In the book "School goes to war", Antonio Mazzeo, a teacher and essayist
committed to the issues of peace, disarmament and human rights, a
collaborator with Il Manifesto and other newspapers, as well as a member
of the promoters of the Observatory against the militarization of
schools and universities, describes in detail the ways in which the
Italian school is abdicating its educational and formative functions for
the new generations, allowing the Armed Forces and arms manufacturing
companies to occupy every sphere of teaching for ideological purposes,
absolutely in contrast with the constitutional values of the defense of
freedom, democracy, social justice and peace, on which public education
should be based. It must be said that this is a phenomenon that is
affecting all of Europe, and not only, where in schools of various
levels, we are unfortunately witnessing a real ideological hammering on
the preparation-normalization of the idea of war. Mazzeo underlines
that, even if the awareness of the transformation of schools into
barracks and of the illegitimacy of the many measures adopted with
military-authoritarian purposes is not yet a heritage of a good part of
teachers and students, it is equally true that in Italy there have been
numerous examples of mobilization and opposition, starting with an
appeal signed by thirty teachers from Novara, published by the newspaper
"La Stampa", as far back as September 2, 2011. From this appeal, forms
of disobedience-objection by teachers have multiplied a bit throughout
Italy, to the point of entering the political agenda of some trade union
organizations, radical left parties, some associations of the Catholic
world and all the subjects that oppose wars and global rearmament. It
should be added that authoritative international jurists believe that
any form of propaganda by the Armed Forces in schools violates the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, approved by the United Nations in
New York on 10 December 1948. But let's proceed in order. In the
investigation that the author is carrying out, we read that in the
school year 2007/2008, a protocol was signed in the Military School
"Teuliè" of Milan, between the Regional School Office and the Army
Command of Lombardy, which acted as a sort of trailblazer for subsequent
collaborations between the School and the Armed Forces. We had to wait
until September 2014 for the partnership between schools and the
military apparatus to be formalized at a national level. The then
Ministers Stefania Giannini for Education and Roberta Pinotti for
Defense signed a Memorandum of Understanding to "promote the study of
the Italian Constitution and the principles of the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights, in reference to the teaching of citizenship". Education
and Defense agreed to activate in schools a "focus on the central
function that THE CULTURE OF DEFENSE continues to play in favor of the
social, political, economic and democratic growth of the country". With
a circular dated December 15, 2015, the MIUR listed the project paths to
be entrusted to the Armed Forces, contemplating almost all disciplines:
from history to science, from new technologies to law, from sport to
political geography, etc. In the second Conte government and the PD-M5S
coalition and satellite parties (September 2019-February 2021), an
undersecretary of state was delegated, the Hon. Angelo Tofalo, a design
engineer in the strategic telecommunications and video surveillance
sectors, for the dissemination of the "culture of defense and security".
The Hon. Angelo Tofalo and the then minister Lorenzo Guerini promoted,
with the Defense General Staff and the general secretary of the National
Armaments Directorate, a series of itinerant conferences to explain the
"culture of defense", within universities and research centers. The aim
was to extend to all social and generational groups, the unconditional
consensus for the Armed Forces, international war missions, the
military-industrial complex and the intervention of public order control
and repression. By spreading the culture of defense, the aim was to make
citizens available to ever greater sacrifices in terms of salary cuts
and global precariousness, with the aim of directing greater public
financial resources to the production and purchase of technologically
advanced weapons. The institutional legitimacy of the "culture of
defense" came in spring 2023 by decree of the incoming minister Guido
Crosetto, under the Meloni government, who established a think tank
committee with 14 consultants for its "development and valorization". As
Crosetto himself stated: "a path of biunivocal and virtuous
contamination begins, with the aim of promoting the capabilities and
values of the Armed Forces". "With an army of old men you cannot win the
war", explained General Marco Bertolini, former commander of the Folgore
Paratroopers Brigade... "if in the Air Force and Navy, technologies
prevail, the infantryman must know how to fight on the ground. A healthy
physique, aggression and self-confidence are needed, the soldier must be
an athlete with a rifle". Hence the need to instill a culture of defense
and security with intensive military-educational courses in schools. The
National Alpine Association annually promotes summer camps for young
people between 16 and 25 years old, "School Camps", which in the summer
of 2023 reached a record number of base camps, 13 and spread throughout
Italy. The National Alpine Association and the "Taurinense" Logistics
Regiment have also launched the "Alpini a scuola" project in elementary
schools to stimulate "the moral growth of schoolchildren, transmitting
values such as a sense of citizenship, love of country, memory of the
