Reflection of “History Wars and Why they Matter” by Maria Constantinidou
Going to the garden of history for the first time, Bahces hosted its inaugural webinar with Dr Maria Georgiou, a history education researcher and educator, who gave her presentation on ‘What are "history wars" and why do they matter? Debunking "true" narratives’. Maria’s goal was to make her audience see “history wars” with fresh eyes by applying her expertise in history teaching and learning, and I think she delivered.
Maria took us on a journey to five different countries (the UK, the Netherlands, Greece and Lebanon, Cyprus) and helped us understand what has come to be known as “history wars”. She explained that “history wars” arise when ‘new’ histories and the traditional historical canons clash, leading to the different ‘conflicts’ and ‘battles’ between them. By looking at different case studies, Maria approached this task in a very holistic and multi-perspective way. Being a history educator myself, it was exciting to look in depth how history narratives and canons are established and in what ways they have been challenged.
I particularly enjoyed the case study she presented on Lebanon, where efforts were made for a common history textbook across religions and religious denominations. Maria referred to how Kamal Salibi’s ‘House of Many Mansions’ (1988) tried to bring together different schools of thought and aspects of Lebanese culture, in order to bridge division within Lebanese society and avoid conflicting narratives that lead to actual conflict. It was encouraging to see that such efforts have been made by scholars even though the book was met with opposition by the proponents of the traditional historical narrative.
Maria also explained to the audience how the historiography has approached nation-building. With Benedict Anderson’s ‘Imagined Communities’ (1983) and Ernest Gellner’s ‘Nations and Nationalism’ (1983), nations were no longer viewed as something perpetual and unchallenging but as human constructions. Being born and raised with nation states being largely established, I find that bringing these theories to the audience's attention is essential in helping us understand the world around us and for possibly striving for change.
This brings us to how we view ‘the book’ in Cyprus, as the history textbook has been nicknamed. Maria discussed how this ‘book’ has been used as a means to legitimise political objectives and establish Greek national identities. During Q&A, she highlighted, through her research on 17-18 year old Greek-Cypriot students' understandings of differing historical accounts, that young people have a hard time making sense of why there are different ‘stories’ about what happened and why and, subsequently, disentangling the Cyprus Problem. Working with students myself, I find that they have a hard time challenging historical narratives and interpretations, thinking that history and history books present only the facts. Therefore, I believe that the speaker’s work is significant in showing us the need to help young people understand and possibly question historical canons and politically promoted identities.
Written by Maria Constantinidou
