CBBC Horrible Histories – The Crusades: Historical revision?
The Biased BBC blog has picked up on a recent episode of Horrible Histories which is a programme aimed at children and is described [by the BBC] as an Historical sketch show.
The recent episode focused in part on the Crusades and came complete with quotes such as:
“A time when the Christian people of Europe decided to go to war with the Islamic people in the Middle East just becasue they didn’t believe in the same things…hard to imagine I know.”
One commentator wrote in to the Biased BBC blog and had this to say:
“I had to gulp at the opening introduction. There was a reference to the Westerners deciding to go to war with the Muslims because ‘they happened to live there’ laced with sarcasm. The rest of the narrative was blatantly anti-west. Who wrote this script, I wonder?
Am I being paranoid or have they completely missed the Muslim conquest of Syria in the 7th century, attacks of Muslim Seljuk Turks, murder of pilgrims and the consequent aggressive expansionism that led to the Byzantine Empire issuing a desperate call for help to the Pope?
It’s like describing the reason for D-Day as a war on Germany because Germans ‘happened to live’ in France.
I am shocked and above all disturbed by the inversion of teaching to the young about such an important time in history.”
Is the BBC guilty of biased historical revision? This is an important question because I should imagine many children – rightly or wrongly – gain their historical knowledge from programmes such as these. It would be a serious charge against the BBC indeed.
Tags: Christianity, Education, Media
August 25th, 2010 at 10:13 pm
Horrible Histories isn’t a BBC concept. It is based on a series of books by a guy called Terry Deary who perpetrates various gross revisionisms, typically in the way described here, with sarcasm and sneering. He appears to be trying to whitewash his views into children by peddling the line “this is what people don’t want to tell you”.
August 28th, 2010 at 5:49 am
“this is what people don’t want to tell you”
Never mind Horrible Histories in the Twenty First Century the UK is being overcome by jihad and the implementation of sharia law thanks to people like Terry Deary and their projected self-loathing.