Teaching Patriotism

 TEACHERS ARE ASKED TO TEACH PATRIOTISM

 By Stephen Wilson

    The Russian Ministry of Education and Science have announced they intend to introduce a new topic called 'Patriotism' which school teachers have to instruct children from the First to the Ninth grade from September 2022. Nobody knows what this topic exactly entails!

 

'Ulrich had passed the first test of his character when he was still on the borderline between childhood and adolescence: it was on an essay on a patriotic theme. Patriotism was a special subject in Austria. German children simply were taught to despise Austrian children's wars and to believe that French children were the descendants of enervate debauchees, running away in their thousands whenever a German Landwermaan with a big beard so much as walked up to them. And with the rules reversed, and all desirable alternations made, exactly the same is learnt by French, Russian and English children, who for their part have also been on the winning side,' wrote the author Robert Musil, about how patriotism was taught in schools in his masterpiece 'The Man Without Qualities'. 

But the protagonist Ulrich makes a mistake in his essay on patriotism by first defining it as not claiming that your country is the best in the world and that God could easily made the world in a different way. This is not the answer the school authorities are seeking. It is too deep. They don't know whether to expel him for defamation of patriotism or blasphemy. So they don't expel him. Instead, his angry father packs him off to another school in Belgium as punishment for his 'impudence'. If Ulrife was at a Russian school he might receive a two or be expelled for both blasphemy and being unpatriotic. For over the past six years Russian officials at schools have been practically keeping a sharp eye on how deferential teachers and pupils are to the state and how patriotic they are. But current day Russian proponents of patriotism might well experience the problems reached by the characters of Musil's novel. In the novel a patriotic movement called the Collateral campaign drifts nowhere because none of the members can reach a consensus as to what patriotism actually is!

 

Anxious about the views of potential non-conformist students, the Minister of Education and Science have announced their intention to introduce a new school topic called 'Patriotism' into the schools from September 2022. School teachers will be obliged to teach the topic called 'Bringing up children to be Patriotic'. The only problem is that nobody knows what the contents of this subject suggests! How do you define patriotism? Does it simply mean 'To love your Motherland'? Is it the patriotism defined by the Russian philosopher Vladimir Solovyov or is it simply identified with the Orthodox religion? If you define it as Orthodox then you can immediately imply that a large section of Russians are unpatriotic because they are Buddhist, atheist, or Muslims! If you equate patriotism with practicing virtues, then  which virtues? The virtues of Aristotle or Christianity? There is a huge difference here!  

 

The Chairman of the Union 'Teacher' Vsevolod Lukhovitski states that the very notion of an upbringing in patriotism lacks sense as every aspect of a teacher's activity encompasses some form of it. Why is there a need to introduce yet another extra subject? He states, 'There is no separate upbringing in patriotism. Such a subject does not exist. There is simply 'upbringing' which a teacher does in all his work. This is all invented by officials.' He wonders how it might be taught and whether teachers and pupils will be obliged to show their patriotism by saying twenty times 'I love my motherland'. He believes that the majority of teachers will not pay attention to it.

 

It is most likely that what the state has in mind concerning patriotism is a rigid definition which is equated with absolute obedience to authority. Already school teachers are being asked to act as the ears and eyes of the Russian authorities. In other words they have been asked to report any activities of their students such as expressing opposition to the state or going on demonstrations. Not only should walls have ears but also teachers. A headmistress of school number 24, in the Nizhigorodski region, Yelena Moiseevoi, was fired from her job for refusing to hand over a list of the names of school students to the state who had gone on demonstrations against the government. {As many as 2500 people have signed a petition in support of this headmistress} An English teacher at school number 90, from Tolyatti, Alena Skovortsova, was asked by her headmistress to vote for the government party United Russia. She was informed that should she refuse to cast her vote in this way her work would be handed over to another teacher. Alena sent a complaint to the Inspector of Labor as well as the procurator on the grounds this director was blatantly violating the law. 

So we are witnessing more attempts by the authorities to intervene and influence the views of school teachers. If a school teacher involves her or himself in political activity that supports the state this is welcome, but if the teacher performs political activity at odds with the state he or she is infringing the need to be 'neutral.' In other words, neither a teacher nor a pupil have a right to their own political opinion. Now if anyone opposes the government they risk being labelled a foreign agent or 'traitor'. There have even been recent attempts to fire in mass Metro workers who happened to go on demonstrations or visit an opposition social site. The trade union have managed to win many of those unfair dismissal cases. This is why any attempts by officials to introduce a new topic such as patriotism needs to be either ridiculed or ignored. Hopefully officials will forget this proposal and return to their daydreaming or harmlessly building castles in the air.