Friday, February 20, 2009

Australian National History Curriculum Critique re Holocaust Ignoring & Holocaust Denial

Australia has set up an inquiry into a National History Curriculum. An obvious danger is that all Australian children will suffer if there are profound errors in such a national scheme. A “National History Curriculum: Framing Paper” has been released (see: link ) and the following is my response to the request for comments on this proposed National History Curriculum for Australian school children.

Dear Sir/Madam.



After several unsuccessful attempts at logging-in and responding to the Feedback questions I am sending my Responses to the “National History Curriculum: Framing Paper” (see: link ) to you by e-mail below.



Dr Gideon Polya (4 decade academic scientific career, currently P/T academic, Department of Agricultural Science, La Trobe University; also give lectures on Science, History and Literature to the Yarra Valley U3A)



Address: 29 Dwyer Street, Macleod, Melbourne, Victoria, 3085, Australia.



Credentials. Dr Gideon Polya published some 130 works in a 4 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text "Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds" (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London, 2003). He is currently giving a 1-semester “Introductory Biochemistry” course , theory lectures and practical laboratory classes, to second year science university students and also course “Global Warming, Climate Emergency” to the Yarra Valley U3A). He has recently published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: link and link ); see also his contribution “Australian complicity in Iraq mass mortality” in “Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics” (edited by Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007): link ). He has just published a revised and updated 2008 version of his 1998 book “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History” (see: link ) as biofuel-, globalization- and climate-driven global food price increases threaten a greater famine catastrophe than the man-made famine in British-ruled India that killed 6-7 million Indians in the “forgotten” World War 2 Bengal Famine (see recent BBC broadcast involving Dr Polya, Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen and others: link ). When words fail one can say it in pictures - for images of Gideon Polya’s huge paintings for Peace and for Mother and Child see “Truth , Beauty & Saving the World – Science, Art & Nuclear, Greenhouse & Poverty Threats”: link ) .



Areas of interest: Primarily History (but also both English and Science, variously in relation to acculturation, History the process and History the much-perverted discipline; see my books “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: link and link and “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History. Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and the crisis in biological sustainability”: link ).



Professional: academic, journalist, parent, former union representative, former student; education professional: curriculum manager; teacher (one of relatively few academics with a formal tertiary teaching qualification).



Introduction.



1. Comments on Introduction. #15 should be amended to read “History sits across the social sciences, the sciences and the humanities” [Justification: see Jared Diamond’s books “Guns, Germs and Steel” and “Collapse” and marvellous scientific analysis of historical events; see my book “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: link and link ) for a thanatology [re causes of death] -related history and historical analysis of every country of the world since Neolithic times; and see “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History. Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and the crisis in biological sustainability”: link ) re Popperian science and history and “history ignored yields history repeated” as adjudged by analyses based on scientific method).



Aims.



2. I “strongly disagree” with the Aims in that they do not recognize this “Elephant in the Room “problem of “holocaust ignoring” (just see the effective absence of “Bengal” from Geoffrey Blainey’s 3 21st century histories to appreciate the extent of the problem of “holocaust ignoring”: Blainey, G. (2000), A Short History of the World (Viking, Melbourne); Blainey, G. (2004), A Very Short History of the World (Viking, Melbourne); Blainey, G. (2005), A Short History of the 20th Century (Penguin, Melbourne; I could list many more examples of historiographical “holocaust ignoring” e.g. see commentary on John Cornwell, “Profile: Pope Benedict XVI”, New Statesman, 2009: link ).



3. Comments on Aims. #28 about “sources of information” should be amended (e.g. by adding , “recognizing extensive, entrenched holocaust-ignoring” ) because it ignores such entrenched “holocaust ignoring” in Western societies (Western Murdochracies, according to outstanding Australian-UK writer John Pilger). Thus in giving lectures on the 1943-1945 Bengali Holocaust in which Churchill deliberately starved 6-7 million Indians to death only about 1% of well-educated audiences had ever heard of this atrocity Thus see 2008 BBC broadcast involving me, 1998 Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen (Harvard University, formerly Cambridge University), medical historian Dr Sanjoy Bhattacharya (Wellcome Institute, University College London), and others: link ; see “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History. Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and the crisis in biological sustainability”: link ).



Terms used in this paper.



4. I “strongly disagree” with Overview, Bridging and Study in Depth section insofar as it glaringly lacks a definition of Popperian science (critical testing of potentially falsifiable hypotheses) and anti-science spin (selective use of asserted facts to support a partisan position).

5. Comments on terms. It must be repeated that this section glaringly and shockingly lacks a definition of Popperian science (critical testing of potentially falsifiable hypotheses) and anti-science spin (selective use of asserted facts to support a partisan position).



Considerations.



6. I “strongly disagree” with “future orientation” as proposed – what is needed is a proper futures orientation that involves honest, “scientific” recording and analysis of the past (as far as this is possible).

7. Comments. A “futures orientation” is only as good as the prior “honest appraisal of the past” – “history ignored yields history repeated” (see items #2 and #3 above).



