A new Special Report (Issue 7) entitled History and Citizenship Education in North Africa and the Middle East has been published by EUROCLIO, within the Mediterranean Dialogues programme which focusses on the promotion of responsible and innovative history education in North Africa and the Middle East and is supported by the Open Society Foundations Education Support Programme and the Anna Lindh Foundation. As part of this programme EUROCLIO brought together 20 history and citizenship educators from Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Turkey, and Tunisia in a seminar “Responsible and Innovative History and Citizenship Education in North Africa and the Middle East - Stock Taking and Ways Ahead” on 4 April 2012 in Antalya, Turkey, during the 19th EUROCLIO Annual Professional Training and Development Conference "Looking at History through a Variety of Lenses".

History defines Georgia as a multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multilingual country. Nowadays, ethnic minorities represent 16% of the population . In this country known for its hospitability and with a widely accepted self-image of a peaceful and friendly nation, why is Tolerance Building through History Education, the title of this project, an issue worth addressing? This report intends to demonstrate the relevance and the effectiveness of the project as regards contemporary educational reforms in Europe and in Georgia, the EUROCLIO mission and methods, and the empowerment of civil society in general. As far as the impact is concerned, it is too early yet to evaluate it, however the reported conclusions already show clearly how the results of the projects can create a real difference and improvement with the time. These conclusions also show how some results need further implementation to have a real impact. 

Under the title: Rewriting the Next Hundred Years of East Asian History, the 4th International NGOs Conference on History and Peace, was held from the 18th until the 22nd of August 2011, at the Yonsei University, Seoul. The Conference involved over 300 Korean and international participants, who were asked to think about rewriting the next hundred years of Northeast Asian History, while reflecting on the slogan A Historical Step, A Peaceful Future. EUROCLIO was represented during the Conference by its Executive Director, Joke van der Leeuw-Roord, who co‐chaired the meeting and was asked to give her input during the event, and on best practice on teaching controversial history in order to find keys to reconciliation. This report includes the report of Joke van der Leeuw‐Roords experiences during the Forum, and a short overview of the current state of affairs in history education in Korea and Japan.

Education policies and regulations in Europe are decided by national governments. For history education this means that the subject is predominantly oriented on the history of the nation state. EUROCLIO tries to overcome this, by building bridges among the European countries. EUROCLIO strongly believes that it is possible to innovate an educational programme from a multi‐perspective and multicultural viewpoint. It was certainly a big challenge when EUROCLIO, the European Association of History Educators, embarked on succeeding projects in Bulgaria.

Is it possible to talk about history education with countries, which were at war with each other less than 10 years ago; especially since the past was so much used as a weapon during these wars? It was certainly a big challenge in 2003 for EUROCLIO, The European Association of History Educators, to embark on a common project with historians and history educators from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia. The positive results of this work are the basis for this special report on five years EUROCLIO work in these countries of Former Yugoslavia.

International Alert (London) requested a report on issues of history in Abkhazia and Georgia ass an action in their Eurasia Programme in the Caucasus. This programme aims ‘to empower peace actors and to support their efforts; to build their capacities; to expand the constituencies and networks of peace actors and to achieve sustainability of peace efforts in the Caucasus’. This programme on confidence building between the Abkhaz and Georgian societies is running since 1998 and the goal of present work is to conduct a series of joint activities between International Alert and local partner organisations in Abkhazia and Georgia to support the confidence-building process in particular, to develop greater understanding on the issues of history in the context of the Abkhaz / Georgian conflict.

History has provided Europe and therefore also Moldova with a wide range of more serious and dangerous controversial and sensitive issues: wars, questionable behaviour by politicians, deportations, slavery, lax moral attitudes, bombardments of innocent people, imperialism, ethnic cleansing, Shoah, collaboration with occupying forces, religious intolerance, refugees and war crimes. Issues, which are interpreted in quite contrasting ways by different people, nations and countries. These issues still play an important role in the everyday life of many. This history does not belong to the past; it is everyday reality.