fallen, the flag and the spirit of service towards the community". After
the 2014 memorandum of understanding, in practice the military was
allowed to progressively replace teachers in the interpretation and
narration of the Italian Constitution, Active Citizenship and legality,
the macro areas of intervention identified by the Ministry of Education
and the Armed Forces, to consolidate "the culture of defense". Military
penetration is pursued with structured interventions, methods and
languages that are increasingly less "direct" and increasingly
instrumental, precisely for this reason, even more pervasive and
dangerous if addressed to younger children. An example of this: in the
Lascito Ranieri nursery school in Bari, the military explained to the
children with simple aphorisms "that their work of peacekeeping in the
world, for the little ones is like separating two boys who are
fighting". Hundreds of children from the primary schools of the province
of Rome were guests of the Infantry School of Cesano, to "familiarize
themselves with some aspects of the military world". For the nursery
schools of Friuli Venezia Giulia, a show to see with the title "Children
dream of the tricolor arrows", at the air base of Rivolto (UD), home of
the second Wing and the Acrobatic Patrol of the Air Force. The army as a
resource for internal security is one of the themes addressed by the
secondary schools, starting from the analysis of the operations of
public order control, such as "Safe Streets". To emphasize and perhaps
make the student-military parades mandatory, the
Meloni-Crosetto-Valditara government has accelerated the approval
process of the law that intends to establish November 4 as the "Day of
National Unity and the Armed Forces" by giving the military a blank
cheque to reinterpret and retell the First World War, which has allowed
the real causes, the drama and the crimes committed by the belligerents
to be hidden, and above all the devastating political and socioeconomic
consequences inherited with the end of the conflict. The mystification
process has been carried out with lucidity and cynicism through the
promotion of an infinite series of initiatives for students of all ages.
Mazzeo indicates all the initiatives that have allowed this warmongering
contamination of the school system. English: The 100th anniversary of
the establishment of the Air Force, celebrated in every part of Italy in
the spring-summer of 2023, was the strongest point of fusion, which
allowed the Minister of Education Valditara to declare: "The combination
of School and Air Force is very significant for our country: the role of
training and schools is perfectly combined with that of the Armed
Forces". But it is not only the war anniversaries and recurrences that
give strength to this combination. The author also introduces us to the
activities with which the Armed Forces try to measure themselves with
the languages and interests of young people by focusing on
recreational-expressive activities and new information technologies. A
particularly sensitive sector is the motor and sports sector, where
military trainers-athletes have carved out an increasingly significant
space for themselves also in the promotion of student championships and
Youth Games, alongside or replacing the local authorities and
Federations that once contributed financially to their success. ...It is
infecting young people, trainers and teachers of Motor Sciences with an
impressive speed, the Military Dynamic Gymnastics (GDM), officially
recognized as a sport by the Coni for less than 10 years, but practiced
throughout Italy in more than 200 facilities, often school gyms granted
in exchange for discounts on fees for students who enroll in the
courses. It is called dynamic gymnastics because it is never static,
military because it wants to bring back the discipline, the rigor, but
above all the union and the respect typical of the military", explain
the trainers. Finally it is called Italian because it is linked to the
tricolor, to the Roman origins, to their way of life: it is a way to
remember that we are children of the great Romans who made this great
territory. The author rightly warns us by emphasizing that "it is a
return to a dark past, physical education to shape muscles and
obedience, mortifying individual subjectivities and wiping out with a
stroke of the sponge a century of studies and research on psychomotor
skills and recreational-motor pedagogy". Article 26 of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights states that "Everyone has the right to
education and that education should be directed to the full development
of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human
rights and fundamental freedoms. It should promote understanding,
tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups
and should further the work of the United Nations for the maintenance of
peace". We can only agree that we must educate for peace and certainly
not for "defense" and "security", as is instead stated in the official
documents of the Ministry of Education and we make Mazzeo's final appeal
our own: "Students, collegial bodies and every single teacher are called
to choose which side to be on and who to work for: alongside the
warlords and merchants of death, as generals and ministers increasingly
demand, or alongside those who repudiate war as an instrument of offense
to the freedom of other peoples and as a means of resolving
international disputes, in compliance with article 11 of the
Constitution and claim freedom of expression and teaching in every venue
(art. 21 and 33) in defense of public schools and the fundamental
values of formal and substantial equality and social justice".
