Saw this a few days ago, scary. Hopefully, the backlash will cause the British to rethink this. In the area of the Crusades, maybe they could give both sides of the events. The Holocaust needs to be hammered home, to conteract the idea that it did not happen.

I hope the Brits can combat this but I don't have much hope for our friends across the pond. They are quickly being eaten from the inside and I am quickly losing hope.

The Brits' MSM is as selective as ours. When I read Freedom1's post about this, I contacted my friends in London. No surprise that they hadn't heard about it.

It's bad enough professors in our universities are allowed to skew history/facts to fit their political beliefs ... but to appease a group of people by not teaching an important and vital piece of history is not only irresponsible, but downright dangerous.

I'm confused -- wouldn't the "politically correct" thing to do be to not air criticism of the holocaust? Don't get me wrong, I'm not a holocaust denier and I think that teaching it in an unequivocal manner is the right thing to do, but I guess I'm just confused about definitions. For instance, theis narrative:

criticism of affirmative action = "politically incorrect" aka challenges accepted wisdom = allegations of racism.

Alternatively:

criticism of Islam's role in terrorism = "politically incorrect" aka challenges accepted wisdom = allegations of Islamophobia.

So can't this case be diagrammed as:

criticism of holocaust's eistence = "politically incorrect" aka challenges accepted wisdom = allegations if anti-semitism?

My point is, isn't Britian doing the politically incorrect thing here?

Like everything else, I think education should teach various points of views on most topics.

Teach about the holocaust and teach why some don't believe it happened.

Teach about global warming and why some disgaree.

Teach about Human evloution and Religious beliefs.

and so on and so on.

I find that most schools and univerisities teach what the educators own beliefs are.... which is not an education but simply brain washing.

Those who refuse to teach all history are in denial. The school officials who decided this are holacaust deniers themselves. They're no different than the Bush-deniers of 2000--you know, the AlGore crowd...

Is this hapening in Britain? I haven't heard about it can you give me some links so I can have a wee look. Though I don't see them getting away wth it because at least in Scotland ( our education is diferent from England, Wales and Northern Ireland) the vast majority of our history courses deal with WW2, the holocaust and WW1. I never studied history but most of the rest of my family has and they covered WW2 and all its aspects. I remeber watching videos of the liberation of Bergen-Belsen etc when I just started first year (don't know how tht works in your system I'd be about 11). I know it hasn't changed much since I left because my sister sat it a year ago and I only left school 3 years ago. I honestly can't see them getting away with it.

oh ok I just clicked the link, they'll not get away with it anyway on the note of the crusades, in scotland thats not taught, mainly because w were not that heavily involved, although Robert the Bruce after he died, did have his heart thrown into a battle against the muslim armies. Its not a British thing this story though because the education system differs between the nations, this will be relating to England and Wales I imagine.

The American Thinker: The Crusades

Historical facts say that Islam has been imperialistic—and would still like to be, if only for religious reasons. Many Muslim clerics, scholars, and activists, for example, would like to impose Islamic law around the world. Historical facts say that Islam, including Muhammad, launched their own Crusades against Christianity long before the European Crusades.

Scroll through The Timeline of the 400+ years of Islamic jihads (launched in 630 AD)that preceded the first Crusade (launched in 1095 AD).

So it is only after all of the Islamic aggressive invasions that Western Christendom launches its first Crusades.

I think the teachers who are refusing to teach the Holocaust and the Crusades are doing so out of abject fear of physical harm from their Muslim students. Britain is doomed if it doesn't reverse this decision and stand firm. Btw, antisemitism is rampant in Britain.

(Sept. 02, 2006) British Antisemitism Watch: "Attacks on Jews soar since Lebanon."

BRITISH Jews are facing a wave of anti-Semitic attacks prompted by Israel’s conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Synagogues have been daubed with graffiti, Jewish leaders have had hate-mail and ordinary people have been subjected to insults and vandalism.

On Thursday an all-party parliamentary inquiry will state that anti-Semitic violence has become endemic in Britain, both on the streets and university campuses. The report will call for urgent action from the Government, the police and educational establishments.

(Feb. 01, 2007) Attacks on British Jews at Record High

Attacks on Britain’s Jews have risen to the highest level since records began. A study published today shows the number of reported anti-Semitic incidents has almost tripled in 10 years, with more than half the attacks last year taking place in London.

