Shaping political culture in Russia
Teaching patriotism has always been one of the reasons for requiring students to take social studies classes -- even when many people in the USA argue that critical thinking and independent analysis are the height of patriotism.As Putin's coterie tightens it control over state power, it also seeks to teach patriotism or to act, as Joseph Stalin said the Communist Party should, as the transmission belt of society.
Is indoctrination in U.S. social studies classes as pervasive as that described below? Is it invisible to us because we don't indoctrinate? Or because it has worked so well? Or because it's so difficult to see ourselves objectively? Or all of those things and more?
As we work with our students to do comparative politics, we need to include questions like those in our analyses.
Peter Finn reported in the Washington Post:
New Manuals Push A Putin's-Eye View In Russian Schools
"With two new manuals for high school history and social studies teachers, written in part by Kremlin political consultants, Russian authorities are attempting to imbue classroom debate with a nationalist outlook...
"Both books reflect the themes dominating official political discourse here: that Putin restored Russian strength and built what the Kremlin calls a "sovereign democracy" despite American efforts to isolate the country...
"'Sovereign Democracy' is the title of one of the history manual's chapters. The term was coined by Kremlin strategist Vladislav Surkov [at left], who attended the launch of the two books at a teachers' conference in Moscow last month. Supporters of the president use the phrase to describe the centralization of power under Putin as essential to the building of a stable Russian state, free from outside interference."But critics say the term is a self-serving veil for unchecked executive power, which has led to the disempowerment of parliament, the judiciary and many media voices in Putin's Russia. That viewpoint finds no place in the manuals...
"The social studies manual, Social Studies: The Global World in the 21st Century, observes that 'from the beginning of the 1990s, the U.S. tried to realize a global empire. The basic political principle underpinning any empire is divide and rule. Therefore one of the U.S. strategies was to isolate Russia from all the other former Soviet republics.'
"But the United States may be near 'final collapse,' according to the manual, because 'America can no longer integrate into a single unit or unite into a nation of 'whites,' 'blacks,' (they are called African-Americans in the language of political correctness) 'Latinos' (Latin Americans) and others.'...
"The manuals, which run to several hundred pages each, will serve as guides for the drafting of new textbooks to be introduced in September 2008...
"'The scariest thing, and the fact that makes me really sad, is that these manuals and any new textbooks will be seen not as a recommendation or a choice for teachers, but as an order,' said Galina Klokova, who specializes in the teaching of history at the Russian Academy of Education.
"The author of the 'Sovereign Democracy' chapter in the history guide said as much when he responded on his blog to criticism from teachers that parts of the book were little more than crude Kremlin propaganda.
"'You will teach children in line with the books you are given and in the way Russia needs,' wrote Pavel Danilin, a 30-year-old editor at the Effective Policy Foundation, a consulting firm that works for the Kremlin and is headed by Kremlin loyalist Gleb Pavlovsky. 'To let some Russophobe [expletive], or just an amoral type, teach Russian history is impossible. It is necessary to clear the filth and if it doesn't work then clear it by force.'..."
Labels: concepts, political culture, Russia, socialization
posted by Ken Wedding @ 8:55 AM
1 Comments:
Jim Lerch sent me the text of Max Boot's entry in the Commentary Magazine blog titled "Two Narratives." He'd found the text at the History News Network web site.
Max Boot wrote about noticing the article about the overtly nationalistic and "assertive" Russian history texts and an article about how the Israeli education ministry "is issuing texts to Arabic-speaking students that describe the foundation of Israel as a 'catastrophe' for the Palestinians."
He concludes his commentary with these questions:
"In other words, a liberal democracy is incorporating in its curriculum the views of its enemies, while an authoritarian country is pushing a hard nationalist line in its own textbooks. Nothing surprising there, but what lesson does one draw from this disparity?
"You could argue that this reveals a suicidal level of self-doubt in the West that puts us at a severe disadvantage in confronting our illiberal and often fanatical enemies. Or, you could argue that this capacity to question ourselves is actually an advantage in the competition with illiberal societies, and that dictators’ attempts to brainwash their populaces produce stunted societies incapable of competing with more dynamic ones.
"Which of these 'narratives' is right? At the risk of sounding like a typical, conflicted, namby-pamby, post-modern Westerner, I have to confess I’m not sure."
It's probably good for each of us to reexamine basic questions that have been tossed around for generations and come to our own conclusions.
This sounds like a naive question. Is he serious? Or is he trying to be provocative?
Max Boot is a senior fellow in national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, a defender of the invasion of Iraq, and an advocate of a preemptive attack on Iran, and the American occupation of Saudi oil fields for the good of the people in the Middle East.
I think he's being provocative. You, of course, have to draw your own conclusions.
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