http://alternativalibertaria.fdca.it/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
committed to the issues of peace, disarmament and human rights, a
collaborator with Il Manifesto and other newspapers, as well as a member
of the promoters of the Observatory against the militarization of
schools and universities, describes in detail the ways in which the
Italian school is abdicating its educational and formative functions for
the new generations, allowing the Armed Forces and arms manufacturing
companies to occupy every sphere of teaching for ideological purposes,
absolutely in contrast with the constitutional values of the defense of
freedom, democracy, social justice and peace, on which public education
should be based. It must be said that this is a phenomenon that is
affecting all of Europe, and not only, where in schools of various
levels, we are unfortunately witnessing a real ideological hammering on
the preparation-normalization of the idea of war. Mazzeo underlines
that, even if the awareness of the transformation of schools into
barracks and of the illegitimacy of the many measures adopted with
military-authoritarian purposes is not yet a heritage of a good part of
teachers and students, it is equally true that in Italy there have been
numerous examples of mobilization and opposition, starting with an
appeal signed by thirty teachers from Novara, published by the newspaper
"La Stampa", as far back as September 2, 2011. From this appeal, forms
of disobedience-objection by teachers have multiplied a bit throughout
Italy, to the point of entering the political agenda of some trade union
organizations, radical left parties, some associations of the Catholic
world and all the subjects that oppose wars and global rearmament. It
should be added that authoritative international jurists believe that
any form of propaganda by the Armed Forces in schools violates the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, approved by the United Nations in
New York on 10 December 1948. But let's proceed in order. In the
investigation that the author is carrying out, we read that in the
school year 2007/2008, a protocol was signed in the Military School
"Teuliè" of Milan, between the Regional School Office and the Army
Command of Lombardy, which acted as a sort of trailblazer for subsequent
collaborations between the School and the Armed Forces. We had to wait
until September 2014 for the partnership between schools and the
military apparatus to be formalized at a national level. The then
Ministers Stefania Giannini for Education and Roberta Pinotti for
Defense signed a Memorandum of Understanding to "promote the study of
the Italian Constitution and the principles of the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights, in reference to the teaching of citizenship". Education
and Defense agreed to activate in schools a "focus on the central
function that THE CULTURE OF DEFENSE continues to play in favor of the
social, political, economic and democratic growth of the country". With
a circular dated December 15, 2015, the MIUR listed the project paths to
be entrusted to the Armed Forces, contemplating almost all disciplines:
from history to science, from new technologies to law, from sport to
political geography, etc. In the second Conte government and the PD-M5S
coalition and satellite parties (September 2019-February 2021), an
undersecretary of state was delegated, the Hon. Angelo Tofalo, a design
engineer in the strategic telecommunications and video surveillance
sectors, for the dissemination of the "culture of defense and security".
The Hon. Angelo Tofalo and the then minister Lorenzo Guerini promoted,
with the Defense General Staff and the general secretary of the National
Armaments Directorate, a series of itinerant conferences to explain the
"culture of defense", within universities and research centers. The aim
was to extend to all social and generational groups, the unconditional
consensus for the Armed Forces, international war missions, the
military-industrial complex and the intervention of public order control
and repression. By spreading the culture of defense, the aim was to make
citizens available to ever greater sacrifices in terms of salary cuts
and global precariousness, with the aim of directing greater public
financial resources to the production and purchase of technologically
advanced weapons. The institutional legitimacy of the "culture of
defense" came in spring 2023 by decree of the incoming minister Guido
Crosetto, under the Meloni government, who established a think tank
committee with 14 consultants for its "development and valorization". As
Crosetto himself stated: "a path of biunivocal and virtuous
contamination begins, with the aim of promoting the capabilities and
values of the Armed Forces". "With an army of old men you cannot win the
war", explained General Marco Bertolini, former commander of the Folgore
Paratroopers Brigade... "if in the Air Force and Navy, technologies
prevail, the infantryman must know how to fight on the ground. A healthy
physique, aggression and self-confidence are needed, the soldier must be
an athlete with a rifle". Hence the need to instill a culture of defense
and security with intensive military-educational courses in schools. The
National Alpine Association annually promotes summer camps for young
people between 16 and 25 years old, "School Camps", which in the summer
of 2023 reached a record number of base camps, 13 and spread throughout
Italy. The National Alpine Association and the "Taurinense" Logistics
Regiment have also launched the "Alpini a scuola" project in elementary
schools to stimulate "the moral growth of schoolchildren, transmitting
values such as a sense of citizenship, love of country, memory of the
fallen, the flag and the spirit of service towards the community". After
