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 former 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. 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.”

Link to audio file for “Goldsmith: Student Of Citizenship” Audio

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 not 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.