During the Oxford interview period I remember having tried to craft an answer to a potential question that could have come up in my interviews (but which didn’t, thankfully?): why do you want to study history? Though it is clichéd, my answer would have been, and two years into a history degree still is, because one cannot live within a society, within a culture or as an individual without understanding our past.
I am Australian and grew up in Australia, which is a Commonwealth country. The land was colonised by Britain in 1788 with the ‘discovery’ of Australia by Captain Cook. He did not discover anything. Indigenous Australians have lived in Australia for 40,000 years and are one of the oldest surviving cultures on earth. Their entire historical existence was erased by the doctrine of terra nullis; the legal principle by which Britain claimed right to Australia on the basis that it was not inhabited. I do not remember in fine detail what we were taught about the British colonisation of Australia, it was probably a sanitised version of the history. However, the education was there, and it is surprising to me that this doesn’t seem to be the case when I talk to English students.
At the high school level, the history curriculum had largely moved on from Australia and we covered the standard topics: ancient Egypt, medieval Europe, the World Wars and the Cold War (before branching off into more specialised ATAR courses – the Australian version of A-levels). However, on the extracurricular and pastoral side there was a more authentic engagement with the issue of the place of Indigenous Australians in today’s Australia. My high school had for several years built a relationship with a few Indigenous Australian nations, trips were sponsored to indigenous communities in western Australia and in general there was a sense of our responsibility as white Australians to listen, understand and work towards reconciliation with Aboriginal Peoples. While more undoubtedly needs to be done at a practical level, reconciliation is a central topic of contemporary Australian discourse.
One of the things that fills me with great hope and happiness, too, is the change the Labour government represents. In fact, I read a headline at the time of the election that Anthony Albanese, our Prime Minister, wants to work to enshrine a recognition of Indigenous Australians within our Constitution.
I am now an Australian living in England, and if this conversation ever comes up something I find deeply frustrating and inconceivable is the almost total lack of knowledge about the realities of the British Empire on the part of my English peers. I find when this topic is talked about there is a superficial recognition of the atrocities of colonisation, but it is as if I am evoking something embarrassing and unpleasant, or to describe it more accurately, broaching a topic which is an inconvenience.
Speaking with a friend I enquired whether colonisation is taught in English schools, to which they replied that it was largely brushed over. Evidently as an Australian my particular frustration is with the Australian context, but it also speaks to a wider problem in the English educational system: i.e. the lack of teaching about the impact of colonisation through the British Empire. It is essential for English students to be taught about these issues. This is not to shame anyone, but it is important that the history of the nation and the reality it has created today in former (and current, at least legally speaking, in Australia) British colonies be not tacitly acknowledged but understood.
Responsibility and acknowledgment of the history and effects of the British Empire on the world is essential in taking a real step towards healing rather than simply pretending the problem does not exist. I must admit that this indifference is not my entire experience, and that many of my English peers agree that their lack of education on the topic is an issue. I too can do more to educate myself.
I have heard often in the media that our generation is the most political, and so I do not doubt that there is no lack of desire to learn at the individual level. It is, as ever, the institutions which must evolve.