the 2014 memorandum of understanding, in practice the military was
allowed to progressively replace teachers in the interpretation and
narration of the Italian Constitution, Active Citizenship and legality,
the macro areas of intervention identified by the Ministry of Education
and the Armed Forces, to consolidate "the culture of defense". Military
penetration is pursued with structured interventions, methods and
languages that are increasingly less "direct" and increasingly
instrumental, precisely for this reason, even more pervasive and
dangerous if addressed to younger children. An example of this: in the
Lascito Ranieri nursery school in Bari, the military explained to the
children with simple aphorisms "that their work of peacekeeping in the
world, for the little ones is like separating two boys who are
fighting". Hundreds of children from the primary schools of the province
of Rome were guests of the Infantry School of Cesano, to "familiarize
themselves with some aspects of the military world". For the nursery
schools of Friuli Venezia Giulia, a show to see with the title "Children
dream of the tricolor arrows", at the air base of Rivolto (UD), home of
the second Wing and the Acrobatic Patrol of the Air Force. The army as a
resource for internal security is one of the themes addressed by the
secondary schools, starting from the analysis of the operations of
public order control, such as "Safe Streets". To emphasize and perhaps
make the student-military parades mandatory, the
Meloni-Crosetto-Valditara government has accelerated the approval
process of the law that intends to establish November 4 as the "Day of
National Unity and the Armed Forces" by giving the military a blank
cheque to reinterpret and retell the First World War, which has allowed
the real causes, the drama and the crimes committed by the belligerents
to be hidden, and above all the devastating political and socioeconomic
consequences inherited with the end of the conflict. The mystification
process has been carried out with lucidity and cynicism through the
promotion of an infinite series of initiatives for students of all ages.
Mazzeo indicates all the initiatives that have allowed this warmongering
contamination of the school system. English: The 100th anniversary of
the establishment of the Air Force, celebrated in every part of Italy in
the spring-summer of 2023, was the strongest point of fusion, which
allowed the Minister of Education Valditara to declare: "The combination
of School and Air Force is very significant for our country: the role of
training and schools is perfectly combined with that of the Armed
Forces". But it is not only the war anniversaries and recurrences that
give strength to this combination. The author also introduces us to the
activities with which the Armed Forces try to measure themselves with
the languages and interests of young people by focusing on
recreational-expressive activities and new information technologies. A
particularly sensitive sector is the motor and sports sector, where
military trainers-athletes have carved out an increasingly significant
space for themselves also in the promotion of student championships and
Youth Games, alongside or replacing the local authorities and
Federations that once contributed financially to their success. ...It is
infecting young people, trainers and teachers of Motor Sciences with an
impressive speed, the Military Dynamic Gymnastics (GDM), officially
recognized as a sport by the Coni for less than 10 years, but practiced
throughout Italy in more than 200 facilities, often school gyms granted
in exchange for discounts on fees for students who enroll in the
courses. It is called dynamic gymnastics because it is never static,
military because it wants to bring back the discipline, the rigor, but
above all the union and the respect typical of the military", explain
the trainers. Finally it is called Italian because it is linked to the
tricolor, to the Roman origins, to their way of life: it is a way to
remember that we are children of the great Romans who made this great
territory. The author rightly warns us by emphasizing that "it is a
return to a dark past, physical education to shape muscles and
obedience, mortifying individual subjectivities and wiping out with a
stroke of the sponge a century of studies and research on psychomotor
skills and recreational-motor pedagogy". Article 26 of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights states that "Everyone has the right to
education and that education should be directed to the full development
of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human
rights and fundamental freedoms. It should promote understanding,
tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups
and should further the work of the United Nations for the maintenance of
peace". We can only agree that we must educate for peace and certainly
not for "defense" and "security", as is instead stated in the official
documents of the Ministry of Education and we make Mazzeo's final appeal
our own: "Students, collegial bodies and every single teacher are called
to choose which side to be on and who to work for: alongside the
warlords and merchants of death, as generals and ministers increasingly
demand, or alongside those who repudiate war as an instrument of offense
to the freedom of other peoples and as a means of resolving
international disputes, in compliance with article 11 of the
Constitution and claim freedom of expression and teaching in every venue
(art. 21 and 33) in defense of public schools and the fundamental
values of formal and substantial equality and social justice".
http://alternativalibertaria.fdca.it/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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