Focus

Their schoolbooks tell them that a heroic death is much better than life. Texts similar to those found in premilitary training manuals, practically drip with blood. Experts who have analyzed these "serious'' books have concluded that the war model of socialization dominates in our schools. Even sociologist Mirjana Markovic (Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic's wife) has noticed that something is wrong. At the beginning of the last decade of this stormy century, schools in Serbia have reverted back to the 19th century concept. Ms Markovic's remarks would be praiseworthy were she not a longtime member of educational bodies, precisely those which decide on the textbooks to be used in schools

What countries does the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia border with? If a grownup looks for the answer to this question in primary school textbooks, he will be confused: he won't be sure if the border is on the Drina River or the Danube, or if it has been moved elsewhere. Teachers and parents fill in the gaps in textbooks in their own particular ways. The authors of the textbooks tell primary school pupils that they will: "Learn more about their country if they watch television, read children's magazines, collect picture albums on social events concerning our country,'' (General Science textbook, 4th grade, p.5).

Gaps with regard to contemporary events are to be found in schoolbooks and books which aim at making the past closer to children. For example, History textbooks for all grades in primary schools overflow with data on wars, uprisings, revolutions mostly to do with the Serbs. All of this has been ripped out of a broader historical context, so that third and fourth graders when they start studying History can conclude, for example, that World War One started and ended in Serbia. In parts, some of the textbooks are more like party programs than books for children they are socially engaged, "serious'' books.

A group of authors (Dijana Plut, Ruzica Rosandic, Vesna Pesic, Dubravka Stojanovic and Isidora Jaric) did an analysis of the educational function of the latest issue of textbooks for primary schools. The project is supported by the Center for AntiWar Action and the group MOST from Belgrade. The authors of the project analyzed textbooks with regard to the following categories: patriotism, national relations and possible ethnic biases, the relationship to war and peace, and with regard to discrimination between the sexes. The analyses were summed up and published in the book "Warfare, Patriotism, the Patriarchal Element,'' and published by the Center for AntiWar Actions.

The conclusion reached after reading the book (we will carry the most interesting parts), is that the war model of socialization dominates in our schools, which can be seen in the emphasis given to irrational acts of heroism, the constant stressing of the fact that we always defeat the enemy because all our battles are just, in the glorification of our suffering, and in creating a constant feeling of being threatened. There isn't a single primary school textbook which doesn't repeat several times that it is an honor to die for one's homeland. Even readers, with texts describing battles and great suffering, are reminiscent of pre military training manuals.

Ruzica Rosandic analyzed patriotism in primary school textbooks. Patriotic feelings were mentioned most often in the context of a single history and suffering (in 40% of the cases) and territory (in 29% of the cases). In the new textbooks, the community is viewed as a national unit: an area inhabited by the Serbian people, where their ancestors lived, a place dotted with the holy places of our national history.

On the whole, the relationship between the individual and the community is shown in 97% cases as participative, i.e., as the total subordination of the individual to the needs of the community. The most often mentioned forms of patriotism are: suffering, tribulation, sacrifice (in 55% of the cases). The personification of these elements serves to underscore this concept of patriotism: the most often mentioned ideal patriots are heros from the battlefield (35%) and soldiers (24%), statesmen (11%) and persons involved in culture and art (15%).

After analyzing warrior virtues in readers for primary schools, sociologist and Civic Alliance leader Vesna Pesic concluded that the attitude to war dominated. There is nothing to condemn here. But, if this is done by excessively glorifying heroism, violence and death as the only means of winning and preserving freedom, and with the aim of creating an automatically

positive attitude towards sacrificing one's life for one's country, then we say that fostering warrior-type values is the socializing goal.

