A PERTINENT LESSON FOR US ALL:
“A nation that forgets its past, has no future!”
I was standing on the deck of HMS Victory yesterday during a tour of the ship, one young twenty-something New Zealand tourist asked the guide if everyone in Britain knew about Nelson and Trafalgar because he’d never heard of either…
Which is ironic because New Zealand, and many other places (and the people who live there), would not exist today were it not for that victory. Of course the islands were claimed by Britain but it was only after Trafalgar that British trade and hegemony expanded around the world. Before Trafalgar, Britain was at the mercy of rival European powers France and Spain and had spent years and significant capital either fighting or deterring both. Had Britain lost at Trafalgar, the British Isles themselves would have been at the mercy of a combined French and Spanish invasion fleet and only a fool would have preferred French or Spanish rule to British, both Empires were far from benevolent, which largely (but not exclusively) the British were, indeed arguably it is what made the British Empire so successful and enabled it to maintain such close relations with virtually all former territories (I realise it’s politically incorrect to say this though). And lets not forget, the vast majority of the population of both Australia and New Zealand originated from British settlers that came after Trafalgar.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”
Of course the problem isn’t just with the education system in New Zealand, it’s extends throughout the Western and English speaking world. It’s popularly called “political correctness”, otherwise termed “Cultural Marxism”, ostensibly it’s a belief that you can’t learn about colonial history, or indeed any period of history pre WW2 that isn’t older than about AD 410 least it offends someone. Of course there’s a lot more to it than that, there’s a whole political agenda behind it. It ensures anything that is learnt has to be reinterpreted in a counter cultural way so that history is re-written and anything good the “English”, the “British”, or “Europeans” did in the past has to have been bad (up to the Roman and Greek Empires which were of course good as they “civilised the British Isles” and, or other parts of Europe).
Anyone able to recall British, or European history as being anything but bad, or indeed evil, is often deemed a racist. Maybe, there are a few exceptions to this rule, but lets face it, it’s pretty much the case and it is destructive because it means we are losing our history, our links to the past, and understanding fully how it shaped us and how we can shape it.
You will not, however, find this problem anywhere else outside of the West or English speaking world. Islam for example has a strong aspect of cultural hegemony and a common language (Arabic); Indians are taught to be proud of their nation (which itself is based on an ancient Empire, which the British happened to bring back together, something which can not be mentioned under political correctness, as it flies in the face everything it insists we should unquestionably accept); the Chinese the world over, are taught to have a strong sense of cultural identity, even those whose ancestors left China generations back, and China (both the Peoples Republic and Republic of China (Taiwan)) have a strong sense of pride in their Chinese culture and identity; Russia, and Russian communities outside of Russia (ie those living in Crimea, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan,Azerbaijan, Georgia, etc) have a strong sense of identity, they’ve not been taught to hate their heritage yet.
