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UK Citizenship : Lord Goldsmith's Sinister Suggestion

Keith Farnish | 11.03.2008 11:19 | Analysis | Education | Repression | World

I’m currently copying the audio from this morning’s Today Programme (a serious, incisive news show on BBC Radio 4). Jon Humphries interviewed the UK Attorney General — a sort of super lawyer for the government — about his suggestion (on Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s instruction) that UK schoolchildren should swear allegiance to the monarch upon leaving school.

- mp3 258K


The point Lord Goldsmith was making was that this would bind people more closely to the British State, allowing them to be “better citizens”: Humphries, a fine journalist, and a very level headed broadcaster, suggested that such a ceremony would be faintly ludicrous. However, he missed something far, far more important.

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.

Keith Farnish
- Homepage: http://www.theearthblog.org

Comments

Hide the following 13 comments

"school is no longer a place for education"

11.03.2008 11:48

I also heard some of this awful interview and agree with you, but, "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" — hasn't this *always* been the case?

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,  http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/ as it was serialised on Unwelcome Guests,  http://unwelcomeguests.org/ and this book makes it clear that mass schooling was always designed to produce unthinking workers for capitalism.

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 (  http://www.ecoshock.org/cfro/2007/ES_070511_Show_2.mp3 58 min); followed by round-table Q and A Part One (  http://www.ecoshock.org/cfro/2007/Porritt_070502_QandA_1.mp3 48 min), Part Two (  http://www.ecoshock.org/cfro/2007/Porritt_070502_QandA_2.mp3 49 min)"
 http://ecoshockwww.ecoshock.org/CFRO_ECOSHOCK_ENVIRONMENTAL_RADIO.shtml

Chris


attorney general

11.03.2008 11:59

I agree with what you are saying as many others would i suspect

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

Yes, I think that should be reworded: "School is *not* a place for education..."

Sad, but true.


Thanks for the links.

Keith


Very sinister

11.03.2008 13:36

They claim this would promote what it means to be a British citizen, but then talk about offering council tax rebates and reduced student fees. Is that what he sees as a "British" value - being prepared to swear allegiance for money? Who the hell would place any value in an oath that is made for financial gain?

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

MonkeyBot 5000, when you refer to "the essential liberties which define us as British" aren't you forgetting the genocidal history for the British Empire and the imperial genocide of the post-WW2 Anglo-American Empire?

Chris


British Day

11.03.2008 14:16

I can see it now.Bulldogs and Union Jacks. This could back fire.

Davro


MonkeyBot 5000

11.03.2008 16:01

"MonkeyBot 5000, when you refer to "the essential liberties which define us as British" aren't you forgetting the genocidal history for the British Empire and the imperial genocide of the post-WW2 Anglo-American Empire?"

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

I put the name & title the wrong way around.

Well, if you pay peanuts...

MonkeyBot 5000


Subjects not Citizens

11.03.2008 17:30

Always remember that we Brits are 'Subjects', not Citizens, so how do we become citizens so we can swear allegiance? By getting rid of the Royal Family?!

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

And there's life in another old dog yet!

Strepsil

keeping an eye out for Humphrys


Re: Subjects not Citizens

12.03.2008 10:13

It's all very well saying "get rid of the monarchy" but you really haven't thought it through. It could quite possibly destroy the country!


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

So I wonder why they are so eager to keep the monarchy and force the entire future generation to bow to it to that extent .

skunk


Pissflaps to the whole concept of school

13.03.2008 12:02

Schools, especially big modern types are nothing but holding pens where teachers think its been a good day if none of the little beasts has injured or killed another. Bullying is worse than ever and there is a culture of stupidity where its acceptable to be ignorant and theres no incentive to learn even supposing the teachers could get some kind of order. Anyone who sends their children to school is an idiot. Don't give me that "oh I have to go out to work I can't home school them" because if you really cared you would find a way. School is bad for your mental health and often physical health too. Forget fluoride in the water, I'd still have my front teeth if I hadnt gone to secondary school.

you are number six


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