Violent Youths and the Global History Textbook Project

Watching TV news from around the world is depressing. Everywhere there are scenes of youths rioting on any pretext and committing acts of vandalism or worse. The natural violence of young men is aggravated by television, which thrives on violence. They enjoy the publicity and step up the violence. Naturally a first step, which TV producers are loathe to take, is to cut down on the exploitation of violence for commercial purposes. This weekend has been particularly sickening. The peace process in Northern Ireland has vanished, and the streets of Bradford in usually peaceful England witnessed incredible scenes of youthful brutality. In Paris the Arc de Triomphe is a symbol of unwillingness to face historical facts. It was erected by Napoleon to celebrate his victories. It is many times larger than the Roman triumphal arches which inspired it. This vanity ended with the defeat and disgrace of Napoleon. It should be named the Arc de la Défaite, The French cult of glory is chilling. The national anthem "The day of glory has arrived" calls on the French to water the field with the blood of enemies. The Champs Elysées were the scene of a July 14 victory parade which featured large guns (but no hydrogen bombs). While the official cult of martial glory was being thus celebrated, in Parisian suburbs youths as usual were celebrating by setting cars on fire and preventing firemen from doing their job.

The most depressing scenes were in Spain, where ETA youths, totally insensitive to public opinion, carried out two more political assassinations. One of the victims was a popular conservative councilman in a Navarre town. He was very Basque and spoke Basque, but he was not anti-Spanish. He would drive children to school. The little ingrates would taunt him, calling him "Spaniard" and worse. Who put them up to this? What did their history books tell them?

This illustrates again the importance of the global history textbook project, which will be discussed in the final session of the WAIS conference. "Global" is a better word than "International", which suggests that it is merely a problem of potential war among nations. In fact religions may be a stimulant. How far do textbooks in the Islamic world, or at least in Arab countries, show the same religious and ethnic bias? Although history textbooks are the main problem, geography and political science textbooks may be involved. What do they say about boundary disputes? What economic system do they promote? Despite this, "history textbooks" seems to be an adequate description.

The proposal is that the global history textbook project be sponsored by WAIS in cooperation with Stanford University. The library of the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace seems the most obvious and appropriate home for the textbook library. It would add greatly to the prestige of that library and encourage interdisciplinary projects which foundations promote. If Hoover is not interested, then the School of Education Library would be an appropriate. If there is no interest there, the Stanford Administration might have another proposal.

If Stanford is not interested, we should consider other universities in this country or in Europe. An obvious choice would be Oxford, with which WAIS has close ties. St. Anthony's College is a research institution devoted to international studies, free from the inter-departmental rivalries which are the curse of American universities. It has extensive international ties. Obviously foundation he would be necessary, and for American universities it certainly would be desirable.

Note: Bill Van Orsdol will lead a team of videocasters who will tape the conference proceedings for TV.

Ronald Hilton - 7/16/01