Peter Tyson
I spent 17 years in the Merchant and Royal Navy as a deck officer, then went back into education at York and then Cambridge, I am now a History Teacher, getting close to retirement.
Location Cambridgeshire
Activity
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Wilfully ignorant because, certainly those that I've met, refuse to listen or refuse to accept how the EU is actually run. They would rather have their prejudices and their ignorance unchallenged and remain ignorant. They listened to the kippers because the kippers told them what they wanted to hear; they didn't need to be persuaded, they just wanted their...
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@JamesArjun "some members of my family (who were immigrants to the UK voted leave)"
Often described as "pulling up the ladder behind them".
"I do think however it was a vote which was based a lot on ignorance of the system in EU"
Indeed.
"EU top brass are not elected to their roles."
Neither are Civil Servants in the UK, which is what those EU roles are... -
Ireland is a classic example of "history" being used to further a particular narrative. Both sides of the divide use mythologised versions of the past to justify their political positions today. Neither side appears to be interested in their actual history especially, only their particular tribal narrative, and both sides see to get very cross if that...
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Peter Tyson replied to John Galbraith
Indeed, despite the population of Gib being originally from Genoa, not Spain.
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@M.Takleh Fascinating isn't it.
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@M.Takleh And of course France had an alliance with the Ottomans against the Holy Roman Empire.
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@M.Takleh That Offa's coins had Arabic writing on them is fascinating. However, it still doesn't prove that people from the Middle East were resident in England. It is possible of course, but the Anglo-Saxon coiners could have simply copied Arabic writing found on Middle Eastern coins that were in circulation. Pre-Roman coins found in southern Britain often...
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@JohnGalbraith Statesman? Britain has certainly been told often enough of what a great statesman he was, but was he? My father, RAF Bomber Command, his cousin and three uncles, all MN, and my uncles, RN, loathed him. My grandfather, Royal Artillery in WW1, disliked him for Gallipoli. Without Alanbrooke to keep him under control he would have been even more of...
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With respect, I don't think that Europe, or anywhere else needs a crisis on any terms for any reason! Do we need a statesman? Not of any stature. The reliance on "great men", or "great people" has, I think, always been misplaced. The great statesmen have merely been reflections of their time, images of their time. If Mandela had been around 20 years before he...
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it's better than the alternative!
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Peter Tyson replied to Robert Barker
Very interesting. I listened to all three programmes. Thank you.
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Peter Tyson replied to Robert Barker
@BarbaraLister Thanks for that. I'll have a look. There was certainly a lot more mixing of peoples from Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales than many people think, and the modern labels of "Irish" and "English", for example, weren't as rigidly applied, if at all.
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The existence of trade goods, like cowrie shells, and coins, from the Middle East in Anglo-Saxon England proves the existence of trade with the Middle East, not that people from the Middle East were resident in England.
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@BarbaraLister Indeed. However, my point was that they were bought, which appears to be the case.
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@CarlosAndresGarciaDiaz My son and his friends had an interesting conversation about Europe and the European empires, his friends in this instance being Spanish or Costa Rican. The Costa Ricans were criticising the Spanish friends for the actions of Spain and its Empire, the conquistadores and the colonisers. My son pointed out that the Spanish people were the...
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Peter Tyson replied to Li Tian
@LiTian Near Cambridge. To the north of London.
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@MariaStrani-Potts "The term European Identity is an artificially created term. It is part of the European Union propaganda vocabulary."
How so? -
@BarbaraLister "It was austerity and terrorism causing a fear reaction to redistribution of migrants."
That, general xenophobia, and stupidity. Did you see the BBC interview with the voters at the By-Election in Hartlepool? The man who voted Tory because of food banks and the economy of the town? Unbelievable!
It was the same kind of people who voted leave.... -
Peter Tyson replied to Li Tian
We usually have a bit of snow at some point over the winter, where i live. Rarely does it last for very long, certainly rarely for more than a couple of days.
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Only I would suggest that the "Punk Movement", although unknown to the kids at the time who followed it was always part of the establishment. It was, from the very start, commoditised and commercialised, and was part of a business venture.
