croatian history in 2004. Their book concept which offered a balanced account of contemporary Croatian history however was not implemented by the governmental commission, and is now at the centre of public debate. The book concept has been dubbed “blasphemous of the Croatian War of Independence”, “pro-Milosevic” and “falsifying history” by some of the media. The government chose to play it safe and sidelined this project, while agreeing with the representatives of the Serbian community to use existing textbooks.

In 2004 the Ministry began to reform the National Curriculum to create new National Educational Standards and appointed commissions for history. After the first commission finished its work a new commission for history has been appointed behind the screens. This new commission wants to change elements of the curriculum and direct them towards a more Nationalist and sanitised History. For instance the word genocide, which was used to characterize the main reason for the Serbian exodus from Croatia, was removed.

Is the Croatian Ministry of Education changing its policy of modernisation by blocking changes in the History curriculum?

Calls for Modernisation and Balance
EUROCLIO calls upon the Croatian Ministry of Education to resist attempts of pressure groups to force History education in a more nationalist direction and to seize the opportunity and continue to modernize history education, by offering an open, balanced and multi-perspective account of Croatian contemporary history.

These examples of changing governmental policy towards history education however are not exclusively Croatian. We also remember the recent Chinese-Japanese controversy on History textbooks, the Turkish opposition against discussing the Armenian massacre of 1915, the Baltic accounts of the Soviet-era et cetera. Often governments promote a single, idealised image of ethnic nationality and identity, distorting or neglecting the stories of the different communities in their society.


About EUROCLIO
EUROCLIO, the European Association of History Teachers’ Associations, is the voice of the history teacher in the international context and promotes high quality history education. EUROCLIO also initiates and implements History projects, all over Europe, that always include all the inhabitants of a country and their human right for history. This is done by focusing on regional and local histories and by providing an international context.
EUROCLIO projects strive to produce balanced and multiperspective history textbooks that encourage critical thinking and open-mindedness toward the past, present day and the future.

More information on EUROCLIO

Mission and reality

One thing is clear, EUROCLIO is a leftist organisation with a crusading mission to spread critical thinking, democratic values, multi-ethnicity, cross-cultural knowledge and tolerance. To what extent is this a realistic goal and how is it justifible?
States like to maintain a broad control on the themes of history teaching, because from their perspective all citizens should at least know the history of the state. Since this is still the era of the nation-state, states use national history to play the leading role in the states history. Time to redefine Nation, State and the role of history in society.

Nation can be defined as a group of people, organised in seperate communities that feel attached to each other through the idea of a corresponding experience of history, symbolified by flag, language and culture. A National soccer team however, can include people who have just migrated from another part of the world. This person will not have the shared experience of history, and will probably behave within different cultural framework. He is however accepted within the nation. So the definition of nation is very flexible, and maybe it is better if we just define the nation: those who derive their identity from the idea of the nation.

State can be defined as a large organising group of people that try to govern. The Government, product of their collaboration, is the sole reason of the state. State, according to Max Weber, has two very important monopolies: violence and taxes. Through the dominance of the state, the state exists. If the state did not control violence and taxes, there is no state. Then there is anarchy. A state can function without a clearcut identity marker, such as the nation. It does however, by doing so, launching competitive identity-markers. This is clearly visible in the former Sovjet Union. Communism should have erased the notion of nationhood and nationalism, but it didnt really achieve this, as pride and identity could now be linked to this new state/monster.

Where should nation and state border? In most cases they can stand next to one another in an harmonious fashion, as the main identity marker is the nation and the state governs fully aware and acknowledging the nation. But in the increasingly multicultural countries of Europe, nation becomes an obstacle for the state´s effort to rule all the peoples equally. Also in Israel there is a conflict as only the Jewish nation is obliged to fight for the state.

Striving for full-blown democracy requires the state to be blind for nations and nations to be blind, while governing. As EUROCLIO attempts to spread this mission, governments are using their ministries of Education to emphasise national history of the state, as this justifies the existance of the state.

So how about the European national history for the new European state?

Unbelievable

Today I had to write more about Croatia and their failing history teaching. The government is following right/winged media by enlarging the percentage of national history in the curriculum and by twisting the history of the serbian-croatian conflict towards the victimisation of the croatian, the free will of the serbian and more.
Soldiers are actually teaching about the war and government has not accepted a recent attempt by history teachers to introduce an unbiased and less nationalistic book.
...unbelievable.

On the other hand, dutch history lessons are also swinging more and more towards national history first.

9/11 History Teaching

While there is hard work in Eastern Europe to establish critical and nuanced history textbooks, history textbooks in the United States face another challenge as new 2005 versions are surfacing. These textbooks face the politically charged subject of the terrorist attacks in 2001, in short: 9/11.
Not necessarily a matter of history and identity, teaching about 9/11 does question the American superpower at the heart of its role in the world. A simple analysis of the five most widely used textbooks in the United States show the present variation of explanations. All the authors of these new sections explain follow the same explanation of who Osama Bin Laden is. Most textbooks then halt at the assumption that bin Laden’s success lies in the high levels of poverty in Muslim Communities. Only the very successful Give Me Liberty textbook on American History by Eric Foner connects bin Laden’s opposition to global U.S.-policies to the homeland politics of the Bush Administration and puts forward the question: What is the proper balance between liberty and security? He does not analyse 9/11 as a singular happening, but rather as another phase in American History as he connects the dots from the Civil War, the World Wars to the persecution of German-Americans, Japanese-Americans, Communists and now, terrorists. All of these periods are characterised as federal efforts to limit civil liberties.
9/11, however, remains very recent history, while most schools are working with outdated textbooks and while most teacher’s do not even manage to get to 2001 in their curriculum. Still, it is hopeful that history teaching about terrorism and United States policy can be critical and can overcome conservative opinions that teaching America’s weaknesses is betrayal.

Source: History News Network, George Mason University.

History Textbooks

While processing several press-releases I encountered the Southeast-European CDRSEE (Center for Democracy and Reconciliation in Southeast Europe). Just a small note for now: It is strange how an entire are of the European continent can unite its history in one single textbook, while the old nations of Europe remain Nationalist, or even Imperialist.

More to follow.

Day One

Today I was assigned the simple task of ploughing through the Euroclio website in search of bad or broken links. Then I made up a list of possible improvements to the site, and presented the coworkers some additional Search-functionalilty and Calendar-functionality. Pretty easy going for a first day.
Oh, and lunch was nice.

One Day Before

So Tommorow I start my internship at EUROCLIO. My job there is mostly administrative. I will update the official website, transmit newsletters and upgrade the flyer. I also hope to write a comprehensive and systematic article for Prof. R.T. Griffiths where i will be comparing situations in Eastern European countries. All is still very embryonic, but I hope this blog will assist and motivate me in keeping an eye on this article.