#35. “Australia has an awareness of its first people … commitment to improving educational and other outcomes for Aboriginals and Torres Straits islanders” is palpably incorrect. Thus in PM Rudd’s otherwise excellent “sorry” speech he did not use the G word or the R word (Genocide and Racism, respectively , words used by outstanding Australian experts including Professors Macintyre, Reynolds, Manne and Tatz); Government and People ignore the reality that 9,000 Aboriginals die avoidably each year and 90,000 died avoidably under the Howard Coalition Government; that the “annual death rate” is 2.2 % for Indigenous Australians and 2.4% for Indigenous Australians in the Northern Territory as compared to 0.4% (what it should be), 2.5% (for Australian sheep in Australian paddocks ) and 10% (Australian POWs of the Japanese in WW2 , for which crimes Japanese generals were tired and hanged) (see “Aboriginal Genocide. Racist White Australian child abuse and passive mass murder” : link ).



#38. “A good understanding of Australian history is essential to civics and citizenship education” - that is a fine Motherhood statement but hides the awful reality of Australia’s secret and continuing Genocide history. Thus, for example, Australia has been involved in all post-1950 US Asians wars, wars that were associated with 25 million Indigenous Asian violent and non-violent excess deaths (see “Australia’s secret genocide history. La Trobe, “Bundoora Eucalyptus”, and Black Crimes of White Australia”: link ).



Historical understanding.



8. I strongly disagree with the “historical understanding” as proposed because it flagrantly ignores that Lying is the most palpable reality of historiography from Ramses II’s fictionalizing of his “victory” at the Battle of Kadesh (1296 BC) to Churchill’s ignoring of his deliberate murder of 6-7 million Indians (1943-1945) and current holocaust-ignoring in relation to the 9-11 million excess deaths associated with the 1990-2009 Bush wars (for discussion see Chapter 1, “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History”: link ). Instead the National History Curriculum opines: “The discipline of history constrain the practitioner from imposing personal preferences on the evidence but all meaningful historical accounts involve explicit or implicit moral judgement, and historians require an awareness of their own values and the impact of these values on their historical understanding. "



9. Comments.



#40 (6) “Historical empathy and moral judgement: the capacity to enter the world of the past with an informed imagination and ethical responsibility. The discipline of history constrain the practitioner from imposing personal preferences on the evidence but all meaningful historical accounts involve explicit or implicit moral judgement, and historians require an awareness of their own values and the impact of these values on their historical understanding.”



This gets to the heart of my objection to the National History Curriculum in its present form. The bottom-line ethical stance held by all decent people is encapsulated by “All men are created equal and have an unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (American Declaration of Independence); "[the] moral principle, namely that it is morally wrong for one people to dispossess, subjugate, or exterminate another people" (one of the best-known Jewish scholars in the world today, Professor Jared Diamond, in his best-selling book "Collapse”, Prologue, p10, Penguin edition); and “zero tolerance for racism”, “never again to anyone” and “bear witness” (the fundamental, moral messages from the Jewish Holocaust (5-6 million dead, 1 in 6 dying from deprivation), the World War 2 Holocaust in general (30 million Slav, Jewish and Roma dead) and the World War 2 Eastern Theatre Holocaust (35 million Chinese dead under Japanese occupation and 6-7 million Indians starved to death by the British in the man-made 1943-1945 Bengal Famine - for details of the latter "forgotten" Bengali Holocaust see the BBC broadcast in which I participated together with 1998 Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen, Harvard University, medical historian Dr Sanjoy Bhattacharya, Wellcome Institute, and other scholars: link ; see also "Media lying over Churchill's crimes. British-Indian Holocaust": link ).



Avoidable deaths (excess deaths, deaths that should no5 have happened (see “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” ; G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: link and link ) is the bottom-line measure of violation of these fundamental precepts that distinguish decent humanity from the European imperialists, the Nazis, the racist Zionists (RZs) (see “Apartheid Israel Gaza Massacre. “The Lancet” reveals horrendous Israeli war crimes”: link ) and the US alliance “democratic imperialists” (see “9-11 excuse for US global genocide. The real 9-11 atrocity: millions dead (9-11 million) in Bush wars (1990-2009)”: link ).



We live in a holocaust-ignoring Western Murdochracy in which reality is convenient Establishment perception – and accordingly even professional historians are unaware of horrendous Anglo crimes such as the 1943-1945 Bengali Holocaust (6-7 million starved to death) or the largely Muslim Holocaust associated with the Bush Wars 1990-2009 (9-11 million violent and non-violent excess deaths) - crimes that exceed in numbers of victims the Jewish Holocaust (5-6 million dead, 1 in 6 dying from deprivation).



Thus Anglo historiography largely ignores the 1.5 billion excess deaths in British India (1.8 billion including those in the Native States: see “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History. Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and the crisis in biological sustainability”: link ), the 10 million Indians murdered by the British after the Indian Mutiny (see Amaresh Misra’s “War of Civiliztions. India AD 1857” : link ) and the 6-7 million starved to death in the man-made 1943-1945 Bengal Famine (see: link ).



