by Viewpoint » Mon Feb 12, 2007 8:50 am
from the Cyprus Mail 11/2/2007
A NEW history textbook for children in the last year of primary school has incurred the wrath of Cypriot politicians, who are demanding its immediate withdrawal because it allegedly distorts and over-simplifies the island’s history. The textbook, covering four centuries of Greek history in 150 pages, devotes three pages to Cyprus, which refer to the anti-colonial struggle, the coup, Turkish invasion and the continuing division. Cypriot politicians found plenty to complain about in these three pages, while the Education Ministry has prepared a letter in which it lists the changes it wants made to the book.
It was not only Cypriot politicians who were outraged with the contents of the book. A small handful of nationalist politicians and academics in Greece have also lambasted it, because of the neutral terminology it used and its failure to mention the killing of thousands of Greek civilians by the Turkish troops in Smyrna in 1922. All it said was that the Turkish army had entered the town and thousands of Greeks had crowded to the port in order to get on a ship that would take them to Greece. The Greek Education Minister, responding to the criticism, said some corrections would be made to the book, but had no intention of withdrawing it from schools, as had been done in the case of other ‘nationalistically incorrect’ textbooks in the past.
The objections voiced by Cypriot politicians are related to the failure of the writer to use the officially-sanctioned Cyprus problem terminology. They objected to references to the ‘northern part’ of the island, which should have been called ‘occupied area’, and to ‘the Turkish Cypriot state’, as well as to the absence of any mention of the missing; there was not enough written about the refugees (just a fleeting mention), it was claimed, and no mention of the role played by EOKA B in the coup. A map of the island had the occupied area shaded in a different colour, from the free area, which was a big faux pas, as it implied there were two ‘states’. The island should have been in one colour, with a dividing line marking the occupied part, claimed Cyprus’ self-styled historians.
For our politicians the only valid version of history is the officially-sanctioned version, featuring the missing, the refugees, EOKA B, the junta and the bad Turks. They want school history books to read like turgid, Public Information Office announcements, even though this would turn children off history for life – but at least the Cyprus problem dogma would be kept intact. Educationalists in Greece have no such hang-ups, and the Education Ministry there has, commendably, decided it was time to adopt a drastically new approach for the teaching of history in state schools.
Gone is the rigid presentation of history as an epic narrative of a nation’s heroic fight for survival, which encourages fanaticism and hatred for the ‘historic’ enemies of the country as it dismisses alternative versions of events. The offending textbook is a radical departure from this dogmatic and simplistic approach, instead presenting history dispassionately, as a series of discrete events, in neutral language and with as little value judgment as possible. It is a good introduction to history, for 11- to 12-year-olds, that tries to cultivate open-mindedness and relative values.
Greek society, to its credit, has decided that it will no longer use the teaching of history as an excuse to keep alive old rivalries and to encourage nationalism and fanaticism.
Greek Cypriot society is not ready to make such a leap forward, which is why all political parties expressed strong objections to the contents of the textbook. Our society still wants its schools to teach dogmatically and to inculcate children with nationalism. It is no coincidence that the age-group most opposed to the re-unification of the island is the 18-24, the individuals who are still greatly influenced by school. Sixty-three per cent of this age group supported the complete separation of the two communities in an opinion poll last year.
It is our society’s choice to cultivate hostility and fanaticism, but it is rather arrogant on our part to expect Greece to do the same. If we do not like the history textbooks used in Greece, because they encourage open-mindedness and relativism, we should not be demanding that they are changed for our sake – we should produce our own. Our history books would use all the correct terminology relating to the invasion and occupation, with inverted commas in the right place and the map of Cyprus in a single colour.
