The past isn’t a weapon” “

Liberating history from nationalist prejudices and distortions, “so that the past be no longer used as a weapon”: that’s the objective that, ever since the Fifties, has led the Council of Europe to promote educational activities of research, conferences and seminars aimed especially at teachers in the member countries. After the fall of the Berlin wall and the rapprochement between Eastern and Western Europe, the problem has assumed new connotations and led to the Council of Europe multiplying its efforts. REVISING SCHOOLBOOKS AND CURRICULA. History ought to be “a means of knowledge and dialogue between peoples”: that’s why the Council of Europe – an institution that now represents 45 countries with 800 million citizens – is inviting “its member states to join together in revising and re-writing their schoolbooks, in order to achieve a less conflictual presentation of the events of the past”. The organization has drafted a basic document and set up a special office that deals with education in history. It is headed by ALISON CARDWELL. Researchers and teachers in various countries have already tried to revise the books written for students, “to eliminate the clichés and the erroneous interpretations that tended to discredit the image of neighbouring countries”. Over the last decade, moreover, other specific efforts have been made to revise school curricula and make “the study of this subject [history] more lively and attractive”. Last year a “summer university” was held at the headquarters of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg to unmask the “deviations in the teaching of European history” and to promote the “transmission of memory”. THE PAST ALWAYS RECOUNTED BY THE WINNING SIDE. DANIEL PAYOT teaches philosophy of art at the University of Strasbourg and is one of the animators of the project launched by the Council of Europe. He explains: “We reflected on the words of the German philosopher Walter Benjamin, who, sixty years ago, had come to the conclusion that those who make history are those that have an interest in recounting it, naturally attributing to themselves the role of protagonists. To give one example, of the wars of the Gauls we know only what Julius Caesar has transmitted to us. The same goes for the immemorial history of Africa, which we learn of exclusively through a colonial perspective. Of the events in our continent, on the other hand, a partial interpretation of the truth is given in each country”, and various degrees of guilt and error attributed to the “others”. According to Payot, we need to change research methods, pursue new sources, and open up dialogue between the scholars of various countries. “We need, last but not least, a new approach to history. As a child – he recalls – I was convinced that Charlemagne belonged only to French history. I was surprised years later to discover that this wasn’t so. The current development of Europe urges us to overcome this narrow attitude and to adopt a European viewpoint”, that may transcend a mere “sum of the various national perspectives”. “THE FRAME OF REFERENCE HAS CHANGED AFTER 1989”. For his part FRED BOURQUIN, former director of the European Centre of Culture in Geneva, general rapporteur of the Council of Europe’s “summer university”, observes: “After three great conflicts, i.e. two world wars and the ‘cold war’, history needs to be re-examined. What was believed to be true in the past has now been relativized by the Europeans, who ascertain that they have not undergone the same experiences” with the same convictions, or the same involvement. Bourquin stresses that there exists a problem of the credibility that can be assigned to a testimony depending on whether this comes from a protagonist or a victim, from a person who has participated in a given episode or from an indirect witness: “We only see things through our system of values which blinds us to some aspects to the advantage of others. The conclusion we need to draw from this is that the historian’s work must seek to plumb the depths of things, though always preserving a critical attitude”. NATIONAL MYTHS AND “CONTINENTAL PERSPECTIVE”. OLA SVAIN STUGU, professor of the University of Trondheim, in Norway, also insists on the need for greater objectivity: “The construction of myths permits a sense to be given to the past and an order to things. No country can live without a foundation myth, even if these myths are in many cases a substitute for facts. Our work as historians consists in studying the forms and functions of the myth in order to give them an explanation”. In this sense, “the collection and comparative examination of the different sources, the consideration of the facts and the search for objectivity enable us to better identify the reality beyond myths”. The necessary “European perspective” to enable us to go beyond the national “totems” is, however, fundamental, even though we must beware of creating a European mythology”.