Caleb Anderson: NZ History Curriculum - Critical Race Theory coming to a school near you
The final version of the New Zealand History Curriculum contained no significant changes in spite of widespread concerns. The consultation process was an exercise in window dressing. The review
Caleb Anderson: NZ History Curriculum - Critical Race Theory coming to a school near you
The final version of the New Zealand History Curriculum contained no significant changes in spite of widespread concerns. The consultation process was an exercise in window dressing. The review panel was stacked, dissenting historians were silenced, the terms of reference limited, the period of consultation constricted, and the outcome predetermined.
What has been produced is not a "history curriculum" as such. What has been produced is a perspective on history that is fundamentally based on Critical Race Theory.
Critical Race Theory assumes the following:
1. That the primary driver of human action is the pursuit of power
2. That power has been almost exclusively exercised by people of European descent
3. That the people of colonised lands were not materially benefited in any significant way by the process of colonisation
4. That colonisation displaced a near utopian existence with an existence of institutionalised oppression
5. That this oppression remains embedded in every aspect of social and institutional life and is the ultimate cause of all disparity
6. That the solution is decolonisation
7. That any arguments to the contrary are contaminated by privilege and must be immediately invalidated and driven mercilessly from the public domain
We should not be concerned that there are controversial ways of looking at history, debate is the lifeblood of the historical method. But alternative perspectives can be deliberately suppressed for personal or political gain, and in order to advance one perspective alone, creating the impression that alternative perspectives are not credible. As a consequence, critical knowledge is cast to the wind, perspectives become untethered from the events which gave rise to them, and the deliberate selection of some facts, and denial of others, can create questionable conclusions, unbalanced views, and unjustified causes.
History is more an art than a science. Being open to alternative perspectives forces the consideration of inconvenient facts. This is how ideas are sifted, shaped, refined, tested, some last and some don't. Legitimate historical inquiry is a natural bulwark against extreme ideas and intentional manipulation. Of course, history practiced legitimately is something of a rough and tumble exercise, you can be confronted with perspectives you find offensive, and you may have to concede or modify a position in light of new facts. But there are nearly always reasons why some facts are left out, or understated, and why some are included, and sometimes overstated. When critiquing a historical perspective, it is often a very good starting point to ask yourself precisely which critical information is left out, there is always a reason for this.
In short, to engage in history properly is to willingly expose your primary assumptions (and prejudices) to the light of alternative perspectives.
With respect to colonisation, we are never told that intertribal slavery existed in almost every colonised land prior to colonization, or that the earliest slave traders were not the nations of Europe, or that tribal groups often lived in perpetual fear of their more powerful and ambitious neighbours, or that colonisation was sometimes a lifeline to smaller tribes fearful of annihilation at the hands of larger tribes.
We are not told that traditional societies were generally highly stratified, with almost no upward mobility, that tribal life was often brutal and short, that cannibalism was sometimes practised, that pantheistic and spiritualistic religions made people fearful, that primitive and labour-intensive technology exposed people to a life of toil, and regularly to the vagaries of famine.
We are not told that sometimes the colonising powers were very reluctant colonisers, that a piece of land purchased by a settler may have been paid for at least a dozen times to multiple owners, that missionaries and foreign service officials were often the most ardent advocates for the protection of indigenous people, that the punishment of indigenous children for speaking their native language at school was often at the behest of their parents.
We are seldom told that the anglo nations were the first in the world to legislate against slavery, that colonisation brought advantages... more comfortable homes became possible with the arrival of nails, written language with the arrival of the alphabet, warm clothing and blankets with the arrival of textiles, better diets with the introduction of new crops, more accountability (and justice) with the arrival of a legal system, a more coherent set of propositional ethics with the arrival of Christianity. It is easy to trivialize these things from our twenty-first-century perspective, but these changes yielded no small gain, and help to explain the eager