ECKE T 14 Bulletin 2014 ECK Focus: ConflictsandInterventions Focus: Bulletin E T 14 ECKE T 14 Bulletin Focus: Conflicts and Interventions CONTENTS 5 Editorial 38 Intervention versus Consultation – The Current Situation of History Teaching in Bosnia and Herzegovina 6 FOCUS: CONFLICTS AND INTERVENTIONS Katarina Batarilo-Henschen 7 Textbooks as Sites of Political Controversy 42 The History of Albania or the History Simone Lässig of the Albanian People? History Lessons in Albanian-Speaking Countries 11 Uncertain Facts about an Age of Certainties – Claudia Lichnofsky The Cold War in West German Textbooks Barbara Christophe 16 Teaching History – Textbook Cases, Chapter 10, in Which Democracies Join in East Asia's History Wars 20 The Development of International Values via Textbooks – Questions for Research Andreas Heinemann-Grüder 24 Highlighting a Culturally Pre-Conditioned Consensus or, How People from Different Countries Read Textbook Narratives Concerning the First World War Barbara Christophe 46 A TASTE OF OUR RESEARCH 28 Legislative Intervention in Postcolonial Memory Politics – Conflicts and Crises 46 Education for Sustainable Peace – of Representation in France The Georg Arnhold Visiting Research Professors Marcus Otto 47 Social Media and Peace Education in Pakistan 32 Eliminating Prejudice in Afghan Schools M. Ayaz Naseem Massouda Jalal 48 Conflict-Sensitive Higher Education in 36 Wartime History Issues in Asia – Sub-Saharan Africa Recommendations to Resolve Tensions Kenneth Omeje Daniel Sneider 49 Transitional Justice in Sierra Leone and Liberia Susan Shepler 51 The Holocaust in Textbooks and Curricula Peter Carrier 54 Learning to Live Together in Africa Through History Education Denise Bentrovato 56 International Research Group on Teaching the Cold War – Memory Practices in the Classroom Katharina Baier / Barbara Christophe / Kathrin Zehr 58 Peace 2.0: Social Media as a Space for Peace Education – The 2014 Arnhold Symposium Martina Schulze 62 1913: An Exhibition on School Student' Lives in Braunschweig a Century Ago Kerstin Schwedes 64 The Curricula Workstation: Providing Access to Curricula Worldwide Esther Chen / Jessica Drechsler / Robert Strötgen 66 EARLY-CAREER SCHOLARS AT THE GEI 67 “History Can Bite” – History Education in 82 PEOPLE Divided and Post-War Societies Martina Schulze 82 A Warm Welcome to … 70 Are we Overpriviledged? The Situation and 90 Reports from Fellows Experience of Doctoral Students at Germany's Non-University Research Institutions Katharina Baier / Marret Bischewski 100 THE GEI IN ACTION 77 LIBRARY NEWS 104 ANNOUNCEMENTS 78 ”One of a Kind” – The GEI's Research Library Esther Chen 107 ECKI'S HOARD OF HUMOROUS HOWLERS 80 After 35 Years, It's Goodbye to Margrit Canosa Esther Chen / Kirsten Gerdes / Ulrike Hinz 108 IMPRINT Bulletin | Editorial 5 DEAR READERS, As the year 2014 draws to a close, I am proud to present to you our first-ever entirely English- language edition of the Bulletin. Due to the global nature of our research and related activities and in response to numerous requests from research- ers and cooperation partners around the world, we have switched to this language format with the aim of communicating still more fully and effec- tively with our international readership and widening access to in-depth information on the work we do here at the Georg Eckert Institute. In this context, a special thank-you goes to our translators Katherine Ebisch-Burton and Nicola As textbooks are eminently political and often act Watson, who speedily and expertly translated as sites of political controversy, our research most of the contributions and proofread those frequently revolves around the role of educational which were originally written in English. media before, during and after conflict and around the potential of textbooks to help promote We know from our work here at the GEI that text- respect and understanding for other people in books are much more than just educational the context of conflicts taking place today (see materials. Under all kinds of political systems, a Massouda Jalal's contribution on p. 32). We hope wide range of parties and factions, be they na- in this Bulletin to give you some selected insights tionalists or pacifists, democrats or dictators, into the various kinds of political crises and have attempted to use textbooks to disseminate educational interventions past and present, in all the vision of society which they have sought to areas of the world, that inform our work, into realise. Ever since the modern school system was the ways in which people read and understand text- created in the nineteenth century, textbooks and books (see Barbara Christophe's article on p. 24) history textbooks in particular, have been among and into the influence of educational media on the governments' and authorities' preferred instru- development of young people's emergent world- ments for the promotion of civic learning and for views (see the contribution from Andreas Heine- education in national values. mann-Grüder on p. 20). Against this backdrop, this edition of the Bulletin All that remains