Oppose Plans for "Patriotism" Lessons: The Youth Want To Build Their Own History

Workers' Daily Internet Edition: Article Index :

Oppose Plans for "Patriotism" Lessons: The Youth Want To Build Their Own History

Workers’ Weekly Youth Group

The government are seeking to use history lessons to teach "patriotism". Under government plans these lessons would be used to teach "Britishness", a move which follows on from the introduction of citizenship lessons, used to teach young people "British values". This is a step further down the road of reaction, where anyone who does not adhere to this sense of "Britishness" is an outcast, and not only are they marginalised but criminalised, as we have seen with the use of "anti-terror" laws and SOCPA (The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act).

So what is the idea behind this "Britishness" and the plans to teach "patriotism"? The nation-building project that began with Henry VIII in a bid to build an English nation was the backdrop of colonialism which built an empire that the bourgeoisie could exploit, and involved the subjugation of the sovereign nations of Scotland, Wales and Ireland. It is from this mind-set that today’s bourgeoisie takes its stand, promoting its values of plunder and faith in our colonial past, while aspiring to these same values today of "making Britain great again". This "history as such" is based on lies and distortion, drumming in the idea that Britain’s empire was built by the great and the good and brought civilisation to the invaded occupied countries and their peoples.

Like the citizenship lessons introduced under Blair, these "patriotism" lessons will be used to indoctrinate pupils with these "British values" in an attempt to stifle opposition to the dreams of empire building. For teachers, this would be teaching straightforward disinformation, which has prompted three-quarters of teachers to state they had an obligation to alert their pupils to the dangers of patriotic sentiments. Dr Hand from the Institute of Education said, "Students tend to feel strongly that their feelings about their country are their own business and schools have no right to try and influence them."

Students have shown this sentiment in opposing the indoctrination by the way they reacted to citizenship lessons. In many of these lessons across the country, students rejected the dictate of the lesson and opened up discussion on the issues they were really concerned about. In one school, pupils led an anti-Nike campaign concerned with the use of slave labour in sweatshops in developing countries. This experience illuminates the fact that there is only so far that this indoctrination process can go before the youth start to think for themselves and reject the status quo being imposed on them.

In fighting against anti-conscious acceptance, the youth are posing their own questions, taking up for solution how the questions of today pose themselves. One important question to be posed in the light of this forced history being preached in schools is the question of modern nation-building. It can be posed in the light of what does this modern nation-building mean for the youth as part of the working class? The complete antithesis of what the bourgeoisie perpetrate is that it is the people themselves that should decide the direction of the nation, that the working class should take the lead in constituting itself as the nation. So what is building a modern nation state? It can be said that a modern nation state can only be laid by the working class and that it is they that will settle scores with the bourgeoisie’s old conscience, that is based upon colonialism, and put forward the concept of modern sovereign states where Wales and Scotland will win their independence back, or indeed the working class may decide to enter a voluntary union. All of these matters must be discussed by the youth who need to build their own future. The youth are doing this by realising the necessity for change, and by acting consciously according to the laws of social history.

The youth must continue to challenge and must create the conditions for conscious participation in their lessons. The youth must not leave the decision making up to the government, as it is they who must decide on the content and direction of their education, and on the future of their world, where nations can live side by side in friendship, and with the mutual aspirations of the working class.