‘Selma’ vs. History by Elizabeth Drew | NYRblog | The New York Review of Books

January 16, 2015 / Debbie / Leave a comment

I think that it is regrettable that we are talking about LBJ when we should be talking about civil rights in response to the movie Selma. But I also agree that LBJ’s role in the passage of the Voting Rights Act should not have been misrepresented. While artistic license in historical moves is standard practice (as it should be) there should be some concern for historical facts, particularly when the subject matter is so important. In The New York Review of Books Elizabeth Drew explains what the movie Selma got wrong (and what it got right). In conclusion, she writes: “Some remarkably specious arguments have been proffered that it doesn’t matter if a movie distorts important history. One writer about films suggested on MSNBC that this whole argument is nothing but Oscar competition cooked up by rival film companies. A film critic for The Washington Post argued that we should simply get used to the idea that films pretending to represent history are going to contain falsities—and that we can then discuss why the director made these choices. But how are we to know? Is every kid who’s misled by Selma going to take a seminar on it? Our history belongs to all of us, and major events shouldn’t be the playthings of moviemakers to boost their box-office earnings. They are no more entitled to falsify such important history than anyone is to paint the Washington Monument orange.”

‘Selma’ vs. History by Elizabeth Drew | NYRblog | The New York Review of Books.

The Depression’s Unheeded Lessons – NYTimes.com

January 14, 2015 / Debbie / Leave a comment

The Depression’s Unheeded Lessons – NYTimes.com.

History News Network | Sharpening Contradictions: Why al-Qaeda attacked Satirists in Paris

January 9, 2015 / Debbie / Leave a comment

Juan Cole has an interesting take on the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack: “This horrific murder was not a pious protest against the defamation of a religious icon. It was an attempt to provoke European society into pogroms against French Muslims, at which point al-Qaeda recruitment would suddenly exhibit some successes instead of faltering in the face of lively Beur youth culture (French Arabs playfully call themselves by this anagram).” It is certainly a possibility, but I’m not convinced at this point. It has happened before (as Cole points out) so it is not out of the question. However, this would assume that these men were carrying out an Al-Qaeda strategy rather than being lone wolves. At this point we don’t know enough. Either way, Cole is correct that this event will polarize the French population unless they have the fortitude to follow Cole’s advice: “The only effective response to this manipulative strategy (as Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani tried to tell the Iraqi Shiites a decade ago) is to resist the impulse to blame an entire group for the actions of a few and to refuse to carry out identity-politics reprisals.” Read his entire essay at:

History News Network | Sharpening Contradictions: Why al-Qaeda attacked Satirists in Paris.

Update on the Japanese ‘Comfort Women’

January 2, 2015 / Debbie / Leave a comment

More attempts by the Japanese government to deny the use of comfort women by the Japanese army during WWII. Nogawa Motokazu gives an update on the situation in Japan and concludes: “These moves of the government and the ruling party not only prevent any improvement of Japan-Korea relations but also inflict a second victimisation on the victims of Japanese military’s wartime sexual slavery, who are still living in many parts of the world. We should never forget this.” Read his entire article at:

History News Network | New Attack on the ‘Comfort Women’.

Credit: Robert G. Fresson from the New York Times article: “The Comfort Women and Japan’s War on Truth” (November 14, 2014)

History News Network | The Censoring of History and Politics Takes Us Back to the Dark Ages

December 31, 2014 / Debbie / Leave a comment

I agree with the historian Bruce Chadwick’s plea against the censoring of movies and other art forms because of their portrayals of history are objectionable, but I wouldn’t call it “the censoring of history.” These works of art were not meant to be accurate portrayals of history but creative interpretations of historical events meant to entertain or provoke. And how this “takes us back to the Dark Ages” is unclear. Nevertheless, Chadwick makes a good case against censorship of all forms of art. Read his entire article at:

History News Network | The Censoring of History and Politics Takes Us Back to the Dark Ages.

