The reason I recorded the interview for posterity is because Lord Goldsmith said something truly sinister:
“What I want to suggest is that there should be some coming of age ceremony; some marking of this passage from Student Of Citizenship to full member of the community.”
(audio file linked in article)
This may not seem odd to those of you used to swearing allegiance to a flag, or some symbol of nationality, but to me the phrase “students of citizenship” smacks of the indoctrination of children into becoming parts of a system. In other words: school is no longer a place for education, it is a place to create good citizens — good subjects of whatever hierarchical system will rule their lives in the future.
Why the fear?
First, let me show that this is compounded in the UK schools syllabus. Part of the core curriculum is Citizenship, a compulsory activity that the UK Government introduced a few years ago:
"In September 2002, citizenship education became a statutory part of the national curriculum in secondary schools, building on the important work developed through the PSHE and Citizenship Framework in primary schools. Citizenship aims to ensure that students:
- know their rights and responsibilities
- analyse and discuss significant issues
- understand how society works
- play an active role in society."
(from UK Government TeacherNet Site)
The syllabus for students starts fairly light, with basic ideas on democracy, rights, conflict, respect etc. As the student reaches the age when they are about to leave school, it takes a turn for the more sinister, including previously left-out sections on how the economy works, the importance of business, and the functions of the legal system. Obviously nothing is explicit here — the government won’t purposely give their agenda away (unlike Lord Goldsmith, who made it very clear) — but you can read a lot into the text of certain sections.
This is from “How and why Laws are made”:
"Children should learn:
- about different ways of making views known and the roles of individuals and voluntary and pressure groups in bringing about social change
- that some forms of protest can result in breaking the law
- about how to take part responsibly in aspects of policymaking in their school and local community"
(from Department For Education Standards Site)
The detailed text essentially says to students that they can change the law as long as the law allows it. That is known as totalitarianism.
I deeply fear for any individual human (”citizen” is actually just word for “city dweller” but the modern connotation is “subject”) that lives in a culture that tries to indoctrinate them into a particular way of thinking.
History teaches us that regimes such as the Third Reich, Lenin’s faux Communism and Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge always seek to subvert the individual, leaving control in the hands of those who crave wealth and absolute power.
This Western form of “democracy” appears to be no different; and like the Hitler Youth, children are being made part of the system before they have a chance to decide what life they would actually like to lead.
Comments
Hide the following 13 comments
"school is no longer a place for education"
11.03.2008 11:48
I don't know the details of the history of the UK education system but I have heard a lot of John Taylor Gatto's outstanding The Underground History of American Education,
This reminds me of Jonathon Porritt who was a English teacher at a London comp in the 1970's where he was well respected by the kids and he made some interesting points about education in a talk on climate change last year:
"A Sustainable Future: Jonathon Porritt, founder of UK Green movement, ex-Director of Friends of Earth, Chair of UK Sustainable Development Commission speech at Vancouver May 2, 2007 (
Chris
attorney general
11.03.2008 11:59
What it shows once again is that plans introduced for migrants citizens tests etc may eventually end up being applied to all. First they came for the foreigners...
that said Goldsmith is the ex-attorney general not the current one his influence is not as strong as it used to be
we now have Baroness Scotland
citizen
Fair comment...interesting links.
11.03.2008 12:49
Sad, but true.
Thanks for the links.
Keith
Very sinister
11.03.2008 13:36
Give me a tenner and I'll swear allegiance to a fucking fruit salad but it won't actually mean anything.
"Children should learn:
- about different ways of making views known and the roles of individuals and voluntary and pressure groups in bringing about social change
- that some forms of protest can result in breaking the law
- about how to take part responsibly in aspects of policymaking in their school and local community"
They should also learn that they wouldn't have the rights they have today if the people who went before them weren't prepared to break the law. Hell, half of them wouldn't even be allowed to vote.
We wouldn't even have this so called crisis about our British identity if the government hadn't spent the last ten years sytematically removing the essential liberties which define us as British.
MonkeyBot 5000
"the essential liberties which define us as British"
11.03.2008 13:42
Chris
British Day
11.03.2008 14:16
Davro
MonkeyBot 5000
11.03.2008 16:01
No I'm not forgetting it, I just don't see that the actions of a bunch of tyrants are definitive of the entire population. I'm talking about the rights that were hard fought for over centuries by average British citizens.
I'm not sure what you are trying to say. Are you saying that the only British identity it's possible to have is that of loyal obedient subject? Are we not allowed to be proud of those of our ancestors who fought for the right to dissent or who fought for labour rights?
You seem to just be building a massive strawman.
Are you going to hold Emily Pankhurst responsible for the slave trade too?
@ Chris
@ Chris
11.03.2008 16:31
Well, if you pay peanuts...
MonkeyBot 5000
Subjects not Citizens
11.03.2008 17:30
The Queen = The Crown = The State. Perhaps we should all wear uniforms and wave thousands of flags and sing songs of the glory of Great Britain and our Glorious Leader, you know, like the citizens of North Korea. Now THERE'S a people properly grateful to the State.
Ian Vincible
It's John Humphrys, not Humphries
11.03.2008 21:20
Strepsil
keeping an eye out for Humphrys
Re: Subjects not Citizens
12.03.2008 10:13
Not from the social upheaval, but from the gargantuan lawyers fees we'd get hit with for finding and replacing every reference to "the crown" in the statute books.
We might have to give them Kent as payment.
MonkeyBot 5000
They have abolished the House of Lords
12.03.2008 15:59
skunk
Pissflaps to the whole concept of school
13.03.2008 12:02
you are number six