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Only where the person voting was already a leaver. I've not yet met a leave voter who could articulate to me their reasons beyond vague assertions about sovereignty, and statements that began "I'm not a racist, and I'm not against foreigners, but ....."
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I'm inclined to think that it is actually what could be described as the working class who are most hostile to change, especially cultural and racial change. Look at the brexit vote, where the majority of leave voters were those who would be traditionally described as working class, and their main reason for voting leave was their attitude towards immigration....
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Peter Tyson replied to Joyce J
@JoyceJ "However, most academics prefer to have their peers believe they have credibility and so try to back up whatever they write with something that's acceptable."
Of course they do, and, as far as I am aware, always have. But that doesn't mean that there has to be a multi racial, or multi-ethnic, perspective. History absolutely doesn't have to be written... -
Peter Tyson replied to Joyce J
@JoyceJ I'm not sure that things are that different. History written about a society, or country, that is largely multi-ethnic might result in the Historian feeling obliged to bring racial perspectives into the narrative. But one can't extrapolate from that to suggest that all Histories written now have to be written with an acknowledgement of other racial...
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@KathleenDunlop "I still think there is a large number who yearn for the 'good old days' when Britain had more influence that it does now."
Indeed.How they imagined that Brexit would achieve that is beyond my understanding..... -
Not just nations either. Most European countries can be further broken down into regions, where culture, architecture, history and language can be different.
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@AstrudSchmidt I used to live in Middlesbrough, and having an elderly relative in Hartlepool used to use the Transporter quite often. That was more than 30 years ago though!
https://www.behance.net/gallery/69903317/Middlesbrough-FC-Crest-Redesign-Concept-2 -
@SusanCrowther I'm inclined to think that Italy was probably the most extreme example. The people of Southern Italy had only been absorbed into the new "unified" Italy in 1861, and still saw "Italy" as an alien, foreign, conquering power. Indeed, the government, and the forces of coercion, the soldiers and gendarmerie, of Piedmont/Italy saw the south as a...
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Peter Tyson replied to M. Takleh
@M.Takleh It is a view, certainly.
"By the way, there is no comparison with the numbers or the general effects of what happened previously from any nation and what happened before the European colonization of most of the world."
Really? The various Mongol invasions? The growth of the Ottoman Empire? The Chinese conquest of most of mainland Far... -
@ColmClancy Indeed. Although I live and work in the UK, many of my family live in Ireland, mostly in the far west, and I am regularly kept up to date with what is happening in Ireland, both through conversation with them and through RTE online.
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Peter Tyson replied to Joyce J
@JoyceJ But as I pointed out above, slavery wasn't recognised as a legal entity in England, so there were very, very few slaves in England. On economic grounds there were, similarly, very few slaves in other European countries, as slavery was almost exclusively a process of the plantation economies of the Americas. Hence freed slaves, although they existed,...
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Peter Tyson replied to Joyce J
@JoyceJ But my point still holds. I would argue that most Historians write about the History that they're interested in, and that, although some historians might be writing from a racial perspective, most aren't, and weren't.
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The unprecedented serious flooding in Clifden and elsewhere in Connemara (my cousin and his partner were swept off a road near Cleggan by floodwater, fortunately escaping injury or worse) might have given the government pause for thought.
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Peter Tyson replied to Robert Barker
2) The English, as an example, are a mixture of stone age people overlaid with Celts (If they were ever anything more than a Roman construct) Romans (from all over the Empire) Anglo-Saxon, Jutes and Franks, plus a few Goths (see https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1763032.History_of_the_Goths for whoever they were) Norse, Normans (many of whom were descended...
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Peter Tyson replied to Robert Barker
Good points.
1) The whole concept of "nation" is fairly recent in any case, so the History of countries, and nations, can be fraught with difficulties.
For example, I've been reading a series of outstandingly good Histories of the Hundred Years War (Jonathan Sumption, don't like his views on Covid, but he's an outstanding Historian... -
Peter Tyson made a comment
Apart from Covid, there's two really that stand out. One took place at the Seaman's Mission in Dar es Salaam in 1974 where I met two Polish sailors. At the height of the Cold War we had an interesting chat about politics.One remarked that there's nothing wrong with socialism or communism, and it might be good if they were given a try. The other remarked...