Thus an esteemed member of the National Curriculum Committee has published “Denial. History betrayed” by Tony Taylor (Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2008) - a very well written, well annotated and well referenced book that deals with the phenomenon of “holocaust denial” and, in general, the denial of horrendous abuses of humanity. This is an important book that should certainly be read by everyone and should be in every library.

However inevitably “Denial” can be criticized and the most fundamental criticism is that this otherwise excellent Mainstream Anglo book, published by a prestigious Mainstream Anglo publisher, itself ignores major 20th century and ongoing 21st century holocausts and genocides due to Anglo-American imperialism and outlined above (see “Denial. History betrayed” By Tony Taylor. “Denial” books ignores UK and US genocide crimes”: link ).

Holocaust denial is wrong and utterly repugnant for 3 major reasons: (1) it is falsehood; (2) it is profoundly offensive to the memory of the victims, survivors of such atrocities, their loved ones and indeed to all of decent humanity; and (3) it increases the probability of repetition of such awful crimes – history ignored and history denied yields history repeated. Indeed one supposes that it is for these sorts of reasons that Germany recently proposed a measure for the EU that would criminalize not only those who deny or diminish the Jewish Holocaust but those belittling any relatively recent genocide, mass murder, war crimes and other crimes against humanity.

Already denial or minimization of the World War 2 Jewish Holocaust is a criminal offence attracting up to 10 years of imprisonment in Austria, 5 years in Germany and custodial punishment in many other European countries. Indeed denial of the Armenian Genocide (up to 1.5 million Armenians murdered in Turkey in the period 1915-1923) is an offence in both France and Belgium. However such criminalization of “opinion” disturbs many intellectuals because of the implicit threat to “free speech” and scholarly investigation. Thus, as related in “Denial” (p168), outstanding Jewish American scholar Professor Noam Chomsky (MIT) defended the right of free speech of a Holocaust-minimizing French academic, and Jewish American academic Professor Deborah Lipstadt (Emory University) (famous participant in the David Irving versus Penguin defamation trial in London) thought that Holocaust denial should not be criminalised because of the seriousness of repression of free speech in a democratic society.

Free speech is absolutely vital for scholarly research and for Rational Risk Management to minimize risk to Humanity. Indeed Rational Risk Management (which, for example, has made passenger aviation extremely safe and can be generally applied to situations from child safety in schools to operating nuclear power stations) successively involves (a) accurate information; (b) scientific analysis (involving the critical testing of potentially falsifiable hypotheses); and (c) systemic change to minimize risk, However Rational Risk Management is typically perverted by (a) denial, ignoring, lies, slies (spin-based untruths), deceit, intimidation and censorship; (b) anti-science spin involving selective use of asserted facts to support a partisan position; and (c) cover-up or blame and shame, with the latter in its most appalling realization involving war and genocide. It is unfortunate that “Denial” (written by an Australian Humanities academic) does not really deal with this core Scientific Risk Management issue (crucial in my perception as an Australian Science academic – shades of C.P Snow’s “Two Cultures”) that is most simply summarized by the adage, deriving in many versions from George Santayana, that “History ignored yields History repeated”.

In the interests of free speech, scholarship and Rational Risk Management there should be “no-penalty” criminalization of holocaust and genocide denial. The most important aspect of a “No-penalty Genocide Denial Criminalization” (NGDC) system would be the public, judicial examination of the evidence for gross human rights abuses. It is public exposure of Genocide and Human Rights Abuses that will help to protect Humanity in a Rational Risk Management sense. Accordingly, Holocaust Deniers and Genocide Deniers should be prosecuted and their views tested by an expertly-informed, public judicial process – but the punishment would simply be the ignominy of public conviction for Lying, Denial, Holocaust Denial and Genocide Denial. However, compromising Free Speech by punishment of Genocide Deniers by anything more than the public disgrace of conviction will increase the risk to Humanity (see Genocide denial. Non-penalty criminalization required now”: link ).

Of course, when “holocaust ignoring” persists after those involved have been authoritatively apprised of holocaust occurrence then “holocaust ignoring” transmutes into morally repugnant “holocaust denial”, inviting disapprobation, Sanctions, Boycotts and legal and administrative sanctions.

If the National History Curriculum, authoritatively apprised about “holocaust occurrence”, were to persist in a program with a possible outcome of effective “holocaust ignoring” then the consequences (e.g. legal and business) for Australia and particular individuals might well be draconian.

Cross curriculum implications in history teaching.

10. I strongly disagree with the cross-cultural implications part of the report insofar that it ignores palpable Orwellian realities in historiography (and in fictional literature, e.g. the banning of Frank Hardy’s “Power without Glory” for being too truthful).

11. Comments.

Literacy.