Readers for primary school eighth graders have four times as many texts with a war subject as with a peace subject (64.4% to 15.6%). This relationship is even more dramatic when viewed according to the number of pages: 89 pages compared to 5.7 (or 84% compared to 5%). Even though we cannot give a figure count on the number of war topics in comparison to other topics, it is sufficient to say that the number of pages devoted to war, would be sufficient for a separate textbook on the subject. That it is the educational authorities' goal to create a readiness for war and heroic deeds, can be seen by the fact that in all readers (with the exception of the first three grades in primary school), one entire chapter is devoted to patriotic war subject matter; in the 5th and 6th grades, the number of war topics jumps suddenly: blood flows freely, murder is committed in the most brutal ways, while the artillery just pounds away. In the 7th and 8th grades the number of war texts decreases, but not the number of pages. Of 58 war topics, 52 texts underscore great acts of heroism, unconditional death for one's fatherland, honor. Victories are glorified as well as the moral and physical suffering of the people and serve as examples and inspiration for new generations. Only four war topics carried an antiwar message. This just served to confirm our assumption: the quantitative and systematic treatment of patriotic war subjects serves to instill an unquestionable sense of duty, happiness and honor in laying down one's life on the altar of one's nation, said Vesna Pesic in conclusion.

Pesic goes on to say that the textbooks leave no dilemmas between life and death. The first chapters of the readers are devoted to entire conflicts, descriptions of mass suffering and killing.

Commentaries in schoolbooks tend to strengthen the warrior message with direct interpretations, and requests that the killing or message be "experienced'' (the suggested line to be taken is "admiration''), and that the emotions then be retold. The pupils are asked to learn in detail the course of a battle and its strategy, as if the matter pertained to military ("pre-military'') training. The 5th grade reader has a text "Enormous chunks of earth flew skywards'' (author: Stevan Jakovljevic, the excerpt is from the novel The Serbian Trilogy, p. 912) and describes a battle, after the attack of the Austro-Hungarian army on Serbia in 1914. The whole excerpt deals with details of the battle. Vesna Pesic quotes the "language'' of the weapons:

"Gun fire rattled... the corn bent under shrapnel... a great explosion was heard... enormous chunks of earth flew skywards, and our battery spewed steel left and right... our infantry was firing in a frenzy...''

The author then asks the pupils: "What impressed you most about this dangerous battle? How is the bravery of the three Serb soldiers who reconnoitered enemy positions from the top of the church steeple manifested? Find parts of the text in which the battle is mentioned most often... Which of the moments was the most terrifying?... Explain why the Serbian army made such great sacrifices in this battle...''

The composition of the textbooks, i.e., the amount of space devoted to certain problems, deserves special attention. For example, a 7th grade textbook (dealing with the 15th century to the mid 19th century period) devotes only 40 pages of a total of 156 pages to world and general History. This is repeated with the 8th grade textbook (44 pages out of 160). In the new textbooks national history accounts for 73% of the contents of the textbooks. The impression gained is that this approach to national history serves to isolate it from world events, rather than incorporate it into them.

The insufficient incorporation of national history into world history has the effect of creating a subconscious impression of this region as being the "umbilicus of the world.'' This impression is created with the presentation of events in History textbooks and General Science textbooks for the 3rd and 4th grades in primary school. The 3rd grade textbook cites the Battles of Cer and Kolubara and says the following: "These battles between Austro-Hungary and Serbia started the First World War.'' It is a fact that the First World War started in the first days of August 1914, while the Battle of Cer was fought from August 1220, and the battle of Kolubara was fought in December 1914. Apart from the factual mistake, the impression being created is that this region is fatal and that great world events start in and around it.

Judging by 3rd grade primary school textbooks, such shakeups also end here. If these lessons are read through carefully, we come across the following claim with regard to the end of WW1: "Austro-Hungary and Germany put down their arms after Bulgaria surrendered (to the Serb army which was coming from the Thessaloniki front author's note) and the WW1 ended in 1918.'' In this way, ten-year-olds, who have not been given a world framework of the event, will reach the conclusion that the key conflict of WW1 was between Serbia on the one side and Bulgaria, Germany and Austro-Hungary on the other, and that thanks to the Serb victory after the breakthrough at the Salonika front, the First World War came to an end.

The textbooks mentioned so far, reflect the ideological confusion we live in, and are the result of joining together disparate elements. The new national awareness has been grafted mechanically onto the leftovers of the "unexpurgated'' old interpretations, so that the final idea behind the mix is not easy to understand.

The 5th grade History textbook was written at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall, but in the latest edition (1992), the old division of historical periods has remained untouched. The new era thus starts 70 years ago, and in it "the greater part of humanity continues to live in a Capitalist society, while the other half, of which we are part, continues to build a Socialist society.''

Examples of the old ideology can be found in the terminology. The most glaring example is the use of the term bourgeoisie, which in the previous 50year period acquired a negative connotation.

