A-Infos (en) Italy, Sicilia Libertaria: Books. Trip to the school going to war (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

I had intended for some time to review Antonio Mazzeo's book "The school 
goes to war - Investigation into the militarization of education in 
Italy", published by manifestolibri. The topic represents one of the 
fundamental points of the anti-militarist commitment of recent years, 
and the NO MUOS Movement has already dedicated a dossier to it three 
years ago (with a fundamental contribution from Mazzeo himself), 
entitled "University and war".
The interference, the mixing, the conditioning of the military and 
military-industrial apparatus in education and research are in fact a 
fundamental element of the militarization of society and war policies, 
while the brazen propaganda exercised through forcing and combinations 
starting from primary schools is the clear sign of a regimentation of 
the very young, of children themselves, into militaristic cultures and 
practices.

Mazzeo's investigation is therefore very timely, and it does so in a 
period in which the massacre in Gaza by the State of Israel is causing 
very large protests in universities with, among other things, the aim of 
suspending any agreement with Israel, both military and civilian 
(dual-use municipality), also extended to the rejection of those 
projects financed by the military-industrial apparatus.

So I armed myself with a red pencil, promising myself to mark those 
points that I would then return to in the review. Except that I 
immediately realized how impossible this undertaking was. Each page of 
the 172 of the book is a mine of information, the entire book is an 
encyclopedia of the militarization of education, hundreds of episodes 
are cited, hundreds of locations, in which the militaristic octopus 
sneaks into the school desks , in university classrooms, in civic 
education programs, and shamelessly in school-work alternation, and not 
for a few years, but for over a decade, and with growing shamelessness, 
thanks to protocols signed at various levels, from the ministry to the 
offices regional schools, to company-schools with their principals who 
have become managers. A process that went on in the almost silence of 
those who in those classes, classrooms, schools, institutes should have 
reported, protested, and did not do so, or did so in a whisper, whether 
they were teachers, professors, managers, ATA staff, parents, or also a 
student.

Governments of various colors have favored all this to happen, 
governments whose defense, security or foreign policies have followed 
identical lines, consistent in Atlantic obedience and in the 
construction of an increasingly armed country.

Leaving the reader, therefore, the pleasure of diving into this 
"anti-militarist treccani" and perhaps discovering places, schools, 
faculties known to him, whose warmongering zeal he was unaware of, I 
must limit myself to following the author's working scheme.

It is a journey that is part of the commemorations of the centenary of 
the First World War, transformed into a praise of war, militaristic 
rhetoric and the concealment of the massacres and those responsible. The 
centenary of the air force, for example, is a real celebration of 
infamity: the destruction of lives and places caused by the criminal use 
of aerial bombings disappears, which Italy itself first theorized with 
General Dohuet, and then inaugurated with criminal efficiency in Africa 
and Spain, imitated by all the aeronautical schools in the world, even 
to this day. Antonio Mazzeo accompanies us through all the initiatives 
set up from one part of Italy to the other to educate young people in 
the worst bellicose patriotism.

Then we enter the enchanted world of school-work alternation, the PCTO, 
and of the countless cases of students transported inside barracks and 
military bases, or to work as waiters and cooks, or to study armaments 
to understand how to kill the "enemy". Maybe doing military gymnastics, 
extreme resistance courses, sports tournaments, or even taking music, 
English language, cooking lessons (even the Mediterranean diet, from 
McDonald's exporters!). The elite Italian or NATO forces, especially 
American ones, are happy to show kids how the homeland is defended, how 
war is necessary to maintain peace, how the world is made up of good bad 
guys and the good guys are always us . The soldiers are good at 
transmitting their heroic experiences, their courage as hard and true 
men, their strong sense of homeland, inseparable from that of God and 
family, a trinity for which young people must be trained to fight, even 
if they are innocent elementary school children sent to wave flags or 
sing militaristic songs in which the enemy is slaughtered in the name of 
the tricolor or the stars and stripes flag.

And in all of this a servile or cowardly teaching class (or both) 
becomes an accomplice, betrays its own mission of educating for peace, 
understanding of problems, critical reflection, coexistence between 
peoples, and becomes a cog in the toxic machine militarist.

A disconcerting narrative, that of Mazzeo, unfortunately not alleviated 
by the cases of protests and opposition recounted in the finale, which 
in any case show us that there is no lack of arguments to hinder this 
drift, which is now leading us to arm students to make them practice the 
"sport " of shooting, or to the short-term military service which 
however offers many career opportunities, or to enlistment in the 
various branches of the armed forces, as an employment opportunity for 
millions of young people who are denied a future of honest work. And of 
course we cannot miss the "scientific" fervor that transforms many 
universities into sites of technological experimentation in the field of 
cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and dual use projects which are 
greedy for the death industries of half the world, warrior states such 
as Israel, Turkey, the United States.

A fundamental resistance manual, a map of atrocities which, however, if 
well studied, allow us to know well the opponent's moves, the places of 
the many misdeeds, which can and must become grounds for revolt, as is 
already partly happening, from United States to Italy to Sicily, to 
begin to strengthen the NO to militarism in the name of freedom of 
teaching, of a secular education free from any harmful conditioning, a 
bulwark not only of peace, but of the rejection of war.

PG

https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/
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