#45. “From Edward Gibbons to Geoffrey Blainey, writers of history provide models of literary distinction that engage students and enhance their appreciation of prose” . I - and no doubt many other decent folk – would prefer the facts and scientific analysis of the fall of the Roman Empire (e.g. from the likes of biologist Professor Jared Diamond) and of appalling British atrocities in Bengal (totally ignored by Geoffrey Blainey and including the 1769-1770 Great Bengal Famine involving 10 million deaths, the 1943-1945 Bengali Holocaust involving 6-7 million deaths and massive recurrent man-made famines in between that cost millions of lives; see “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History. Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and the crisis in biological sustainability”: link ).

Numeracy.

Estimation of horrendous deaths associated with European imperialism involves simple numeracy. Unfortunately we live in a holocaust-ignoring Western Murdochracy in which there is a holocaust-ignoring culture adhering to Orwellian and Goebbelsian “big lies” that “war is peace”, “ignorance is strength”, “slavery is freedom” and “2 plus 2 does not equal 4”.

ICT.

Information and communication technology enables one to access UNICEF (see: link ) in seconds and immediately determine that annual under-5 infant deaths in the Occupied Palestinian, Iraqi and Afghan Territories total 373,000 annually (1,022 daily, 90% avoidable and due to gross Occupier violation of Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection if Civilian Persons in Time of War: link ) and (because total avoidable deaths are about 1.4 times under 5- infant deaths for such countries: link ) that 521,000 people die avoidably each year in these Occupied Territories (1,430 daily) i.e. every 2 days the racist, genocidal, war criminal nations of the US Alliance and Apartheid Israel kill about as many people as died on 9-11.

Languages.

Students can learn Goebbelsian, Orwellian, Bush-ite, neo-Bush-ite and racist Zionist (RZ) euphemisms such as “collateral damage” to describe mass murder of Asian civilians from Somalia to Waziristan in the former British Raj.

The Creative Arts.

The camera doesn’t lie – see a typical picture of skeletal British Indian subjects during the worst of 2 century British Indian Holocaust (1.8 billion avoidable deaths, 1757-1947): link .

Geography.

Unfortunately the geography has already started to change with the inundation of the Carteret Islands (Papua New Guinea: link ) and Lohachara Island (Bengal, India: link ) due to global warming-driven sea level rises. Australia is one of the world’s worst annual per capita Domestic and Exported Greenhouse has (GHG) polluters but under the present Federal Government is committed to increasing annual GHG by 2% annually as compared to the 6-8% decrease required to avoid a catastrophic 450 ppm atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration (above which the Great barrier Reef dies) (see: link ).

Structure of the curriculum.

12. I strongly disagree with the “Structure of the curriculum”, and fundamentally so in that it gives an utterly false perspective on Australia and the World.



13. Comments. In Grun, B. (1975), The Timetables of History. A Chronology of World Events Based on Werner Stein’s Kulturfahrplan (Thames & Hudson, London) there is, from my memory, about one (1) mention of Australia in this huge, encyclopaedic history of the World and that is in relation to the introduction of sheep.

Stages of schooling.

Stage 1 (typically from 5 to 8 years of age).

14. I strongly disagree with Stage 1 in that it ignores the “basics”, the fundamental (sanitized) public story of Australia’s Aboriginal and thence British and other Immigrant origins, Australia Day, Anzac Day, Easter, Christmas Day, the Aboriginal Flag, the Southern Cross, the Flag etc. in favour of a family-oriented treatment more suited to university sociology students.

15. Comments on Stage 1.

Primary school children should be taught the basics of who Humans and Australians are and where we have come from, and the basic civics intertwined with the historical background e.g. the fundamental elements of the public story of Mankind, World history, Australia’s Aboriginal and thence British and other Immigrant origins, Australia Day, Anzac Day, Easter, Christmas Day, the Aboriginal Flag, the Southern Cross, the Flag etc. The proposed family-oriented treatment has merits as an element of the history studies. Do you really want Palestinian and Lebanese kids to get up and “show and tell” traumatic “family history” for 6 years about how the racist, genocidal, US-, UK-, EU- and White Australia-backed Apartheid Israelis bombed their town, killed their relatives, destroyed their country , forced them to flee to the other side of the Planet – and are still killing their people with phosphorus, DIME bombs, implosion bombs, naval and tank shells and “secret” weapons in what the Catholic Church calls the Gaza Concentration Camp? (see: “Apartheid Israel Gaza Massacre. “The Lancet” reveals horrendous Israeli war crimes”: link ).

Stage 2 (typically from 8 to 12 years of age).

16. I strongly disagree with Stage 2 in that it gives an utterly false perspective on Australia’s miniscule and generally destructive role in the context of World history (this narrow, nationalist “Australian” history reminds one of “German” physics in the Nazi era).