The findings prompted the report’s authors to warn of a “wave of hatred” against Jews. The number of incidents increased to 594 last year, up by 31 per cent on the previous year. Violent assaults soared to 112, up by more than a third on 2005.

The UK is going under fast.I really don't think they have it in them to hold off the Islamic wave sweeping whats left of their nation.

You say it all the time but I don't think you understand what it means; 9/11 changed everything.

PC history is always a danger especially when teaching general history in high school or earlier. for example, the buffalo didn't naturally disappear. rather they were systematically killed-off by contract hunters to starve the indian tribes.

even so, one would reasonably think the holocaust & the crusades are significant enought to justify inclusion regardless of any sensibilities.

after all it wasn't muslims but the nazis who systematically exterminated the jews.

Rao,
In my experience, what's defined as politically correct is setting aside a mainstream behavior when it makes a minority culture uncomfortable. The trouble is, from a perspectivist point of view, both solutions are politically incorrect. It's politically correct in the service of not offending Muslims to teach the Holocaust, and it's politically correct to teach it in the service of not making the Jewish minority uncomfortable.

This is where political correctness breaks down, where the liberal hypocrisy of suggesting a consensus for science is all powerful but a consensus for culture, language, values, and history is only the majority imposing its will by force on the minority. The fact is, the Holocaust did happen. But it's a whole lot more difficult for Muslim radicals to make the case that the Jews are the world's victimizers with such a glaring example of how they were not powerful. That is, if the worldwide Jewish consipiracy running the show behind the scenes truly existed, you'd think they would have been able to avoid being put in concentration camps.

The most ignorant, stupid thing about this is that people don't seem to realize radical Islam is being taught, that it doesn't just happen out of nowhere, that knowledge is an act of force and if we don't respond their perspective will continue its chain reaction. Learning is an active process, and the proof of this is in how many more young people of this Muslim generation have been attracted to these radical leaders.

This is of course why we need to break the structure of hate filled radicalism by changing their system of education, and coincidentally why our attempts to negotiate with them fail. They are rigid thinkers. And of course this is why it's so important to change our own educational system. It is not a service to teach knowledge as something in which the debate is over, and certainly not to avoid teaching at all just because it's paradoxical or contradictory to what one already has learned.

Well, there is freedom of speech, so all we can do is call these idiots racists, anti-semites and the like. This is not saying I deny the holocaust. It happened and was a terrible tragedy whose effects are felt even today. This is just saying that I support freedom of speech.

The issue is but one of a larger problem. We have morphed into a culture of relative truth. The problem with truth is that it is inconvenient at times simply because it is fixed and not relative. Relative truth is an oxymoron. Whatever we call it it won't pack up and go away and is the only avenue to peace - inner and outer. We, (both sides) have become far too acceptant of political lies, because they work temporarily and help our cause -sorta like an alchoholic feels better for a while on that first drink.

The Holocaust is real -what is unreal is those who would deny its reality

DougH,

Sometimes, there aren't two sides to a story...we wouldn't have in taught in school that the earth is round and the earth is flat...so, too, we must not teach that the Holocaust happened, and that it didn't happen.

It all comes down to one basic tenet: teach the facts.

The Holocaust happened, so don't try to deny it, even if some of your students don't believe in it. Evolution happened, too. So teach evolution, even if some of your students don't believe in it. Just common sense, right?

Facts are to be taught. Personal beliefs are for outside the classroom.

"The issue is but one of a larger problem. We have morphed into a culture of relative truth."

I would be more tempted to use the words superficial truth. That is, because American settlers saw the world from a different perspective than Native Americans, there were many conflicts. We've gone from the rigid viewpoint of the settlers' heroism is They Died With Their Boots On to the rigid viewpoint that the settlers were a bunch of greedy thugs in Dances With Wolves. This is not an improvement, this is not smarter. The truth is in reconciling both perspectives, seeing the ways in which there were heroes on both sides.

In terms of the Holocaust, it's dangerous to chalk everything up to Hitler, the bad, bad man who made all these other people do such bad things because he hated the Jews. Hitler would not have been Hitler, he wouldn't have come to power were it not for broad support among the German people, and if we ignore that part of history we risk repeating their mistake. That is, there are mental processes which allowed the Germans to support Hitler, just as there are among those in Iran who support murdering infidels. But the existence of such processes in no way diminishes the threat people acting under those influences are to our survival.

