NATIONALISTIC INDOCTRINATION

Jasneh Sasan

Nationalistic indoctrination is a complex form of persuasion that heavily impacts foreign policy and international relations, as it is often utilized to pit countries against each other to increase nationalistic fervor and patriotism. A common identification of nationalistic indoctrination is the villainization of a certain nation or group of nations and the consequent romanticization of one's own nation and national affiliation.

A popular example of nationalistic indoctrination is the tensions in South Asia, primarily between India and Pakistan, as a result of the Indian Partition of 1947 which split the Indian subcontinent into three separate nations: India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Thus, to forge individual national identities, the three governments formed biased curriculums that separated three very similar cultures into spiteful groups.

According to the Hindustan Times, South Asian students, as young as kindergarteners, are encouraged to join the armed forces, not for the protection of their own country, but for the destruction of another. Those who take up careers in S.T.E.M. fields are expected to champion scientific progress such as nuclear and atomic advancement, not for the celebration of scientific achievement, but to aid the government in defeating its neighbor.

The Global Conflict Tracker has detailed a list of major conflicts between India and Pakistan in the past decade which has led to the deaths of tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians and the displacement of an innumerable number of citizens from both nations. Furthermore, conflict between the two countries, both of which are nuclear powers, has stemmed into a larger issue: nuclear war. The conflict has been dubbed "Indo-Pak" and is one of the most unstable nuclear conflicts, according to the Institution of Peace and Conflict Studies (I.P.C.S.), an independent research organization that specializes in peace and security studies in South Asia.

Both India and Pakistan have garnered international support: China being an ally of Pakistan, hence the U.S. being a semi-stable ally of India. Indo-Pak could easily become a proxy war between the United States and China, leaving Indians and Pakistanis alike as collateral damage for a bigger global conflict.

In the words of Soviet dictator, Joseph Stalin, "Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed."

Through the various examples of indoctrination around the world, it is clear that systematic brainwashing isn't just a thing of the past— it is deeply ingrained in modern education. As Stalin stated, powerful institutions have curated the education system to teach the history that best fits their narrative.

The effects of the weaponization of education extend outside the classroom and impacts the foundations of international relations and national politics.

"Students are impacted in a relatively profound way by the way history is presented by their teachers… if a teacher is very progressive that has a certain effect on students, and conversely, if the teacher is very conservative that also has an effect on students," Waller said. l

Subjective history curricula impacts students' outlook on world events.

In his renowned dystopian piece, 1984, George Orwell writes, "He who writes the history controls the past. He who controls the past controls the future."

Perhaps his words hold true today more than ever before.