17. Comments on Stage 2.

#75. “Students will study the problems, local, national, or both, encountered in settling new lands. The topic will examine Aboriginal use of trade routes, traditional land use practices and how European arrival altered aboriginal land use and its social organization”. Where is the G word? Where is the R word? The Indigenous population droped from about 1 million (Macintyre) to 0.1 million in 1 century due to deprivation, dispossession, violence and disease – a deliberate, racist Aboriginal Genocide (see “Aboriginal Genocide. Racist White Australian child abuse and passive mass murder” : link ; see also Tatz, C. (2003), With Intent to Destroy. Reflecting on Genocide (Verso, London) and “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History. Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and the crisis in biological sustainability”: link ).



#77. “How did we create a “new” nation and develop a national identity?” We? The “we” actually are racist, holocaust-ignoring mainstream media, politicians and compliant academics who continue to create Establishment myths.



“How did we live then?” We? Lucky Aboriginals were fed tea, sugar and flour as effective slave labor on cattle stations.



Standards.



#82. “Problems – local, national and global- encountered in exploring and settling new lands [first problem how to remove the Indigenous inhabitants]… ways in which Australians and others managed to live together at the local, national and global level, how they have interacted with each other and how local, national Australian identities have changed over time [Indigenous Australians were not Australian citizens and were listed under the Flora and Fauna Act until after 1967. Now racist bipartisan legislation has suspended the 1975 Racial Discrimination Act from applying to Northern Territory Indigenous people; White Australia Policy; current refusal to sign the UN Declaration on Indigenous Rights; ongoing Australia-complicit Palestinian, Iraqi, Afghan, Aboriginal and Climate Genocides (see my formal complaint to the ICC: link ].



#83. “In achieving these standards, students will understand that history is a distinct form of study (!) … they will understand Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island and gender perspectives (!) … and understand that there can be differing points of view about past events” (!). P

“Perspectives” and “points of view” versus “”quantifiable realities” – any such minimization or euphemization in relation to the Jewish Holocaust is punished today by 10 years’ imprisonment in Austria and 5 years in Germany.



Stage 3 (typically from 12 to 15 years of age).



18. I strongly disagree with Stage 3 insofar as it distorts Australia’s place in the World, horribly distorts history and flagrantly ignores the major, “Elephant in the Room” historical realities, notably Racism (not mentioned), Genocide (not mentioned) and routine historiographical Lying (not mentioned).



19. Comments on Stage 3.



#85. “The history curriculum should follow the sequence 1. History … 60,000BC – c. 550AD; 2.History … c. 500 -1750; 3. The Modern World and Australia (1750-1901); 4. Australia and the Modern World (1901-present)” – Aboriginal history is very interesting; however White Australian history is an ugly, negative story of invasion, occupation, dispossession, disempowerment, genocide, ecocide and now potential terracide (see Jared Diamond “Guns, Germs and Steel” and “Collapse”).



It might be traumatic for 12 to 15 year olds to be told about 200 years of White Australian participation in horrendous intra- and inter-national genocide that is still continuing (see “Australia’s secret genocide history. La Trobe, “Bundoora Eucalyptus”, and Black Crimes of White Australia”: link ). But then, a fundamental rule of teaching is “thou shalt not lie to students” – an injunction clearly grossly violated by many major historians (see “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History. Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and the crisis in biological sustainability”: link ).



Unit 1. (60,000 BC – c. 500 AD).



#93. Reference to Jared Diamond’s “Guns, Germs and Steel” would add scientific rigor to this course.



Unit 2 (c. 500- 1750).



#96. “and European exploration, conquest and settlement up to 1750”. Why the 1750 cut-off? The most disastrous phase of European colonialism and imperialism occurred after 1750 (notably the British rule over much of India 1757-1947 that was associated with 1.8 billion excess deaths, the devastation of China, Belgian mass murder in the Congo circa 1900 and outright exterminatory genocide in the Americas, Africa and Australasia in the 19th century. For a brilliant account of the history of the intellectualizing of European colonialism and racist mass murder from the French Revolution (1789) to the Nazi era see Sven Lindqvist’s brilliant “Exterminate all the brutes” (a book that all Australian high school English, History and Science students should be asked to read). See also Chalk, F. & Jonassohn, K. (1990), The History and Sociology of Genocide. Analyses and Case Studies (Yale University Press, New Haven).



#97. “Students will also consider other major civilizations” – particularly those located in the Near and Middle East, China, Japan and India and the Americas” – what about Africa and their destruction by Europeans? What about Central Asia? Very Anglo-centric, Euro-centric historical view (e.g. Blainey almost totally ignores Bengal except for regurgitation of the racist, lying British propaganda about the Black Hole and a few words about the creation of Bangladesh – yet pre-invasion Bengal led the world in administration, metallurgy, textile, agriculture and international relations (unlike the Europeans it wasn’t interested in invading and devastating other countries).



Unit 3: The Modern World and Australia (1750-1901).