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@KathleenDunlop Except that the Elgin Marbles, like many of the rest of the British Museum's artifacts, were purchased, bought and paid for, not looted.
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Peter Tyson made a comment
The Maritime Museum in Liverpool, https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/maritime-museum far better than the National Maritime Museum in London.
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Peter Tyson replied to Joyce J
"Whites wrote the history and are trying to keep it the way they wrote it any way they can"
I'm not sure that one can make such an assumption. There has been racist History written, and biased History, as well as the nationalist mythologies that often try to pass themselves off as History, but which aren't. But I don't believe that, for example, Richard Cobb... -
@ColmClancy Indeed. Whenever I've asked a "Brexiteer" what the benefits of brexit are, they've never been able to go beyond vague phrases like "get sovereignty back", when I've asked what EU laws that they haven't liked, or pointed out the veto that the UK had, that there was never such a thing as an EU imposed law, only EU laws that the UK voted for, they get...
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Peter Tyson replied to Joyce J
@JoyceJ What freed slaves in Europe? Most European countries that allowed slavery only practised it in their overseas colonies. The UK, for example, didn't legally recognise the existence of slavery. Slavery was only permitted in the American colonies because those self-governing and self-legislating colonies legalised slavery in their territories because...
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Actually, I would suggest that it is "The white working-class in their sixties person sitting comfortably in front of the TV ....".
Most university graduates, for example, voted remain, so I would suggest that it wasn't the white middle-class who were in the majority. On the other hand, class isn't synonymous with education, and plenty of wealthy middle... -
Indeed. Once nationalism becomes the most important sentiment it isn't long before negative feelings towards other nations gains momentum. It isn't enough to feel positive about one's own nation, very quickly follows the "othering", the perceived and expressed inferiority of other nations.
For example, it isn't enough to be patriotic about being English, one... -
Peter Tyson replied to M. Takleh
"many outside Europe see it as the cause of the deep problems of their country politically and economically"
No doubt they do, as it absolves them of responsibility for problems within their own societies and cultures.
"the colonial era, which caused massive killings, looting of wealth, slave trade, division of countries, imposition of policies"
But these... -
Peter Tyson made a comment
I am European, formerly rather more European than I am now, because of Brexit! My heritage is Irish and English, my wife is Irish, as are my children. I am resident in the UK.
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@tedC If you read the article that you mention, and the article that I provided a link to, you'll see that she had no police protection at the conference itself, but only outside the conference, which rather suggests that she was in no danger from Labour Party members at the conference.
The rest of the Jewish pro-Corbyn stuff that I linked to? Does that not... -
@MarıeWoods Did you read the article? The crux of it is this:
"There were claims that anti-Semitic tropes were being widely propagated and a number of incidents attracted a great deal of attention."
There were claims ..... That doesn't mean that anti-semitism was widespread, or that Corbyn supported it, or that Labour was anti-semitic, or that Labour didn't... -
@MarıeWoods Indeed, many condemned Corbyn, whilst many supported him. Your assertion was a reflection of your own views, your own opinion, not the view or opinion of "Jews", as if they are a unitary block with identical opinions and views, and whose views you share.
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@MarıeWoods Your point is? That an organisation of conservative, Israel supporting Jews doesn't like a Social democrat who supports Palestine? As I wrote above, this still doesn't prove, in any sense, that your earlier assertion is correct.
You also appear to be completely ignoring the evidence that I provided that shows that it isn't true that "Jews in the... -
@tedC "Corbyn may not be antisemitic but he associates with and shares platforms with antisemites."
Like whom? Do you just mean members of Hamas? An organisation that is opposing the apartheid regime in Israel? Now I don't like Hamas, or their methods, but opposing a government on political grounds, even if that government is that of Israel, doesn't mean that... -
@tedC "and some had to be given police protection( refer Luciana Berger)"
No Labour Party members "had to be given police protection", certainly not from other Labour Party members. What you're referencing is the the right and centrist media, and the right and centrists of the Labour Party who didn't like Corbyn, and who used his views on Palestine, which... -
Even the Chief Rabbi doesn't speak for all Jews, even if he had the presumption to do so, any more than the Board of Deputies does, merely for those Jews who accept his authority, and even then he doesn't speak for all of them. In any case, his view on Corbyn was a personal one, rather like that of his conservative successor Ephraim Mirvis, who made an...
