Wars and ConflictsΜύ permalink
Airbrushed out of history
This discussion has been closed.
-
Message 1.Μύ
Posted by Grumpyfred (U2228930) on Thursday, 28th April 2011
If you watch any film or read most books on the subject, you will be led to believe that GuadalCanal was an all American victory. There is hardly (If ever) a mention of the Austrailian warships that fought alongt side of their US counterparts, or of the RNZAF fighter squadrons that flew P40ks off the island in late 1942, and the natives are never mentioned at all. Indeed you get the impression that the island was totally empty until the arrival of both friend and foe. So who else did they airbrush out?
-
Message 2
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Thursday, 28th April 2011
The inhabitants of Libya, Tunisia and Egypt seem almost invisible in depictions of the North African campaigns.
-
Message 3
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Thursday, 28th April 2011
Grumpyfred
Is this only an issue because we no longer know where to look to find "the makers of history"?
I was looking recently at the History of the World that I was given for Xmas in 1954 or 1955..
It was a popular History of over 1000 pages printed in 1951 on very cheap and flimsy paper in a post-war austerity in which the Festival of Britain had emphasised the need to get History "back on track" after another recent descent into a Dark Age.
It starts in the Prologue:
"The story of mankind forms only a small fragment of the earth's long life, and little of that fragment has been set down in written history... Our own country comes late into the mainstream of history..."
Having then gone on to describe the potential human habitat Part One "Civilizations Of The Near East" starts with a chapter "The Shaping of Human Life".. And that spells it out:
"Man had a vast field for his endeavours, and our eyes cannot survey the whole of it. History confines itself to a few parts of our world, disregarding those lands whose inhabitants were content to accept a bare livelihood from the earth without feeling any urge to improve their lot."
This was the kind of History that fed into and was reinforced by Darwinian ideas of evolution- a term developed I believe by Herbert Spencer to encapsulate the growing confidence in the Middle Class (the owners of intellectual and material Capital) that they were eminenty qualified to improve the lot of humanity.
And those whose lot could be most improved were those whose ancestors had passed down ways of life that had endured for tens of thousands of years, while the "Middle Class" solutions seem to be in potentially terminal crisis after just a couple of hundred years.
And of course as everyone knows the Americans are very fond of portraying themselves as the "movers and shakers" of History.
Cass -
Message 4
Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Thursday, 28th April 2011
Well, the Americans did acknowledge the Australian contribution to the battles in Iron Bottom Sound by naming a ship after HMAS Canberra.
Coral Sea also seems to have been de-Australianised in most histories. Take a look at -
Message 5
Posted by ShaneONeal (U14303502) on Tuesday, 3rd May 2011
The inhabitants of Libya, Tunisia and Egypt seem almost invisible in depictions of the North African campaigns.Μύ Perhaps like the Palestinians they did not exist at all before the arrival of the Europeans?
-
Message 6
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Wednesday, 4th May 2011
Shane O'Neal
You are probably right...
T.E. Lawrence explains how he was used as a British intelligence officer tasked with trying to encourage a sense of the kind of nationalism and common purpose that had done so much to galvanise the "Western world" and this meant combating the indigenous culture that was much more based upon family, clan and tribe.
Part of his achievement came from achieving a functional mastery of the linguistic and cultural differences that had kept these peoples apart for centuries and persuading them that it was time to throw off the over-arching authority of the Khalifate- the leadership of the Islamic World- that had been held by Ottoman Turkey for centuries, in order to create nations capable of independence (much as England had done when it separated from Rome).
But there is some debate as to just what the actual military significance of "Lawrence of Arabia" in the war in the Middle East. Those he led remained bitter that they did not get the spoils of victory..and resent the presence of Israel.. But Lawrence is quite clear that quite a lot of gold was needed to underpin the action, and this, as well as vital Western weaponry and munitions, were presumably only possible because of British wealth- and the loans that Britain could negotiate with leading Jewish bankers.
Without such foreign assistance Lawrence's Arabs would not have had whatever impact on the war they did have. For the once great "world" that had fascinated Lawrence for years had become old decayed and merely subsisted.