#99. “Students will consider the American and French revolutions and the principles of freedom and democracy they enunciated”. This is the kind of propaganda that we were taught in high school in the neo-Fascist Australia of the 1950s. Just tell “freedom and democracy” to the American Indians (largely exterminated in the 19th century; indeed recent personal conversation with a top, Pullitzer Prize-winning historian of America confirmed that a major part of 1776 – led by slave-owners such as Jefferson and Washington - was about “freedom” to exterminate Indians west of the 13 colonies, previously protected by the British for diplomatic reasons in their 18th century war against France), the Indigenous inhabitants of the Muslim world (subject to horrendous invasions and genocide by the US Alliance from Somalia to the NW Provinces of Pakistan that White Establishment and racist Zionist (RZ) lackey “Uncle Tom” Obama is now bombing (“bahming”) with Robot Bombers in violation of Isaac Asimov’s First Law of Robotics, “thou shalt not harm humans”).



#101. “Students will examine the different forms of European empire, including colonies based on plantation economies and settler colonies, and the institution of slavery will be considered in this context … the responses of China, Japan and India)”. Portuguese African slavery got going in the 16th century; there were too many Chinese and Indians to permit Americas- or Australasia-style exterminatory genocide but the Europeans tried their best (20-100 million Chinese died in the Tai Ping rebellion period; the British murdered 10 million Indians in reprisals post-1857; Indigenous excess deaths in the British Raj including the Native States totalled 1.8 billion).



#102. “Consequences of these transformative changes for the region … Australia … English, Scottish and Irish … Pacific region”. The consequences were Genocide as defined by Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention (see: link ) ; “Article II. In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: a) Killing members of the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.” See also G.M. Polya (2008) “Aboriginal Genocide continues despite historic apology”: link ). The Welsh immigration was very significant as was the German – according to an Austrian sociologist [personal communication] as many as 1/3 of Australians have a German-speaking background as a primary language, Eastern European secondary language, Yiddish etc). Genocide by European-borne disease ravaged the Pacific – thus in 1875 the High Chief Ratu Cakobau returned to Ovalau with his sons from a holiday in Sydney bringing measles that rapidly killed 40,000 Fijians out of a population of 150,000 (see “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: link and link ).



Unit 4: Australia and the Modern World (1901-present).



This unit is extremely defective “nationalist history” and also follows a standard UK, US and racist Zionist (RZ) pattern of misinformation as briefly exampled below.



#106 on Australian Federation (and indeed the whole document) doesn’t use the R word (Racist) nor the G word (Genocide). What is known to everyone in Australia and around the world as the White Australia Policy is baldly subsumed in “The nation's racial identity and defence concerns will be followed bin immigration control …”. Thus racist psychopath Edmund Barton, Australia’s first PM, stated “The doctrine of the equality of man was never intended to apply to the equality of an Englishman and the Chinaman”. Humphrey McQueen’s “A New Britannia” is a good antidote to lying, racist, imperialist, genocidal Anglo-American-Zionist poison.



#107. More “conventional” (i.e. egregiously misleading) history that ignores Australia’s role in precipitating the Armenian Genocide (1.5 million dead; destruction of the oldest Christian civilization) that started on April 24 1915 (Anzac Day eve after extensive Allied Entente shelling of the Dardanelles) and the British Balfour Declaration for Zionist settlement in Palestine (deliberately aimed at prolonging Russian participation in WW1 according to pro-Zionist, pro-imperialist and eminent 20th century historian Professor Sir Martin Gilbert’s “First World War”, p373).



#109. More “conventional” (i.e. egregiously misleading) history that ignores Britain’s knowledge of the indefensibility of Singapore; UK failure to warn the US over Pearl Harbor; resolute British efforts to involve the US in the war (see Rusbridger, J. and Nave, E. (1991), Betrayal at Pearl Harbor. How Churchill Lured Roosevelt into World War II (Summit, New York); Australian involvement in the Bengali Holocaust (6-7 million Indians deliberately starved to death by Churchill ) (for a decent history by a decent Australian see Colin Mason’s “A Short History of Asia”).



#110. More “conventional” (i.e. egregiously misleading) history that ignores the Churchill and Zionist complicity in the mass murder of Hungarian Jews (including it appears all but about a dozen members of my family ; see: link ; see also “Anglo holocaust commission, ignore and denial. Churchill’s crimes from Indian Holocaust to Palestinian Genocide” : link ). Most seriously this part ignores the horrendous realities of the WW2 Holocaust in Europe and elsewhere (the “forgotten” Bengali Holocaust was indeed the first of these atrocities to be described as a “holocaust” by Jog in 1944: Jog, N.G. (1944), Churchill’s Blind-Spot: India (New Book Company, Bombay). The Jewish Holocaust (5-6 million dead, 1 in 6 dying from deprivation) was part of a wider World War 2 Holocaust in general (30 million Slav, Jewish and Roma dead) and the World War 2 Eastern Theatre Holocaust (35 million Chinese dead under Japanese occupation and 6-7 million Indians starved to death by the British in the man-made 1943-1945 Bengal Famine - for details of the latter "forgotten" Bengali Holocaust see the BBC broadcast in which I participated together with 1998 Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen, Harvard University, medical historian Dr Sanjoy Bhattacharya, Wellcome Institute, and other scholars: link ; see also "Media lying over Churchill's crimes. British-Indian Holocaust": link and “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History. Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and the crisis in biological sustainability”: link ).