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@MarıeWoods "Jews in the UK were as fearful of what an election win for Jeremy Corbyn would mean for them as they were of the national front."
All of them? Were they? Do you speak for them all? Or was it Conservative leaning Jews who used Corbyn's position on Palestine to monster him because they didn't like his social-democratic views?
On a final point, do... -
Peter Tyson replied to julia mansell
Excellent points. Our political masters don't want us to see covid victims, as they are real individuals, they would rather we thought "rationally" about statistics.....
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@ShahramSalehizadeh There are many anecdotes, few have any real basis.
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@ShahramSalehizadeh I'm not even sure that Hitler actually hated Jews. Most Nazis did hate them, but I'm inclined to think that he simply didn't care about them, or indeed about anybody. I'm inclined to think that he used anti-semitism as a means, by "othering" Jews, Slavs etc, he gained power and popularity. Did he want to kill them all on ideological or...
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@CoreySoper Very interesting article. As the article suggests, even if Britain had known about what was going on in 1942 the RAF didn't have the technological capacity to carry out air raids at such ranges at that stage of the war. The death camps were, theoretically, vulnerable to disruption, as was the railway infrastructure. However, night bombing accuracy...
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@MichaelHardman Indeed. The suggestion was made that Britain had done the same kind of thing as Nazi Germany, with the support of the British people, like the Nazis had. There are two significant differences. The first is that the colonial administration in Kenya was confronted by serious terrorism, whereas the victims of Nazi Germany's abuse hadn't done...
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@JohnCope I doubt that they even had a list. Given that extermination didn't even appear on their agenda until 1941, I doubt it was a war aim.
Sometimes people give too much "credit" to the Nazis for efficiency and planning. Essentially their regime planning was one of chaos.I don't think that they seriously planned killing of Jews in quantity until they... -
"I'm not entirely clear what Britain could have done, once the war had started."
Indeed. Interdicting rail networks in Western Europe was difficult and dangerous enough, and until 1943 at the earliest Britain didn't have the capacity to carry out air raids as far away as Poland. Given the almost grotesque inaccuracy of the RAF's night bombing, I doubt whether... -
@JohnCope "whereas Germany's twin 1939-45 objectives were a World War and the Holocaust"
I would argue that Germany's aim in 1939 wasn't at all clear, and that the extermination of European Jewry didn't even appear on their list of anticipated outcomes. -
Sadly, when the Red Army "liberated" the territories where the Partisans operated, they treated the Jewish partisans in the same way that they treated other "nationalist" partisans, like Polish or Ukrainian partisans. They shot them or sent them to the Gulag. Some lucky ones escaped, obviously.
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Peter Tyson replied to Vladica Tošić
@HowardLukeman History should never be about celebrating heroic achievements in any case, especially not when taught in schools.
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"Currently, in Australia, a Victoria Cross recipient is now facing charges relating to war crimes in Afghanistan. Where was the 'line' he crossed, so to speak?"
The line is quite easy to see. Look at the terms of the Geneva Convention,look at the rules of engagement. Every soldier knows that one doesn't shoot unarmed, surrendered, or surrendering enemies.... -
@UrsulaZemek I don't think that sharing "trophy photographs" taken in the 1860's, or even the 1940's, is in any sense part of any normalisation of violence. I doubt that the people taking selfies of that incident had ever seen anything resembling the "trophy photographs" mentioned and linked to. Shocking indeed, but no more shocking than the crowds who went to...
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For the American "trophy" photographs, a simple google search using "post mortem photographs american west" brings up quite a few.
Another close parallel are the "popular" photographs of Black victims of lynching, sold as postcards. Again a google search on images under "lynching postcards" brings up many. -
@SusanScothern Indeed? Can you suggest an example of an action carried out by the British army that bears comparison? Bear in mind that you're asserting that the British army carried out similar atrocities with the backing of the majority of the British people.
