Strangely after last weeks posting, there has been another example of history being forgotten in the news this week ....
..... Only this time it was much closer to home than India or the Orient.
The History Channel, a TV station commissioned a poll of 2,000 UK adults, and asked them questions about World War II. Now in the UK you would think that we would have a firm grasp on the main characters and events of that conflict .... well apparently not, after they have been through our schools.
In this regard we are perhaps not so different from other parts of the world, where some history is perhaps best forgotten.
But as we were fighting for a just cause in World War II, its perhaps surprising to find that some of he people questioned, believed that Germany and Britain were allies in WWII - although who we would then have been fighting against, must have been a bit hazy in those people's minds.
The Battle of Britain and D-Day were apparently mysterious events to many of those questioned. But then again, as 10 per cent of those asked had no idea that Adolf Hitler had any connection to WWII (Do we really have 10 per cent immigrants already?), that's perhaps not so surprising.
One in twenty polled even extended the Germans and British being allies in WWII theme, to include Italy and Japan in the same alliance. So if a sizeable proportion of our population can no longer get these very basic facts right about WWII, when we mostly all have relatives who were engaged in it, then why should we expect non Europeans to do so?
After all their connection to the events of that conflict are likely to be negligible .....
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| Battle Of Britain - Never Happened For Some, Grandad's War To Others |
..... Only this time it was much closer to home than India or the Orient.
The History Channel, a TV station commissioned a poll of 2,000 UK adults, and asked them questions about World War II. Now in the UK you would think that we would have a firm grasp on the main characters and events of that conflict .... well apparently not, after they have been through our schools.
In this regard we are perhaps not so different from other parts of the world, where some history is perhaps best forgotten.
 |
| Some History Is Forgotten For A Reason ...... |
But as we were fighting for a just cause in World War II, its perhaps surprising to find that some of he people questioned, believed that Germany and Britain were allies in WWII - although who we would then have been fighting against, must have been a bit hazy in those people's minds.
 |
| Lest We Forget - It Was Our War |
The Battle of Britain and D-Day were apparently mysterious events to many of those questioned. But then again, as 10 per cent of those asked had no idea that Adolf Hitler had any connection to WWII (Do we really have 10 per cent immigrants already?), that's perhaps not so surprising.
One in twenty polled even extended the Germans and British being allies in WWII theme, to include Italy and Japan in the same alliance. So if a sizeable proportion of our population can no longer get these very basic facts right about WWII, when we mostly all have relatives who were engaged in it, then why should we expect non Europeans to do so?
After all their connection to the events of that conflict are likely to be negligible .....
By a strange coincidence the Chinese have once again shown that they have no awareness of Western social sensitivities.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-41606161
The use of the N-word is only allowed to black people these days but apparently the Chinese didn't know that.
Or perhaps they didn't care.
I'm afraid that we in the West need to accept that the time of our cultural pre-eminence is over. Our rules don't rule OK? Funnily enough its nearly always those on hard left (Corbyn and Abbott et al), who find this hardest to accept. They exhibit a paternalistic idea that Socialism and its evil children, political correctness and multiculturalism, are still the dominant ideologies that oppose western capitalist liberalism. Venezuela anyone?
DeleteOf course this is arrant nonsense which anyone can see.
Most of world now falls into one of three camps.
1). Elected Despotism - Xi, Putin, Erdogan, el-Sisi, Kim Jong-un, most of Central Asia and Sub Saharan Africa .... oh and Venezuela anyone?
2). Islamist regimes where Jihadist ideology has taken hold. Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, and The Middle East generally.
3). The Western liberal world of North America, Western and Central Europe, Japan, South Korea, and Australasia.
Areas 1 and 2 covers four fifths of the globes population ... they don't look to area 3 for guidance any more e.g. western socialism, though they may use the terminology of comrade Corbyn .e.g. North Korea and Venezuela
Live with it everyone.
And I thought that I had a sketchy knowledge of WWII !?
ReplyDeleteOn one level its fairly disturbing that our education system allows kids to leave school with such basic misunderstanding of our own history (or perhaps this has always been the case, and about half the population are thick .... after all to get an average IQ of 100 half must be above and half below that figure!).
DeleteOr maybe its on another level its healthy that the collective memory quickly move on, and it doesn't really care about the past, being more interested in the here and now .... we shouldn't dwell on the 'glorious' past. maybe most people never have?
...and be doomed to repeat our mistakes.
Delete