More “conventional” (i.e. egregiously misleading) history will no doubt come form the obscene coupling in this paragraph of “establishment of Israel” i.e. the racist, genocidal Zionist settlement of Palestine (7 million refugees, abusive mass imprisonment of Occupied Palestinians – now 4 million, 50% children, 75% women and children – for over 40 years, post-1967 excess deaths 0.3 million, post-1967 under-5 infant deaths 0.2 million; 85% of Palestinian Christians as refugees; 1,350 Gazans recently murdered by Israelis as reprisals for zero (0) Israelis killed by Gaza rockets in the preceding year etc etc; see: “Apartheid Israel Gaza Massacre. “The Lancet” reveals horrendous Israeli war crimes”: link ) .



Even more “conventional” (i.e. egregiously misleading) history will no doubt stem from the obscene coupling in this paragraph of the Nazi-style, racist Zionist (RZ) Palestinian Genocide with “postwar movements of national liberation and decolonization”.



#111-#113. No doubt this Australia-oriented Anglo-American-Zionist history will fail to notice Zionist involvement in attempts to prolong World War 1 (devastation of an Australian generation); the objection to Zionist settlement in Palestine by eminent Jewish former Governor General of Australia Sir Isaac Isaacs (in 1939; his point: detrimental to Indigenous Palestinians in violation of the Balfour Declaration; see Max Gordon’s “Sir Isaac Isaacs”); Churchill’s War cabinet’s 1944 approval of partition of Palestine and hence Palestinian Genocide; massive flow of Middle East refugees from racist Zionism to Australia; racist Zionist (RZ) fostering of “terror hysteria”, human rights and civil rights abuses in Australia, anti-Arab anti-Semitism and Islamophobia; how Australia barely escaped the fate of the Indigenous Palestinians, probably thanks to ASIO (see book by Jewish Australian Leon Gettler “An Unpromised Land” about the nearly-successful scheme to settle Zionists in the Kimberley region – the White and Black Australians thus escaped from ending up in perpetuity in Israeli-run Concentration Camps like the over 40-year-duration Israeli Gaza, Samaria and Judaea Concentration Camps currently holding 4 million human rights-devoid Occupied Palestinians); Australian involvement in all US Asian wars associated , so far, with the avoidable deaths of 25 million Indigenous Asians.



Standards.



This is a Euro-centric and Anglo-centric history course that is absurdly Australian-focussed and outrageously ignores immense, genocidal crimes of racist European imperialism that are continuing today.



Stage 4 (typically from 15 to 18 years of age; Medieval, Australian, Asia-Pacific and Ancient History topics with “Options”).



20. I strongly disagree with Stage 4 which is simply left as an arbitrary mix of topics. This represents a major failure of the Framing Paper. With the World facing the “end of history” (Professor James Lovelock FRS has estimated that no more that 1 billion will survive the looming climate genocide due to unaddressed global warming; see “One last chance to save mankind”: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126921.500-one-last-chance-to-save-mankind.html ), these senior high school years are among the last chances to present a rational, honest, science-based history to students so that they can understand the horrendous consequences of our actions and inactions (for a cogent discussion see Gideon Polya “Australian complicity in Iraq mass mortality” in “Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics” (edited by Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007): link ; see also Dr John Holdren (2008), “The Science of Climatic Disruption”: link ; “Global warming, climate emergency” course notes, U3A (2009): link ).

21. Comments on Stage 4.

Curriculum focus.



This is a haphazard mix of arbitrary courses. No doubt students will continue to be fed more “conventional” (i.e. egregiously misleading) history that ignores Australia’s role in genocidal atrocities of the last 2 centuries but simultaneously overstates Australia’s miniscule role in World history. In terms of unique language groups destroyed Australia nevertheless is down there with the very worst genocidal societies – and ditto in relation to ecocide, species extinctions and looming climate genocide, biofuel genocide and biosphere terracide.



The most “appropriate assessment and reporting of outcomes” would involve assessing the extent to which students feel betrayed by the dishonesty, greed, irresponsibility and cowardice of their Lib-Lab elders in their destruction of so much in Australia; their complicity in massive genocidal destruction elsewhere; and their remorseless, Gadarene plunge towards Climate Genocide and biosphere terracide.



22. Other comments on the paper.



This is a Euro-centric and Anglo-centric history course of study that ignores major European crimes (apart from “slavery” and “holocaust”, words used one time each) and studiously avoids mention of Racism or Genocide (words simply not used). It ignores immense Anglo and European crimes involving invasion, occupation, disempowerment, dispossession and genocidal mass murder of non-Europeans – crimes that continue to be carried out today.



