The past as seen from all sides

DON MACLURCAN writes about the importance of balanced history.

In 1997 I bet a school friend that I could write more than 10,000 words in response to the final essay question in our Modern History class: who shot John Fitzgerald Kennedy? The eventual winning of the $10 proved much less significant than the love of history engendered by the tome I produced. Nor was it a loss that in 10,000 words on the question, my conclusion was that the evidence on who shot John F Kennedy (JFK) was inconclusive. Rather, I had developed skills that would prove valuable for many things to follow.

The idea to develop a case study that investigates the 2001 sinking, and subsequent 353 deaths, of the Indonesian fishing vessel, the SIEV X, in waters between Indonesia and Christmas Island came in 2005 when I read a little about the sinking. The event drew me in a similar way to the assassination of JFK -- it had intrigue. On further investigation, the wealth of materials and perspectives available, combined with the historically encompassing storyline, led me to believe a case study on the sinking of the SIEV X could help excite Australian students about studying history whilst developing their skills of analysis.

If you choose a politically sensitive area for investigation assumptions will be made about your motivations.

The SIEV X Citizens Committee opened up the process to identify stakeholders (200, including many government agencies and individuals) and then incorporate their submissions on what would be important to include in a school's study of the SIEV X (80 received, including responses from the government). The committee who created this case study only ever made public the position that we take no position in terms of the questions investigated in this study, particularly those relating to responsibility (in all honesty the personal views held by committee members were much more broad than many would suspect). Finally, we worked very hard to ensure the materials did not imply a predetermined answer on the issue of whether or not the sinking and subsequent loss of life was preventable -- take for example our introduction which only includes things that are undisputed. Furthermore, only one of the 50 sources presented in the case study was a source from "conspiracy theorist" Tony Kevin, and it was a map!

In my opinion it is just as likely as any other conclusion that a student using this case study will find that, given the intelligence it had at the time, the Government of the day did everything possible to prevent this event.

The knee-jerk response from the Government was to be expected. It is easy to assume that a group developing resources for a school study on the SIEV X is politically motivated and wants to lay blame for the sinking of the SIEV X upon the Australian Government. These are the times in which we live -- when no one who just cares about the education of our children can tackle a politically sensitive issue without being branded as "pushing a political agenda" and that is indicative of the inability for left and right wing politics to engage in rational discussion about such issues. Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop's comment in The Age, (October 12), "Ideologues who have hijacked schools' curriculums are experimenting with the education of our young people from a comfortable position of unaccountability, safe within education bureaucracies," was obviously picked up by Daily Telegraph writer Luke McIlveen (October 20), who titled his piece about our study: "Zealots hijack tragedy".

I established a team to create this case study because I am passionate about history. I am also passionate about presenting balanced history. I think the SIEV X is an important historical event that has a lot of material that allows a balanced presentation. And more than anything, I think it will be much more interesting for students to study the sinking of the SIEV X than "Bodyline Bowling and the 1932-33 Anglo-Australian test series".

I treat history as events from the past, however immediate, and believe it is important for 16 and 17 year olds to know about events that have occurred in their lifetime, even more so those issues that divide parts of the nation.

What the study of the JFK assassination did for me was develop an appreciation that information from all sides of a story has motives, rationale and can often be conflicting, but most importantly it engendered a passion for history. I welcome the Prime Minister's call for a revitalisation of history in Australian schools. I hope that in viewing this study people will realise that any suspicions that it is biased or seeking a desired conclusion from students are unfounded. On the contrary, I hope the case study is viewed as a valuable contribution to the development of one of Australia's greatest assets -- the minds of its youth.

Don Maclurcan is a PhD student who established the team that produced The Sinking of the SIEV 'X': A Case Study for Secondary Schools. He spoke to Federation's October Council meeting.

Win a copy of the SIEV X case study for your school

To win your school a copy, be among the first 100 members to send an email to journal@nswtf.org.au with the subject line 'SIEV X'. Please include your name, workplace, membership number and mailing address.

For further information

November 2006 contents