The Turkish Empire had been at the forefront of the tide of history. But it was a tide that Byzantium and then Western Europe avoided and kept at bay, the latter quite deliberately creating its own Eurocentric World, which cut out the Islamic World. This policy destroyed the advantages that came from the 'jihad' that had allowed Islam to take over most of the "Centre of the World" [Mediterranean] region.
The wealth here had come partly from various finite resources that were exhausted long ago- gold, silver, murex shell-fish- but the greatest asset had been the advantage of the central position as a transit place for world trade.
Without that advantageous position the Islamic World stagnated, lost momentum, and gradually gravitated towards a situation in which "leaders" encouraged a going back to the early stages of Islam, when it was a vital and explosive new religion and force.
But- by definition- this meant ruling out any real possibility of intervening in any effective way in the Eurocentric history that made world wars possible- as opposed to "global conflict" of the kind that we face currently in our state of extra-high international alert.
Of course the position of the Islamic regions in the modern world changed radically when the growth of Western Civilization brought new value to the oil creating this common interest between "Islamic" and "Christian Civilizations"- or perhaps more accurately those with a real stake in the wealth in both.
For it is Western Technology that makes the oil valuable- until perhaps it finds an improved way of living- one not destined to just decline and fall when finite resources and the material wealth they create run out.
Cass -
Message 7
Posted by White Camry (U2321601) on Monday, 9th May 2011
Gf,
Given the ratio of the war and of the Allied forces over the course of time, plus the nature of show business in general, is it any surprise? Besides, most countries' histories focus on their own efforts in the war, however tangental. Recently I was in Australia where mention was made of the upcoming anniversary of the Battle of the Coral Sea - but absolutely no mention that of Midway was was a month later. -
Message 8
Posted by White Camry (U2321601) on Monday, 9th May 2011
Gf,
I should also mention that I recently watched on CNN a counterpoint to the recent fashionable grumblings against Pakistan and why they were kept out of the bin-Laden assassination - namely, their double-dealings with the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The point was brought up that Pakistani soldiers were part of the rescue force in the Mogadishu fiasco of 1993 - something which "Black Hawk Down" didn't mention. -
Message 9
Posted by Caro (U1691443) on Monday, 9th May 2011
Not perhaps quite in keeping with this thread (though Pakistan is a link), but the headline in our paper today was that Hillary Clinton has been airbrushed out of history. A right-wing Israeli paper has taken her out of the photo showing people watching the operation on Osama Bin Laden. (Not modest enough perhaps, though she is completely covered, apart from her hair. More likely they object to women in power. I expect lots of papers would really like to airbrush any women in power out of history.)
-
Message 10
Posted by JB on a slippery slope to the thin end ofdabiscuit (U13805036) on Sunday, 15th May 2011
Pakistanis are very much there in Blackhawk Down, notably at "The Pakistani Soccer Stadium" where they were based.
The one that gets me is the intro to East Is East that states that "George Kahn came to England from Pakistan in 1935..." -
Message 11
Posted by Dai Digital (U13628545) on Sunday, 15th May 2011
If you watched the royal wedding, you would never believe that Brian Haw had been occupying Parliament Square for years. Not a sign of him anywhere, in the best traditions of Beria's secret police.
-
Message 12
Posted by Herewordless (U14549396) on Wednesday, 18th May 2011
The Americans also did this immature stuff with the vital British role during the Battle of the 'Bulge'.
To squash the German salient, a desperate Ike was forced to grant Monty (who had incurred the wrath of the American commanders with his zeal and arrogance) overall command of Anglo-US troops above the bulge, whilst Patton turned his entire army about and raced northwards.
British XXX Corps halted the nazi armoured thrust towards Antwerp in the north and fought doggedly, but got little press or subsequent recognition about it? -
Message 13
Posted by White Camry (U2321601) on Wednesday, 18th May 2011
Hereword,
British XXX Corps halted the nazi armoured thrust towards Antwerp in the north and fought doggedly, but got little press or subsequent recognition about it?Μύ
Well, did they or didn't they get little press or subsequent recognition about it? -
Message 14
Posted by Herewordless (U14549396) on Wednesday, 18th May 2011
Not in the US certainly, which involves their huge Hollywood propaganda campaign about anything really, but a handful of British soldier's and scholarly books have since mentioned the role of the British.