They're acting under the influence of those in America and abroad who believe that all the world's problems are the result of America and Israel. This is seductive to Americans because we like to think we have that power, and that it's just poor leadership that keeps us from being able to make everything perfect, and it's seductive to non-Americans and non-Jews because they have someone to blame for their trouble.

Hezbollah and other terrorists act under the same dissociative processes (moral justification, euphamistic labeling, diffusion of responsibility, giving responsibility to an authority, dehumanism) that operated within Hitler's supporters in the time of concentration camps.

If we rigidly tell the story of the Holocaust only from the Jewish perspective, then we may fail to learn how we are all as human beings vulnerable to the same frailties which beset the Germans who followed Hitler. And as our media does, we may make a mistake in failing to recognize those frailties acting in terrorists today. But of course the media believes it's dehumanizing to talk about the frailties of any group with less power, so you see the trouble we have today is a result of our rigid approach to knowledge, that there is only one story to tell, that those in power are villains and those without victims. Switching around who is the victim or hero and who is the villain or victimizer doesn't tell the whole story.

"Sometimes, there aren't two sides to a story...we wouldn't have in taught in school that the earth is round and the earth is flat...so, too, we must not teach that the Holocaust happened, and that it didn't happen." - Mark

Well said.

While it is true that we are becoming a culture of both relative and superficial truth, what bothers me is that we are being programmed to accept the concept of voting on what we want to be the truth.

We are, for example, repeatedy told that we must accept the doctrine that human activity is the primary cause---if not the ONLY cause---of 'global warming' because THERE IS A CONSENSUS that this is so. ?????????

Since when do we determine truth based on how many people want it to be true? There was once a consensus that the sun revolved around the earth; there was once a consensus that the earth was flat; there was a consensus that the body becane ill because of a disruption in the humors of the body, and not due to bacteria or viruses. The most shameful part of our national history was based on the consensus that black people were not really human beings, or at least were a sub-species of human.

It seems that whenever I see a bumper sticker that says "Question Authority" it is on a car which is also covered with anti-Bush, far-left, sayings. Yet all you have to do these days is claim a "consensus" is present and all of a sudden you have a fact, at least when it's convenient to do so. (They have never acknowledged a 'consensus' that Bush should be President.)

So the Brits don't want to offend the Muslims? Why don't they apolozize to the Muslims as well, they are pretty good at that also(witness the Iran episode of the sailors).

Also I guess they get two birds with one stone. By not teaching the historical truth about the Holocaust, they also stop embarrassing the Krauts(and I am using that term affectionately). The poor Krauts, for so long they been having their noses rubbed into it, even in their own school system. So what is next, the German school system stop teaching about it as well to avoid offending the Muslims?

Man, we are so scared shitless to offend these people, aren't we? What's the problem? Scared they might go postal? Yeah, that's it.

"While it is true that we are becoming a culture of both relative and superficial truth, what bothers me is that we are being programmed to accept the concept of voting on what we want to be the truth."

I may even go further and say what we want to be the truth without considering its consequences. That is, if you look at our countries unwillingness to educate our citizens in ethics and character values, it is presented as though government simply doesn't have a right to educate people in this way, that we'll be infringing on people's freedom. So we get people who feel entitled not to act compassionately, who feel entitled not to act as a good citizen, who feel entitled not to act with any personal responsibility.

This attitude is so common in my court referred addictions groups, and how well does it really serve them when they live under the illusion they deserve to be able to commit crimes because of an addiction, that they're entitled not to be punished for them. This is the essence of what they learn from diminished capacity defenses, that they're powerless victims of an addiction over which they have no control, when the fact is they may be powerless over being triggered to use, but they do have the power to set up a support system with which to overcome their addiction.

We teach mindless, narcissistic self esteem that says a person's worthwhile, a good person, no matter what they do, and no one can tell them anything different. And I'd agree that all people have the potential for good, but that's very different from someone stealing and then being referred to a class in which they're told what a good person they are, no matter what they do. The consequences of such simple mindedness, of what appears in that one instance to be a kind act, are revealed as illusion within context.