Controversial stuff

[chani]

I've been watching a tv program for about 2 hours about two very important subjects for us, French people, especially if you are a teacher as I am. It's a debate, something we so love here in France, between personalities, either politicians or historians or intellectuals or religious people. And I've been jumping on my chair for an hour! I wanted to slap the journalist who is leading the debate because he was just stupid sometimes and some of the points made were quite simplistic or mixing up everything.

The first topic was the anniversary of the Law of 1905 separating State and Churches and establishing a model of laicité that is very different from what English or Americans call secularism, that I'm very proud of, and that completely splits religious phenomenons/signs and State places (like schools). I think it's nowadays more important than ever to stick on this model and even to correct the infrigements that have endured until now and that still favour Catholic Church over other religions that are newer (like Islam).

The second topic is about a scandalous and villainous law voted lately by the Parliament and saying that school books, History Books that is, must show the positive role of colonization! Are we regressing damnit?
First off, it's very serious that deputies dare to say they can decide what *we* historians must teach as if we lived in some totalitarian State with an official History! Are we in USSR now?
Secondly, speaking of "positive" sides, or postive role is totally contrary to the work of Historians. We don't do statements of accounts, there's nothing positive or negative, there's no balance to draw. History isn't morality and doesn't separate the wheat from the chaff. This is meaningless for us. We try to understand periods according to facts and to sources, we don't judge, we don't blame and we don't absolve. That is not the goal of History. It isn't meant to be edifying nor judgemental. Thinking in terms of positive and negative stuff is the best way not to understand at all historical periods and to keep making anachronisms. The deputies who voted that law are real morons.

But one of my former Masters (Professor at the Sorbonne) was there, Jacques Marseille, and said what had to be said on the matter at least.

 

Comments

[candlelightfrot.livejournal.com]

....a scandalous and villainous law voted lately by the Parliament and saying that school books, History Books that is, must show the positive role of colonization!

Well, there were some positives to colonization. Like Canada, the United States, Mexico, Central and South American countries and Australia... sure it was a conquest in many cases but on the other hand a lot of good has come from it, Buffy and Angel, for instance! Hey, here in Vincennes we're proud of our French Colonial History.

Colonization may not be 'the moral thing' for a country to impose upon another; but there have been benefits, albeit for the colonized it does impose change upon societies which they may be ill-prepared to experience. On the other hand look at what colonization did for France, it has allowed a number of foriegners to become citizens and partake of Liberté, Egalité, et Fraternité! Made Paris and France an even more diverse society.... I'm sure all of those lawmakers who passed the law would see that as a plus! ;-) Then, of course, there is all that wealth that the colonizer can rape from the colonized (-:sounds almost like anal sex, there, heehee:-).

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

You're just pretending not to understand why I was so pissed off!
This doesn't work trésor, I own't punish you!!!!

[candlelightfrot.livejournal.com]

While you may not judge an action in History, you do list the affects that it had. If there are bad and good effects you list them, right? You don't discuss their relative merit concerning a state that might be colonized? That is all I was speaking about.

And we are proud of our French heritage over hear in Vincennes!

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

No we don't say there "good" or "bad" effects either, we don't list effects that way.

The thing is about understanding why Europeans went to colonize other places, what they did once they were there, how colonial systems worked, the reactions of colonized people, how colonial systems ended, how it can explain what the new States has become afterwards...

[candlelightfrot.livejournal.com]

So what study deals with the "effects of colonization?" Something sociological or a variety depending upon the effect?

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

I didn't say we don't talk about "the effects of colonization". Did you read the part where I said " how it can explain what the new States have become afterwards"?

But we point out the connections, explaining post-colonial situations, heritage, we don't say this is good and this is bad.

For instance I pointed out that buildings that were made by French prior to 1962 were the only one that didn't collapse during the last Earthquake in Alger. I didn't say "this is a positive side of colonization in Algeria", I simply showed that colonizers left substructures and built sturdy buildings while they were there.

[candlelightfrot.livejournal.com]

Ahhh.... ok! I see the subtle distinction now... sorry to have been a bore about it... ;~)

[(Anonymous)]

Not a bore. I guess it isn't that easy to understand when you aren't Historian. And actually it isn't a subtle distinction, it is essential.

As a citizen, as a person, they are things that I think morally good or wrong, or that I think have/had bad effects or good effects on society. We live in a democracy, I can be anticlerical, anti-Islam, anti-Judaism...and actually I am for several reasons!

But as a Historian, I have no problem doing my researchs on Inquisitors at the end of Middle Ages for instance, and as a History teachers I have to teach everything and to make my pupils exercise their intellect by parsing sources and to make them understand past times.

This is why laicité is so important btw. It's all about studying in school and no influence from the oustide must intervene.

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

Damnit I didn't log in!

Shouldn't you be in bed trésor?

[candlelightfrot.livejournal.com]

If you do not discuss the relative merit of actions such as colonization, then what good is history besides the facts? I don't understand why you would not discuss merit of an action. I took a history course (though it was cross-listed in Political Science) in Diplomacy. Certainly the merit of the actions/sayings that were taken by diplomats were discussed in the course as it was necessary to gage the response to that action or those words.

I do understand about academic freedom, but I just was wondering about your view of what History as a course of study was supposed to convey to the student.

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

Were they Diplomats or Historians?

What good is history besides the facts? What do you mean?

Merit is a word that belong to morality, not History. As I said, History is about understanding past times as much as we can given the sources we have. It isn't about discussing whatever merits or pointing the good guys or the bad guys.

[candlelightfrot.livejournal.com]

The professor taught both History and Political Science.

Merit in terms of an action or a treaty or a even a letter can mean the consequences of that action or those words. Even you say....

As I said, History is about understanding past times as much as we can given the sources we have.

How complete is one's understanding if you do not see the merit in an action in history? That is my point, somewhere someone has to examine merit. You may not teach it, but it is implied. You may even ask a question on an exam such as: "Discuss the relative merit for France of the decision to build the Maginot Line in terms of the beginning of war on the western front of the Frankenreich." Non?

;~)

[candlelightfrot.livejournal.com]

And I better get off to bed.... bon jour, maîtresse...

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

You may even ask a question on an exam such as: "Discuss the relative merit for France of the decision to build the Maginot Line in terms of the beginning of war on the western front of the Frankenreich." Non?

Actually...non!

This is not a Historical problematics.

Good...sleep.

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

I mean the way you phrased your question implies a value judgment which is a thing we don't do in History. We don't discuss decisions. Besides it's too restricted.

Your question sounds like a subject that military students could have in a strategy course using historical examples as references.

A historical problematics would be for instance to "show why the French Campaign was such a quick victory for the Wehrmacht", and the different strategies (the Ligne Maginot and the French defensive strategy, the snare that was The Siegfried Line etc) could be used as points as well as other points.

Or simply, I could ask as a question exam "The Phoney War" and hope that they would find themselves the problematics and phrase it(something they are supposed to do with an essay question): how the Phoney War served the German expansionism in Europe?

[candlelightfrot.livejournal.com]

You mean that a student shouldn't understand that the Maginot Line was a waste of francs and that the French military thinking was in the middle ages as compared to the Germans?

Ok.... I bow to your superior intellectual acuity... what do you want me to kiss, ma maîtresse?

;~P