-
Message 15
Posted by Tasty (U14660579) on Friday, 20th May 2011
Message 1.ΜύPosted by Grumpyfred If you watch any film or read most books on the subject, you will be led to believe that GuadalCanal was an all American victory. There is hardly (If ever) a mention of the Austrailian warships that fought alongt side of their US counterparts, or of the RNZAF fighter squadrons that flew P40ks off the island in late 1942, and the natives are never mentioned at all. Indeed you get the impression that the island was totally empty until the arrival of both friend and foe. So who else did they airbrush out?Μύ
The problem is the more you look at hundreds of historical events is the deluge of information that has been either airbrushed out, or tactically altered to bias the naΓ―ve readers. It's even more depressing when you talk to younger people who seem to have totally lost the ability to question the media portrayal of many historical events, and some events that are banned from even debate before you've started. -
Message 16
Posted by Herewordless (U14549396) on Friday, 20th May 2011
The problem is that the Yanks thought that they could march in (like the nazis did?) and bully everyone else what to say/think/do and expect no reprecussions?
Isn't that immature, disturbing and insecure? Or Fascism? -
Message 17
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Friday, 20th May 2011
Without wishing to get too deeply into US bashing, I think that there are many places in the world with much more History where people feel alienated by an American belief in "quick fix" solutions that can be achieved by a fairly crude use of either carrot or stick.
Of course the thead on writing alternative histories does highlight the potential virtue of what appears to be an American tendency to think that it is possible to do a "whistle-stop" tour through world history like US tourists used to "do" Europe and the World..
And when a country has been such a global "melting pot" some kind of "reductio ad absurdum"(?) in its historical narrative is perhaps inevitable.. But there is- and I think that this is the central theme of this thread- a dangerous tendency to lose sight of the reality that History moves as a kind of resultant force of all the human actors involved, no two of whom have identical motives and goals.
These reflections are prompted by watching a few minutes of a "Hardtalk" interview with the US philosopher Fukiyama- of "History is dead" fame. He has now produced a new book which looks at the history of democracy in various parts of the world, and pin-points Denmark as a singularly significant model. Dr Fukiyama was starting out on his systems analysis approach explaining that it is all about analysing the institutions that make democracy possible, when I turned off.
Systems and institutions only work and work efficiently if and when people are prepared to make that happen.. Without the right attitudes amongst those who have to make them work, they will at best disappoint and may well founder and fail.
A favourite historical document is the minute written by Mr Munro in the East India Company service in India c1824 who observed that it was pointless to give legal rights to the poor rural peasantry, the 'ryots', because- unlike the English rural labourers who were to show this in 1830- the ryots had no experience of knowing how to use legal rights over those who might try to impose upon them.
Cass -
Message 18
Posted by Grumpyfred (U2228930) on Saturday, 21st May 2011
As i have posted on the History site, it seems the US also airbrush their own history, with little or no time given in some schools to the Indian wars, or battles such as the Little Big Horn where the US were soundly beaten. Mind you I suppose we Brits are the same. Mentioning any battle where we were(Sorry lads) beaten by the French is never mentioned, nor is the Dutch sailing up the Thames.
-
Message 19
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Saturday, 21st May 2011
Grumpyfred
I suppose it may be true that we learn most from our mistakes and our failures. Perhaps this is because it is at such times that we actively look for answers-- and then look back from a troubled present to find inspiration and examples of past success.
Thus, for example, while Mr Ed Miliband may be correct in asserting today that the British electorate need to see the Labour Party acknowledging its past mistakes really, he needs to remind them of Labours past successes .
For, though "with the benefit of historical hindsight we can see how things would have been better done otherwise, or not at all", knowing in theory how to avoid making mistakes does not necessarily show us how to act in such away that our positive achievements end up being greater than our negative failures- those sins of omission and commission.
Those of us who grew up in tragic families know what we want to avoid. But negative lessons and examples are not enough.
Paul Tillich wrote about "The courage to be": but our "time" has inherited/developed something of a "Stop the World I want to get off" syndrome in which people claim the right to opt out of History, say "not in my name", and look to History in a spirit of a trial or a post-match analysis, though meanwhile the game is going on for those people for whom life is still a daily struggle.