Thus in the ongoing Palestinian, Iraqi and Afghan Genocides in which politically correct racist (PC racist) White Australia is complicit post-invasion excess deaths total 0.3 million, 2 million and 4-6 million; post-invasion under-5 infant deaths total 0.2 million, 0.6 million and 2.1 million; and refugees total 7 million, 6 million and 4 million, respectively (see “9-11 excuse for US global genocide. The real 9-11 atrocity: millions dead (9-11 million) in Bush wars (1990-2009)”: link ; MWC News essays by Gideon Polya: link ; “Zionist lie & Gaza Massacre. Lunch exposes pro-Zionist media lies over Israeli atrocities “: link ; “Palestinian-Israeli death ratios. Nazi-style Israeli Gaza war crimes “: link ; “Apartheid Israel Gaza Massacre. “The Lancet” reveals horrendous Israeli war crimes “: link ; “Universal declaration of human rights & Palestinians. Apartheid Israeli violation of Palestinian human rights “: link ; “Nazi Germany- Apartheid Israel comparisons. Israeli Enemy/Israeli death ratios exceed Nazi Enemy/Nazi death ratios“ : link ; “Palestinian Genocide. Apartheid Israel killing Arab infants”: link ; “Pro-Zionist media holocaust ignoring. UK Guardian censors civilian war dead on Remembrance Day” : link ; “Media lying over Churchill’s crimes. British-Indian Holocaust” [Churchill’s War Cabinet approved Partition of Palestine in 1944]: link ; “We are all Palestinian. Apartheid Israel’s Gaza Concentration Camp & Palestinian Genocide“: link ; “The Chronicles of Nefaria” by William Cook. Love, Care & Overcoming Rage” (a book review): link ).



Suitable antidotes to this dangerous, and apparently holocaust-ignoring course would be William Blum’s “Rogue State” (post-war US and Israeli state terrorism) ; Gideon Polya’s “Body count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”; Davis, M. (2001), Late Victorian Holocausts: El Nino Famines and the Making of the Third World (Verso, London); Amaresh Misra’s “Warof Civilizations: India AD 1857” ; Sven Lindqvist’s brilliant “Exterminate all the brutes” (a book that all Australian high school English, History and Science students should be asked to read); Chalk, F. & Jonassohn, K. (1990), The History and Sociology of Genocide. Analyses and Case Studies (Yale University Press, New Haven); Gideon Polya’s “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History”; Jared Diamond’s “Guns, Germs and Steel” and “Collapse” – and numerous books by Tariq Ali, Australian John Pilger, Arundhati Roy and like decent, humanitarian and honest writers.



History ignored yields history repeated. Holocaust ignoring is history betrayed and humanity betrayed. The way forward in dangerous world involves rational risk management that successively involves (a) facts, (b) scientific analysis (this involving critical testing of potentially falsifiable hypotheses) and (c) informed system change to minimize risk. Unfortunately this is all too often perverted by (a) lies, propaganda, censorship, intimidation ; (b) anti-science spin (involving the selective use of asserted facts to support a partisan position) and (c) “blame and shame” with war mongering and war as the most obscene outcomes. Recent World and Australian history in the 21st century (e.g. the WMD falsehoods and the consequent Iraqi Genocide) are testament to this perversion and failure.



History teachers have an obligation to tell the truth – and the best guide to what are important truths is the mass avoidable mortality of fellow human beings. Yet “conventional” Anglo-American-Zionist history goes out of its way to lie and deceive.



A recent example is given by Coalition Federal Government, Coalition Victorian Opposition and Zionist attempts to ban a book by Victorian teacher Paul Gilby for year 12 high school students of politics for telling the manifest truth that “terrorism” comes in 2 major varieties, non-state terrorism (e.g. by Muslim non-state terrorists responsible for murdering 7,000 Western civilians in the last 40 years) and state terrorism (e.g. US and Israeli state terrorism involved in horrendous war crimes in the Occupied Palestinian, Iraqi and Afghan Territories and associated with about 9-11 million avoidable deaths in the period 1990-2009 alone). My protest against this proposed history-denying censorship was published by The Age, Melbourne (see: link ).



Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity. Yet Australia remains the land of Flies, Lies and Slies (spin-based untruths). Professor James Lovelock FRS has estimated that no more that 1 billion will survive the looming climate genocide due to unaddressed global warming; see “One last chance to save mankind”: link ) and some top UK climate scientists are saying that it is already effectively too late to act (see: Kevin Anderson & Alice Bows, Proc. Trans. Roy. Soc, A, 2008: link ).



Yet Australia is heading full bore towards disaster (see “Australia’s 5% off 2000 GHG pollution by 2020” endangers Australia, Humanity and Biosphere”: link ). However with honesty and energy there may still be barely enough time to avert global disaster (see Climate Emergency Facts Sheets of the Yarra Valley Climate Action Group: link ; “Hope – best renewables now cost same as coal power. “One Day Pathétique” Symphony painting”: link ; One-page “Climate Emergency Facts and Required Actions”: link ).



Time is running out and we can no longer afford to ignore past, present and future holocausts.