Military indoctrination for schoolkids
A recent headline grabbed our attention: ‘Military gap years for teens and school lessons on defence to prepare UK for war’ (i paper, 2 June)
Amidst the war hysteria being ramped up by the governments of the UK, Germany and France, and by Brussels, our schoolchildren too are not being spared the fear-mongering.
‘Teaching’ them ‘defence’ and ‘respect’ for the killing forces of the capitalist state is not an education in any sense, but an indoctrination in fear and an unpardonable assault on young, impressionable minds. Whilst capitalism exists war is an ever-present reality which can only be removed when capitalism itself is abolished.
As for ‘teaching defence’, it is a repugnant falsehood to make people believe there is any defence to be had in the event of a nuclear war. The weapons defend nobody. They inflict mutual annihilation. There can be no life following such an exchange, let alone any desire to still be alive.
If the word obscenity was ever to be really defined, it is by the present British government’s imposition of war panic on the populace and on our children. Not to mention the psychologically and emotionally vulnerable. The taking away of livelihoods and the continual squeezing of the poorest in society is not, it seems, enough for the Starmerite government.
Every year, capitalism shows us just how low and how anti-life it can sink. It is this defunct and lethal system that needs to be abolished now before it abolishes life on our planet. Only the working class themselves, the vast majority, can and must abolish capitalism – the system of death.
A.W.