Anthony Barnett (London, OK): When the prime minister came out in the Telegraph to say he liked the idea of a museum of British history I thought it was ridiculous and no deep and wider reader like him could get it so wrong. Jon wrote a witty response to the absurd idea and the 'black humour' of the British and Vron Ware posted on the international rather than national meaning of British history. But it seems that Gordon does not read OurKingdom and Tristram Hunt reports in today's Guardian that he has found £100 million to create a 'National Museum of British History' in London. An absurd misnomer as the first word is a mistake. Hunt modestly describes the idea as "deranged". He suggests that a much better approach is being adopted by the British Library and the National Archives in their forthcoming 'Taking Liberties' exhibition of milestone documents on the British constitution - though I have a bet that its curators will not have the nerve to include Charter 88 despite its 20th anniversary casting it suitably into the past.
I think there is a really important issue here about education and citizenship as well as shared history, that is being missed. People need to think for themselves. This is the foundation of freedom and democracy. Teaching history is an important part of education because it assists this. The idea behind the "National (sic) Museum of British History" is that it will reveal to the school children taken through its pious spaces "the" story of Britain. As if there was only one received version. It will instruct them what to believe rather than assist them to argue for themselves. My point is not a post-modernist one that there is no story only superimposed narratives. On the contrary, one of the great things about history is that it poses questions: Which side would you have been on in the civil war? Would you have voted to chop off the King's head at the time? Would you have fled to America with the puritans? Backed home rule for Ireland? Backed or broken the General Strike? Supported appeasement? The arguments needed to answer these questions make you think about those you might disagree with - they let you see that history could have been different and therefore so could our conditions today.
The idea of one single golden thread defining the British "nation" is stifling, oppressive and, as Tristram says, Sovietical. It is particularly astonishing that it should be tarted around when the British Museum itself is threatened with budget cuts. At the risk of repeating myself - but why not! - there is a great opportunity for the BM to go global thanks to the wonderful Acropolis museum. If, instead, the government decides to protect Britishness like a snail withdrawing into its shell, it will be building a waxworks if not a tomb.
Comments
Or even, I should have said, just a 'Museum of English History' (without the 'National' epithet).
"‘National Museum of British History’ in London. An absurd misnomer as the first word is a mistake."
Unless, of course, there's some arcane distinction between a 'National Museum of British History' (a museum for the whole of the UK, based in its capital city, about British History) and a 'Museum of National British History', in which case the misnomer applies (unless the latter were a museum about the - failed - attempt to produce such a history of / for the 'nation' of Britain)!! . . ..
'National' here stands ambiguously, as you imply, for the UK / Britain; whereas, presumably, parallel museums of Scottish or Welsh history would just be called 'Museum of . . .' not 'National Museum': Britain is the nation; Scotland and Wales are recognised (sub-)nations; but there would be absolutely no chance of a 'National Museum of English History'. That would be a complete misnomer from GB's [Gordon Brown's] perspective!
David, aka Britology Watch
James - If, say, we remade the Imperial War Museum which has had exhibitions on life in the 40s and 50s into a Museum on the whole of British history as a contested, international and imperial legacy (see Vron) then it would be very interesting. But it needs to open up history to exploration and differences. I'm pretty confident having read both the Brown Telegraph article and Hunt's piece that this is not the idea. It needs to pose the growing role of England, for example, which the very idea of calling an institution of Britishness "national" excludes. In this sense it has all the features of a political exercise rather than a place, as I say, for exploration. In categorical terms, if you want to put it like this, isn't there more than one culture - co-existing/competing?
Anthony
Anthony - if this museum could be like the Smithsonian, would it be such a terrible idea? Do we not believe that institutions can be made the represent the best of a nations culture? I agree its a stretch, but one would should not it out categorically?
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