for me now is to wish you, on focuses on conflict and interventions in the field behalf of all my colleagues here at the GEI, a of educational media across the globe. Education pleasant and relaxing holiday season and a happy, can drive the exacerbation of conflict, by fuelling healthy and peaceful new year, which we hope stereotypes and antagonism among other things – will bring us still more innovative and exciting it is this unhappy fact that prompted Georg Eckert insights into educational media research! to begin his work on textbook revision. However, education also has the potential to contribute to With the very best wishes from Braunschweig the transformation of conflict situations and to peace-building. Throughout the twentieth century and to this day, a large number of initiatives have sought to turn history textbooks into vehicles of reconciliation. Simone Lässig FOCUS: CONFLICTS AND INTERVENTIONS Foundation of the German-Polish Textbook Commission: Professor Wladyslaw Markiewicz (left) and Professor Georg Eckert Bulletin | Focus: Conflicts and Interventions 7 TEXTBOOKS AS SITES OF POLITICAL CONTROVERSY Simone Lässig Textbooks have a long history of being pressed into the service of education for nationalism – a history that is by no means over. They possess the potential to exacerbate conflict or mediate for peace. The European textbook revision move- ment, which commenced in the inter-war period and entered a new phase after the end of the Second World War, is viewed internationally as an exemplar of good practice; this applies particularly to initiatives co-initiated by (West) Germany. But might this model be appropriate in other circumstances, and particularly in regions scarred by animosity and strife? TEXTBOOKS AND THEIR POTENTIAL IN TODAY'S NEW JOINT TEXTBOOK COMMISSION WITH POLAND: FLASHPOINTS OF CONFLICT A TRAILBLAZER OF RECONCILIATION The year 1949 saw the first of a series of meetings Similar efforts between Germany and Poland of British and German representatives to discuss proved a great deal more difficult to pursue and textbook issues in Braunschweig, the home of the realise; it was not until the advent of the neue Georg Eckert Institute. A similar Franco-German Ost politik in West Germany and the rapproche- encounter had taken place a year before in the ment to eastern Europe it entailed that it became German town of Speyer at the initiative of the possible to establish a regular textbook commis- country's military government. The cooperation sion. Founded in 1972, this institution published thus founded gave rise to joint recommendations 26 recommendations on the treatment of Polish- as early as 1951; these focused on topics on which German history in textbooks just four years later. both sides were able to arrive at similar posi- tions, which already had a distinctly European The recommendations were non-binding on text- slant. Issues which remained controversial or of book publishers and ministries of education, who Foundation of the German-Polish Textbook Commission: which the two countries' societies had not yet were given free choice as to whether to follow Professor Wladyslaw Markiewicz (left) and Professor Georg Eckert learned to speak, such as war crimes, the geno- them. Their publication nonetheless ignited polit- cide perpetrated against the Jews, the German oc- ical controversy, with opponents of the neue Ost- cupation of France and French collaboration with politik pronouncing invective and sweeping judge- the occupying regime were at this stage excluded ments against them, and its supporters frequently from the recommendations, which focused de- showing an almost equal lack of nuance in read- cidedly on European perspectives of history. ing them as a direct continuation of Willy Brandt's 8 Bulletin | Focus: Conflicts and Interventions gesture of 1970 in kneeling at the monument to the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Proponents of this latter view held high, in part unrealistic expec- tations of the recommendations' potential for the promotion of “reconciliation”. It is doubtless the case that the commission, whose work continues to this day, set decisive trends in European poli- tics of memory, yet a decade was to pass before West German society and many of its politicians adjusted to this change in direction. GERMANY'S TEXTBOOK PROCESS: A PARADIGM FOR EAST ASIA The German model of textbook revision was per- ceived as a success beyond the boundaries of Europe. Particularly in East Asia, a region in which conflicts around interpretations of history flare up periodically and historical and geograph- ical depictions of events in textbooks can lead to tensions between states, yet in which a large number of groupings within civil society are working to foster mutual dialogue and under- ISRAEL AND PALESTINE: standing and consider textbooks key resources WHAT SHOULD WE DO? in this endeavour, many have wondered how best It is far from certain that, in such conditions, to harness European-style processes of textbook the development of consensus on sensitive revision to productive effect.