Can history teaching make young people ready for war? – It would be difficult to answer this question on the basis of irrefutable evidence, but it seems reasonable to assume that textbooks and teacher narratives contribute to shape collective “perceptions and misperceptions” (Robert Jervis) relevant to issues of war and peace. In my introductory remarks I would like to focus on some examples of narratives that are likely to generate tension between nations. In some cases it is quite difficult to trace a clear line between politics of memory and history teaching – and this seems to be part of the problem: The politics of memory is about “making sense” in some (often national) way or another, it is not always linked to sincere effort to understand what happened and why it happened. This effort, however, is crucial for peacebuilding between hostile nations or groups. People will hardly be able to overcome the tensions between them as long as one side denies or trivializes facts crucial to the experience and memory of the other, even if they know each other’s narratives perfectly well. What scholars studying German history teaching call “multiperspectivity” is without doubt an important element in processes of history-based peacebuilding, but it is by far not enough.

If we really want to overcome history-based conflict, it will only be the first step to acknowledge different interpretations of the past. We will have to transcend the mere comparison of conflicting narratives, because people did not – and do not – live in different universes.

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Quelle: http://histrhen.landesgeschichte.eu/2020/02/peaceteachingbonn-introductory-remarks/