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@MaikenUmbach Indeed, the only unique thing about the Shoah is the industrialisation of the process, for want of a better word, and the scale. The Armenian Genocide had the same kind of popular participatory support as the Shoah, on the same kind of religio-racist basis, for example. The "trophy" photographs seem to have become used from when photography...
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Peter Tyson replied to Elaine Harburn
@ElaineHarburn 2) (You can see where this is going, I assume.....)
"You should see him now" I say. Then tell them that it is me. That the young man in the photograph is my grandfather. There is usually a shocked silence. They seem to find it inconceivable that I had a direct connection to the First World War. Their grandfathers are usually much younger than... -
Peter Tyson replied to Elaine Harburn
1) When I teach about the First World War, I show them a ppt of soldiers of all the armies, showing the different uniforms, and how the uniforms developed, and photographs of the conditions that they fought in, and of trench foot and shell shock. No captions, just me explaining them, hopefully in a thought provoking and developing way. One of the photographs...
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@VerenaWiniwarter One could argue that it wasn't even Hitler's doing, that, in reality, he wasn't really interested enough. There were enough real anti-semites in the Nazi party, and in Germany, for the policy towards extermination to develop, but looking at Hitler's personal involvement, or lack of it, I would suggest he was happy enough for it to go ahead,...
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Peter Tyson replied to Catherine Jolley
@VerenaWiniwarter Indeed.This is one of the reasons why I don't use Schindler's List as it creates an inaccurate impression of hope, as it were.
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Look at the photographs here of Croatian Ustase. https://dirkdeklein.net/2016/06/16/ustase-the-fascists-that-made-the-nazis-look-like-boyscouts/ Or Italian soldiers in Southern Italy in the 1860s. https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryPorn/comments/1ytwzz/an_italian_bersagliere_shows_the_body_of_the/
Or the many post-mortem photographs of bandits and outlaws in... -
Peter Tyson replied to Torben Dannhauer
@CoreySoper Yes, there's a significant difference between denial and wishing not to publicise. Using an expression like "denial" plays into the hands of those that accuse us of "wokery", rather like those who on another Future Learn course asserted that Black People had been "erased" from British History, rather than that they had simply been disregarded as...
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Peter Tyson replied to Torben Dannhauer
@CoreySoper I read the article at the time. It isn't evidence of denial of either colonialism or the slave trade. There is a desire by some to make it less central to the perception of Britain's past. There is very much an anti-imperialist agenda, where the evils of Britain's colonial past is stressed, and some, like those discussed in the article, complain...
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@LindaMatthews It wasn't lack of support, but insufficient support. The view at the time, in Ireland as well, was that famine relief was the role of government, which the government did, but slowly and with the fear that too much assistance would make the people reliant on charity, and they'd stop working. Bureaucracy, logistics and poor communications, roads...
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@LindaMatthews Neither did any country intervene when Stalin's policies imposed famine on Ukraine and South Russia, or when the purges were in full swing.
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Peter Tyson replied to [Learner left FutureLearn]
@MicheleCampanelli Just to correct you on Britain and Garibaldi. Garibaldi was supported by people in Britain, but they were private individuals, it wasn't the government that supported him, even though they were sympathetic to his cause, and to him.
I am aware of the many wars in Italy between the various Italian states, but as I suggested above, they were... -
Peter Tyson replied to Torben Dannhauer
@CoreySoper Denial of what? I've seen nothing that denies that Britain had a role in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, or that violence was involved in Britain's Empire.
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"The main problem is still time on the curriculum, however with the rise of academies has helped."
How has the rise of academies helped? -
@AshleyWhitehouse Thank you. They're very interesting, especially the colourised pictures where I'm familiar with the original. They're still very upsetting.
The only issue with those is the quality and the fact that it is video. A source of images to use in ppt, for example, would be better. -
One of the problems of using the monochrome images to teach with is that kids, in my experience, see black & white photography as somehow distant from them. Not real, of another age. I haven't seen any colourised photographs of the Shoah, in any form, but I think that they might make the events appear more real to the children that one might teach.
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I really don't think that Schindler's List does. It is far too inaccurate and gives far too hopeful an impression, as well as having scenes that made no sense. For example, why would the people be panicking in the shower? Nobody who experienced the "Showers" at Birkenau survived them, so why would these people be fearful of showers?