This tendency, however, has been encouraged and created by the post-war sense of alienation created by the simplistic modern mechanisms of mass democracy and mass consumerism, which- in dealing with people 'en masse', or as Dr Fukiyama was suggesting is now universal in mere family units (by which he obviously meant nuclear family or household units)- has achieved a situation of "divide and rule" in which the individual citizen/ consumer feels a "pawn in the game".
Perhaps this is encouraging a tendency to look back into history and find such people and embrace their sense of grievance. Perhaps this is what this whole thread about being airbrushed out of history is about.
Cass -
Message 20
Posted by cloudyj (U1773646) on Sunday, 22nd May 2011
Mind you I suppose we Brits are the same. Mentioning any battle where we were(Sorry lads) beaten by the French is never mentioned, nor is the Dutch sailing up the Thames.Μύ
And let's not forget our great national lie of standing alone against Fascism in July 1940.
Here's Churchill neatly airbrushing out Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Ethiopia, Rhodesia, Nepal and thousands of exiled Europeans:
"And now it has come to us to stand alone in the breach, and face the worst that the tyrant's might and enmity can do. Bearing ourselves humbly before God, but conscious that we serve an unfolding purpose, we are ready to defend our native land against the invasion by which it is threatened. We are fighting by ourselves alone; but we are not fighting for ourselves alone." -
Message 21
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Sunday, 22nd May 2011
cloudyj
I think in fairness Churchill was referring to the forthcoming Battle of Britain and not the whole war.
Not all elements of global Britishness could take part in this battle, and Churchill was addressing everyone on the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Front including people like the Polish airmen, Norwegian volunteers etc who could listen to his broadcast.
As usual in English history anyone who was prepared to put their shoulder to the wheel and fight in the common cause was automatically "one of us" for the duration and could become so permanently if they persisted in showing those qualities.
Cass -
Message 22
Posted by cloudyj (U1773646) on Sunday, 22nd May 2011
I think in fairness Churchill was referring to the forthcoming Battle of Britain and not the whole war.
Μύ
Possibly, but it's gone down in our national conciousness that Britain was the only country at war with Germany after the fall of France. -
Message 23
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Sunday, 22nd May 2011
cloudyj
That depends which "national consciousness" you are talking about..possibly the rather ignorant one which does not know much history-- as has been lamented on several threads recently.
There are I would suggest many who would interpret that wider picture as involving a global Britishness, or what Churchill later referred to in his several volume history "The English speaking world".. As a half-American he probably thought that the USA was still based upon British values and traditions.
"And if the British Empire and its Commonwealth should last for a thousand years they will say, "That was its finest hour".
Cass -
Message 24
Posted by Caro (U1691443) on Monday, 23rd May 2011
I think he did mean a global Britishness but it was an old-fashioned view even then, I think, and rather demeaning to the Empire countries that supported Britain. "Where Britain goes, we go," was the speech in New Zealand, but it didn't mean that by 1940 (or even by 1914) we thought we WERE Britain.
Even during the Boer/South African War a NZ soldier felt strongly about his New Zealandness. NZers are still pretty supportive of Churchill (older ones; I don't suppose younger ones think of him at all much) but Australians feel more resentful that he airbrushed them and their Pacific concerns out of his main consciouness.
Caro. -
Message 25
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 23rd May 2011
About seven years ago I attended the funeral of a friend and colleague who had been born in British Guyanna in 1939. His first names were Winston Churchill.
Cass -
Message 26
Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Tuesday, 24th May 2011
If you read the "Fight on the beaches" and "Finest hour" speeches, it is patent that Churchill was acknowledging the role of the empire and the dominions in the war.
-
Message 27
Posted by White Camry (U2321601) on Tuesday, 24th May 2011
cloudyj:
.. As a half-American he probably thought that the USA was still based upon British values and traditions.Μύ
How wouldn't the USA have been based on British values and traditions? -
Message 28
Posted by cloudyj (U1773646) on Tuesday, 24th May 2011
cloudyj:
.. As a half-American he probably thought that the USA was still based upon British values and traditions.Μύ
How wouldn't the USA have been based on British values and traditions?Μύ WhiteCamry,
I think you'll find that was Cass's comment. I expect he meant that Churchill would have seen America as a "Britain-over-the-ocean" without fully appreciating the extent to which 150-odd years of independent indigenous cultural change and vast non-English immigration had changed it from a provinical British backwater to a country with its own vibrant culture.
