Where does the west begin and end in education?

Will the new enquiry examine at the Magna Carta as the first attack against royal decree and the beginning of the new west? How about the secular utilitarian philosophers, the fathers of British liberalism, Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill? How will we look at the republican revolution against the British Empire, the ensuing rise of the United States of America, the apotheosis of Western values, under the stewardship of Benjamin Franklin, George Washington and others who were considered treacherous radicals by the Imperial British? Naturally, if we are keen on the west, we should reread Rousseau and Voltaire and understand the impact of the French Revolution on the west. Then we can move onto Hegel, Marx and Webber, fathers of social democracy in Europe.

Will we be revising the sources of modern conservation and conservatives, modernists and socialists in the enquiry? Will we be examining the anticlerical renaissance, the rebirth of rational enquiry after Christian dogma? Will we be revising the sources of modern naturalism, conservation and conservatives, modernists, socialists in the enquiry? In Australia, as part of the proposed refocus on the Western traditions will we examine the settlement of British and non-British peoples on Australia? How will we look at Afghans, Chinese immigrants, Pacific Islanders, Greek and Italian sailors on the first fleet? How will we view the Eureka Stockade? Was it not a revolt premised squarely on western values? How about women's vote, women's rights and gender equality, they fit in the western cannon, but how do they fit in traditional Christian values?

What of gay marriage? Western cannon, Hellenic, Roman, Renaissance and Liberal values may accommodate it, but of the conservative religious response to gay marriage? Most importantly will we be revising the historical brutality towards Aborigines? Was not the Aboriginal civil rights movement part of the evolution of western values? And, how will we look at multiculturalism and citizenship? It will be interesting to see how the curriculum enquiry will deal with Australian citizens who claim a far more ancient connection to western values than historically nascent neo-Conservative Australian Christian values.

The enquiry should also examine unionism and social rights movements, aren't they natural outcomes of Western political thought? An enquiry that reflects on the true complexity of the west needs to reflect much more than modern Anglo Catholic Protestant conservative values.

Another issue raised by Mr Pyne was ANZAC Day. When I was taught in the traditional and western-biased Adelaide Boys High School, Anzac Day was a time for reflecting on the horrible waste of young life, the sacrifice and tragedy of an imperialist war, the bravery of many and the ultimate failure of an operation due to the betrayal of the British. Yet, since 1996 Anzac Day has become a symbolic reference to the 'birth of a nation'. In World War I, the Turks under the stewardship of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk were defending their new nation and giving birth to a western style republic. If that is not the case, then what is? It was in World War II that we fought for democracy, not for empire. If any military endeavour can be exalted as a testament to nationhood and a defence of western values, of democracy and freedom, it would be our fight against the totalitarian regime of Royalist Japanese in the Pacific, after the British abandoned us, and our bravery against the fascist Nazis in Crete after our own generals failed us. In Greece the Australians were taken into the Resistance as brothers and natural defenders of democracy and freedom. Our recent involvement in Afghanistan and especially Timor Leste can also be accommodated as actions in support for liberty, freedom and equality.

My greatest concern is that the education enquiry may not be a process of reintroducing western history, philosophy and politics as bases for our development and our connection to the world, but rather the reinvention of a limited and very recent British/Australian Conservative agenda?

Maybe in a few years, when we have a Chinese Australian Prime Minister with a Buddhist background, but secular values, fluent in Mandarin, English and Bahasa, schooled in 'western' and 'Asian' values, the issue of educational values will be less charged.