Picture this - a class of young impressionable minds, their attitudes and knowledge in the hands of those who build for them their view of the world. A teacher walks into the classroom, and uses their curriculum to teach these people who will shape the future about society. But they paint a picture of a diverse society, a society plagued by the conflicts of many groups, ethnicities and peoples who must share this planet, and get along. The teacher prepares them for this world by raising awareness over a range of issues like sexuality and racism. Young women are coming across ideas of feminism and empowerment against sexism. They talk about the popular culture these young people spend hours absorbing, to enrich it metaphorically and symbolically, so that they may at least be able to relate it to their own lives and trials as youngsters who will one day battle for placement in society. They discuss world history from a multitude of perspectives, harboring meaning of this often frightening, complex global political climate. They present them with a range of philosophies and perspectives, so that they may understand subjectivity, and be presented with a broad palette of idea and thought, from which they endeavour to understand life as an individual. This, according to Julia Bishop, is happening all over the country. And she thinks this great nation should be very, very afraid.

Julia Bishop is our national minister for Education, and yesterday, she launched a scathing attack of the country's school system, claiming that Australian schools had been infiltrated and taken over by "left-wing ideologues", and that young impressionable Australians were being nurtured with ideas... wait for it... "straight from Chairman Mao"!  She is appalled that some schools in Sydney have been teaching Shakespeare from a feminist and - gasp - Marxist perspective. She simply cannot believe that students are encouraged to discuss and socially dissect (their favourite TV show) Big Brother. And she is mortified about History and Geography being related to students on a political level. All in all, Miss Bishop seems quite concerned that young impressionable Australians are being taught to think for themselves, and raised with a global political awareness.

"Parents are right to be concerned," she said in her best effort to scare the conservative - naive - mainstream; "and students shouldn't be forced to interpret Shakespeare from a feminist or a Marxist perspective. History and geography classes should not be allowed to slide into political science courses by another name."

Scary stuff, isn't it? And all this happens the morning after John Howard gives a speech to the conservative group, Quadrant, where he names extreme conservative politicians, Ronald Reagan (who nearly nuked the world over the communist fear) and Margaret Thatcher (who abolished rights for workers, and set viciously upon the rights and acceptance of gays, single mothers, and ethnic minorities), alongside Pope John Paul II as the "three towering figures" of contemporary history. It's happening, Beautiful People. Many of us will find it difficult to comprehend, but we are currently heading down a very dark path, indeed.

And, but of course, Johnny strolled out after his morning tea and steadfastly backed his education minister's populist scare-mongering. It's part of a proposal to simply usurp the states' control of schooling, and to federally dictate a tight, national reform of education. The problem with the states running education being, of course, that not all states are run by the Liberal Party. Johnny was smart enough to "broaden" the topic and water it down, sighting the problem being that young adults were left inadequately trained in numeracy and literacy - but underlying this is the belief that instead of the "basics", students are having their time wasted with other things.... like progressive, left-wing ideology. By taking control of education, the conservatives can now literally tailor the very raising of this society to it's own design. Goodbye feminism, marxism, homosexuality, politics, social and ideological diversity, or social analysis of any kind. The Aussie kids of the future will spend their time more productively in a school system that focuses not on any intellectual understanding of the society they are about to be a apart of, but simply on functional skills of mathematics and grammar. Howard, with heroes like Reagan and Thatcher, knows very well that last thing you need to do to the worker bees is equip them with social and political awareness. Intelligence naturally leads itself to breed contempt and autonomy amongst the masses. Let's leave that out of raising our youth, shall we? Johnny prefers them oblivious, compliant, and ready for work.

 

Howard also partly blames the strength of the teacher's union, who, as far as he sees it, has far too great an influence on the employees/teachers. "With great respect, it's not the role of the union to run the education curriculum," he said - although naturally, they don't. "The very fact that the unions feel they are being displaced probably proves the point, doesn't it?"

Bloody unions. It really throws a spanner into the wheel of democracy when the working bees exist in a system that empowers them. Johnny doesn't like unions very much. He's successfully killed it for students; now, if he can just destroy it for the teachers, than his conservative government can take over education, altogether, with no opposition or accountability to the people. Viva democracy!

Many will tell you John Howard is a senile, old fool. If only. John Howard may be a morally abominable man, but the fucker knows what he's doing. And he's doing it. Time will tell if he succeeds in gaining control of national education - thankfully, it's easier said than done, but let's not count it out. He gets mostly what he wants, after all - there just aren't enough corridors of power available to stop him. And sadly, the age of terrorism has nailed the socially progressive coffin shut, and the fear and conservatism sweeping our society continues to grow, increasingly religious in nature. This move was designed to scare this social current, and says so much about where it's at - the fact that it's smart politics to put the idea out there that progressive social attitudes are "poisoning" our youth. The cruelest part of all is that far too many Australian parents will be terrified, and there's a fair chance they would hand this country's education over quite willingly, so Johnny can set our young on the righteous, functional path.

 

At very least, what it can do is affect education from a parental level. If successful, there will now be thousands of frightened conservative parents, suddenly taking a keen interest in what their child is studying, and how they're studying it. Parents ringing up schools demanding change to their children's curriculum is affective, in itself. The ramifications are beyond even what our children abosrb and learn, but who schools are employing. Parents affect schools - particularly private and Catholic, obviously. This hands them a conservative bullet, and if enough parents are firing, it can certainly make a difference.

 

You should be very worried by this. We should be. Johnny sits on his appointed throne, his religious cronies stroking his back. All this talk of justice, and morality and righteousness. But where is the compassion and understanding? Are they not values? Conservatism is, by nature, an aggressive, merciless judgement and persecution of the designated "wrong". It's the removal of human rights in order to maintain the power of the select group at the top of the pile. Where is equality? Is that not a value? Can censorship be anything other than a dictatorship? Do you not have a choice? Isn't that something you value? For yourself? For your children? Because this new age of conservatism is about hatred, and inequality, and the mindless compliance with an ethos decided for you. It doesn't even pretend to be anything else - that's the very subject matter of all contemporary political rhetoric. Howard has a far too obvious ideology that the people don't actually have the right to know what's really going on (and this is the man that blatantly ignores the people he governs to jump into wars, whether we like it or not), but in all fairness, he's pretty straight up with his conservative ethos. And if people weren't so successfully threatened, and then because of this, misguided, then surely people would see this ethos for the giant step backwards it is.

But most don't - and he knows this. That's why he does it. Because he can.

The great thing about democracy is supposedly that it is subject to change. If we really do live in such a system, we better make sure we play our part in engaging that potential for change. We were so caught up in the drama of 9-11, and then the Iraq war, we underestimated where we were actually heading in the long run - not with the Middle East, and not even in America. Something horrible is happening. It's not over "there". It's here.

 

It's us.