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Peter Tyson replied to [Learner left FutureLearn]
@MicheleCampanelli Surely the wars fought between the Italian states before unification were simply that, wars between states? The Piedmontese and Neopolitan soldiers who fought each other at Capua and Gaeta didn't see themselves as being in a fratricidal war, they saw their opponents as foreigners. The behaviour of the Piedmontese soldiers in the subsequent...
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Peter Tyson replied to John Cope
@MaryR My grandfather was also an artilleryman, in the First World War. He was in the Royal Garrison Artillery, his battery being equipped with 6" Howitzers. They very rarely saw a German, so, firing on map references, or by direction from forward observers, if Germans were killed by their fire it was indirect in that they didn't see it, neither did they see...
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Peter Tyson replied to John Cope
@JohnCope Most soldiers don't kill anyone. Artillerymen might indirectly do so, but even infantry were actually very rarely engaged in combat in which they might do so, and most soldiers were in service roles rather than direct combat roles.
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@AsafTal One could, however,argue against the dark/light aspect of Nazi anti-semitism as the Nazis were more concerned about "German looking" Jews than they were about "Jewish looking" Jews. Clearly it was racial and racist, but not as simple as dark versus light skins.
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Peter Tyson replied to Dawn Goulde
Exactly, we shouldn't be heading towards infotainment and lowest common denominator in subjects like this. This is very much technology for its own sake.
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@HelenMcCord I have, when GCSE lessons started in Y9 at the school where I was teaching. I still did the same sequence of lessons ending with the lesson on the Shoah. I had to miss out loads of stuff that I would have taught in Y8 to make room for the 20th Century.
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Racism can apply equally, even if to outsiders there's no apparent difference. The Rwandan Genocide was based on race, even though most outsiders couldn't tell a Tutsi from a Hutu. How should be describe the basis upon which Bengalis in Bangladesh were killed in the near Genocide of 1971?
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Peter Tyson made a comment
The most moving, upsetting thing that I saw at Auschwitz was a pair of child's calipers; leg-irons for a child with polio. It made me sob then, and I'm sobbing now.
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Part of an increasingly tribal perception of History, especially Irish nationalist History, in my personal experience, but I'm sure that such "tribal narratives", such nationalist myths are increasing across the world. In the Irish example it is the beastly English who are the villains, those who are to be scapegoated and blamed for all of the current...
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Peter Tyson replied to John Cope
Indeed. A very good, though deeply upsetting book.
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Peter Tyson made a comment
I've never used a textbook to teach this. Students often find them a "turn off", however well they're produced, and they especially don't help those for whom reading is harder.
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The biggest problem, to me,has been the increasing marginalisation of History in the curriculum, which has a significant impact on what can be taught and in what depth, especially with so many schools opting for a three year GCSE starting in Y9 rather than in Y10.
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Peter Tyson made a comment
On an entirely personal level the only frustrating or annoying response that I've ever had in teaching the actual process of the Shoah was from a member of senior team (a science teaching assistant head) who complained that the kids weren't doing any writing during the lesson. The previous year a different member of SLT described the lesson as "inspirational",...
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Curious. this hasn't been my experience at all of teaching this for 20+ years. Properly prepared the kids respond as I would hope they would. I've only ever had one incident of a silly immature child being silly; they were immediately told to be quiet by the rest of the class.
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Peter Tyson made a comment
To me, the most important thing is to give it context, for the kids to have built an understanding of what was going on at the time and how this could allow such a thing to happen. It wasn't spontaneous, it was predicated on other things, like the Kommisar Order, like the "easy" killing of prisoners in the East, and that similar things had happened before...
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Sadly this kind of thing was nothing new. Disregarding, for now, the Armenian Genocide, there was an attempted genocide in the Vendee region of France in the 1790's in the aftermath of the Vendean uprising of 1793. Twelve "Colonnes infernales" were sent into the region to burn all buildings and crops, seize all livestock, and kill everybody that they found....
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Same as in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. in many cases the killing was done by locals, with the encouragement of the Nazis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaunas_pogrom