History News Network | Conservatives go after UCLA’s historian James Gelvin

December 24, 2014 / Debbie / 1 Comment

Does anyone else find this disturbing? An organization called Campus Watch audits the courses of professors who teach in the area of Middle Eastern studies to ensure that they align with their pro-Israeli perspective. On their website they claim that their organization “reviews and critiques Middle East studies in North America with an aim to improving them. The project mainly addresses five problems: analytical failures, the mixing of politics with scholarship, intolerance of alternative views, apologetics, and the abuse of power over students. Campus Watch fully respects the freedom of speech of those it debates while insisting on its own freedom to comment on their words and deeds.” A review of their activities show that they are only perpetuating the “problems” they profess to be fighting against. While they do have the right to free speech their efforts to harass professors with views that are different from their own goes beyond their right to criticize those they disagree with. It is a very dangerous trend that I believe does not actually serve their real purpose (promote Israel as innocent of all wrong doing). James Gelvin, professor of history at ACLU, is their latest victim. One of Campus Watch’s representatives, Cinnamon Stillwell, attacked Gelvin in an article entitled “UCLA Prof Assigns Pro-Israel Book in Order to Trash It.” In one of his courses, Gelvin had required his students to read Alan Dershowitz’s The Case for Israel in order to critique it. Stillwell claims that this critique was not extended to other assigned material. But Gelvin pointed out that he also assigned a book with the opposite perspective and that “the assignment explicitly states that significant errors from both books must be cited, critiqued, and corrected.” For the full debate go to:

History News Network | Conservatives go after UCLA’s historian James Gelvin.

The goals and practices of Campus Watch go beyond the right to free speech, it amounts to harassment with the goal of stamping out all view points on campuses across America that do not conform to their ideological viewpoint. I believe that this trend is dangerous to not only to academic freedom but also to the prospects of peace in the Middle East. It serves only to perpetuate hatred and undermines any real attempts to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

History News Network | How to Read the Senate Report on CIA Torture

December 22, 2014 / Debbie / Leave a comment

Alfred McCoy, historian and author of the books Torture and Impunity and A Question of Torture, interprets the Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture within the broader history of United States’ conflicted relationship with torture. In conclusion, he writes: “Despite its rich fund of hard-won detail, the Senate report has, at best, produced a neutral outcome, a draw in this political contest over impunity. Over the past forty years, there have been a half-dozen similar scandals over torture that have followed a familiar cycle—revelation, momentary sensation, vigorous rebuttal, and then oblivion. Unless we inscribe the lessons from this Senate report deeply into the country’s collective memory, then some future crisis might prompt another recourse to torture that will do even more damage to this country’s moral leadership.” Read his entire essay at:

History News Network | How to Read the Senate Report on CIA Torture.

History News Network | Every 30 or 40 Years We See Flagrant Attacks on Free Speech. Here We Go Again.

December 15, 2014 / Debbie / Leave a comment

While the present attack on academics who speak out against Israel is not as egregious as those that happened during the McCarthy Era, they are just as damaging to free speech. The critics are usually denounced as anti-Semitic and under that guise they are discredited as racist. On those grounds those defending Israel feel justified in their efforts to destroy the careers of those academics (the Salaita case is just the most prominent). The problem is that this is to confuse antisemitism with actions of the state of Israel (some may have done so intentionally as a way to shut down opinions that they do not like). One doesn’t have to be an anti-Semite to object to the actions of the state of Israel. I find antisemitism abhorrent (and I have said so often), but I also find some of the actions of the Israeli government abhorrent as well. And there have been many Jews who have spoken out against the Israeli government on this topic as well. One of the most powerful statements comes from Theodore Bikel, who wrote in the Jewish Journal against “the death of Arab children.” “People see suffering and unless it is Jewish suffering they are silent. How dare they?” We should follow Theodore’s example and take a stand against injustice no matter who is committing it.

The Israeli government does not and should not get a free pass just because of the long history of antisemitism.

The historian Lawrence Davidson points out that attempts to shut down speech is a historical pattern that is unlikely to end. But he believes that we can “minimize the consequences of these repeated assaults” if we “continuously defy them. In other words, only by maintaining a counter-pattern of vigorously defending and using the right of free speech and academic freedom can space be sustained for critical voices. If at any time we fail to sustain this space we risk the possibility of being overwhelmed by a combination of closed-minded ideologues and the mass indifference of the majority.” Please read his article at the HNN:

History News Network | Every 30 or 40 Years We See Flagrant Attacks on Free Speech. Here We Go Again..

See also: “Did Salaita Cross the Line of Civility?” The New York Times

Russia’s Ideology: There Is No Truth – NYTimes.com

December 14, 2014 / Debbie / Leave a comment

Peter Pomerantsev wrote in The New York Times: “’Everything is P.R.,’ my Moscow peers would tell me. This cynicism is useful to the state: When people stopped trusting any institutions or having any values, they could easily be spun into a conspiratorial vision of the world. Thus the paradox: the gullible cynic.” This is a problem everywhere, but Putin has taken it to a new level.

Russia’s Ideology: There Is No Truth – NYTimes.com.