To be fair, many of the upper class Americans who Churchill knew probably were as culturally close to the British upper class as they were to the majority of other Americans.
-
Message 29
Posted by White Camry (U2321601) on Wednesday, 25th May 2011
cloudyj,
I think you'll find that was Cass's comment. I expect he meant that Churchill would have seen America as a "Britain-over-the-ocean" without fully appreciating the extent to which 150-odd years of independent indigenous cultural change and vast non-English immigration had changed it from a provinical British backwater to a country with its own vibrant culture.
To be fair, many of the upper class Americans who Churchill knew probably were as culturally close to the British upper class as they were to the majority of other Americans. smiley -Μύ
With a Yank mother and having traveled across the Atlantic on occasion, it seems to me that WC would have had been last Briton to see the US as "Britain-over-the-ocean." But even with all its independent development, I still can't see how the US wouldn't have been based on British values and traditions. -
Message 30
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Wednesday, 25th May 2011
The United States of America were founded on English values and traditions - not British ones. 12 of the 13 original colonies had been founded as English colonies. And even the 13th colony, New York, had been founded as a Dutch colony before becoming English in 1674 which was 33 years (i.e. a generation) before the Treaty of Union and the creation of the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. In other words all 13 Colonies were older than GB.
During the revolutionary era the American patriots claimed, in the words of George Mason of Virginia, βthe liberty and privileges of Englishmenβ. While following the War of American Independence it were the colonies such as Quebec and Nova Scotia (i.e. those noted for their non-Englishness) which were the ones which remained with the UK. Consequently the American legal system is based on English common law β not Scots law. (Although law in the State of Louisiana is based on Roman law.)
As the American Union was established on English culture, it is English culture which is rarely if ever acknowledged as such by the US establishment because basic American culture and English culture are seen as being one and the same. It's a sort of bizarre US version of βEnglish/UKβ type conflation which is also buried under 2 layers. This is even more peculiar when one considers that English Americans only number about 10% of the current US population.
An interesting article on this by the historian Jean Smith can be read here:
It seems that for a variety of complex reasons the English Americans have felt obliged to write themselves out of history. -
Message 31
Posted by Thomas_II (U14690627) on Thursday, 26th May 2011
An interesting article on this by the historian Jean Smith ...
It seems that for a variety of complex reasons the English Americans have felt obliged to write themselves out of history.Μύ
Interesting indeed, Vizzer.
I rather think that they didnΒ΄t wrote themselves out of history, but they are merely absorbed into American History. I think that it is not working to start with American History, i. e. that of the USA, without dealing with the first English settlers.
The English descendants might not make a great deal of it, like those with Irish ancestors. Maybe the English settlers wanted to set up or later join into a new society, contrary to that back in the UK, when they went there to have equal chances for everyone, which makes the term "land of the free". -
Message 32
Posted by White Camry (U2321601) on Friday, 27th May 2011
From the link:
Professor Youngβs talk also picked up this point, suggesting that because Englishness was an imperial identity, this may have subsumed Englishness as an ethnic identity.Μύ
The ethnic English didn't subsume their identity; they were and still are the identity. The cloth doesn't subsume into the cloth. -
Message 33
Posted by RedGuzzi750 (U7604797) on Thursday, 2nd June 2011
Ah us Aussies don't like to big ourselves up Fred.
Coral Sea was always seen as more important for us as (rightly or wrongly) there was an idea that the next step if it was lost was the Invasion of Australia. In the last few years a great deal more has come out about Kokoda (I am lucky enough to have had long chats with a veteran of that battle) and Milne Bay, and also the Morotai Revolt of the RAAF.
Interesting stuff.
Scotty
About this Board
The History message boards are now closed. They remain visible as a matter of record but the opportunity to add new comments or open new threads is no longer available. Thank you all for your valued contributions over many years.
or Μύto take part in a discussion.
The message board is currently closed for posting.
The message board is closed for posting.
This messageboard is .
Find out more about this board's
Search this Board
ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ iD
ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ navigation
ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ links
ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Β© 2014 The ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read more.
This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets (CSS) enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets (CSS) if you are able to do so.