“The Council of Europe’s education agenda has moved beyond its initial concern with maintaining objectivity to the political promotion of values,” a recent report unveiled, published on March 7th by the Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC), a Brussels-based conservative think tank.
Ironically, the report came out as the Council of Europe started a major conference in Brussels aimed at “tackling historical manipulations and the use of history as propaganda.” The event is organized by the OSCE’s Observatory on History Teaching in Europe, whose self-proclaimed mission is to “enhance the understanding of democratic culture” through quality education.
However, MCC Brussels’ report, written by Dr. Joanna Williams, founder of the British think tank Cieo, argues that the Council of Europe (CoE) falls short of objectivity itself. “While it is instructive that increasingly there is a growing awareness that the teaching of history is a serious battleground in the objectivity versus propaganda wars,” Dr. Williams said, “asking the Council of Europe to institute reform and correct direction is really like asking the proverbial fox to guard the hen house.”
According to the author, history education is being targeted because of purely ideological reasons, simply because history, if taught sensibly, conveys a sense of national identity and values. “For this reason, history teaching is more contested than other school subjects; it is a topic for public debate and political scrutiny,” Williams said. The report intends to show that under seven decades of coordination by the Council of Europe, history teaching became a political instrument for the “promotion of values that transcend and often implicitly criticize nations and borders.”
First, the document identifies nine common features of European history teaching, aiming to raise awareness of potentially harmful processes that take place in our schools today. These observations include the gradual diminishing of historical knowledge given to pupils; the politicization of the past—with increasing emphasis on “historical sins” often tied to the bogeyman of nationalism—as well as the glorification of disenfranchised groups, such as sexual minorities; the appearance of exclusive, “approved interpretations,” which weaken children’s critical thinking skills; as well as the portrayal of the European Union as the ultimate savior of the continent, the sole defender of peace and stability.
Second, the report offers several recommendations to restore not only the true objectivity of history teaching but its healthy mission and role in our societies. For instance, history education should focus on knowledge of the past, not the virtues of the present. National histories should take a center role again, in order to foster a sense of continuity and belonging. The educational agenda should be determined by academics and not ideologically invested international institutions. And while learning about historical tragedies and crimes, for balance, children should also be taught about humanity’s past achievements.
The report is the result of a longer collaboration between Dr. Williams and MCC Brussels, kicked off by a panel discussion in January, where many of these ideas were discussed at length between the author and two of the think tank’s eminent researchers.
The full, 40-page report can be read and downloaded here.
