The 'red armband' view of history

Paul Benedek, Brisbane

"The history we are so often shown would have Australians believe that the ANZACs defended us against the Japanese in New Guinea", Marxist historian Humphrey McQueen told a meeting of 50 people at the Brisbane Activist Centre on March 8. McQueen slammed this montage history, which puts together 10-second grabs from Gallipoli, to World War II, to the Vietnam War, to pretend they are all one common struggle.

The meeting, organised by the Socialist Alliance, heard McQueen's "red armband view of history" — in contrast to the deceitful and distorted (non-)histories formulated by conservatives, and so loved by PM John Howard.

He ranged over the crucial but often neglected role of ordinary people, the working class, in making history, and the nature of history as class struggle. "But class struggle doesn't have to be grand", argued McQueen. "Whether you can take a toilet break is class struggle. Whether you have time to rest, for leisure, to think — that is all class struggle."

One lesson of history was to "be critical on ourselves, on our class, so we can learn from history", McQueen said. Another crucial lesson was to "record our history, the history of working class struggle" — for which publications like Green Left Weekly and Seeing Red are indispensable.

From Green Left Weekly, March 15, 2006.

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From GLW issue 660