Apart from bourgeoisie, the term capitalism also comes in for rebukes. For example, instead of explaining the 19th century, the textbook claims that Asia and Africa were "forcefully included in world capitalism, its values and shortcomings.'' Instead of explaining the great economic crises, which would help pupils understand some of the fundamental processes in the world, capitalism as a system is derided: "The basic reasons for the crisis of Capitalism lie in the contradiction between work and capital and the discrepancy between production and consumption.'' Similar categories are used to explain Fascism. Instead of approaching the phenomenon in the most obvious way, the textbooks say that Fascism is the most "backward system'' and that it is supported by "backward stratas of society,'' since, it is for them a way of "suppressing the strong workers' movement,'' so that in order "to protect Capitalism, they turned to Fascism.''

The new ideology has been applied to relationships between the Yugoslav nations. The Yugoslav dimension has been suppressed in 8th grade textbooks, often with factual mistakes which were necessary to decrease the importance of the Yugoslav movement. There is no special lesson on Croatia, so that the place of neighboring nations is taken by Bulgaria, Romania and Albania. Most of the SerboCroatian links in the second half of the 19th century have been omitted.

The idea that all our wars were just and liberating ones is explicitly stated in the General Science textbooks for the 2nd, 3rd and 4th grades of primary school. Later, in the 6th grade, in the first lesson which deals with the Old Slavs, a Byzantine source is cited, giving a racial characteristic. Old Slavs are: "Courteous to strangers and treat them as guests, taking them from place to place, wherever they wish to go. They do not keep their captives long, like other nations.'' Or: "They are not bad and they are not evildoers.'' And for the third time in the same lesson: "They set their prisoners of war free.''

The idea of a nation-as-victim, is close to the idea of the nation as being sinless and good, and is probably derived from the latter. General Science textbooks for the 3rd and 4th grades of primary school, press into the children's consciousness the awareness of the Serbian nation as a victim. In this way eight, nine and ten-year-olds are burdened with the idea that they belong to a nation which is being subjected to genocide, while at the same time, the terminology is not explained. It is said that the Serbs were "killed mercilessly by Fascists, that they were converted and forced to flee from their centuries-old hearths, and that entire families and villages disappeared.'' In the next lesson details on arrests, concentration camps and executions are repeated. Apart from the domestic traitors, all those nations which aided the enemy in the crimes are named, listing de facto, all the nations sharing this part of the earth. In the event that something is not clear, the children are advised to: "Read texts on genocide against the Serbs and other nations and nationalities. There are films on the subject and it is necessary to see them and talk about them.'' Those who do not see the films, will be helped by the textbook for 4th graders, i.e. children aged 910, which has a carefully made selection of very explicit photographs. Blood flows from the textbooks for older pupils. The 8th grade textbook abounds with photographs of mutilated people, even details in which Serbs were boiled alive in the cauldrons of Jasenovac concentration camp. These scenes surpass historical analysis. They belong to the field of social-pathological research.

The textbooks offer numerous explanations on how the current political situation came about. Exhaustive political lessons are to be found in the 8th grade Geography textbook, where they are completely out of context. This text gives a petty political review of Yugoslavia's past. It says, for e.g., that in the First Yugoslavia, the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes "had opposed religions'' and national goals. The Croats and Slovenes were not well disposed towards the Serbs (...) by creating Yugoslavia, the Croats and Slovenes, apart from liberating themselves from Austro Hungary, saved their ethnic territories from Italy and Austria, and even though they were defeated in the war, took their place among the victors and thus ensured the prerequisite conditions which enabled them later to create independent national states. This "geographical'' side of the Yugoslav problem fits in with the political stand expounded in the 8th grade History textbook.

The beginning of Yugoslavia's disintegration is placed in the year 1964, which, according to the author is confirmed by the Brioni plenum and the showdown with the minister of the interior, a Serb. The attitude to this event is very interesting. The author says that "a strong federal institution was broken then (such as exists in all civilized states).'' He goes on to say that "conditions were created for the realization of a well thought out scenario (inspired and aided by some foreign participants)

for the breaking up of the Yugoslav community,'' which is proved by the events in Kosovo in 1968, in Croatia in 196771, and Slovenia in 1969. "These events were topped off with the adoption of the new Constitution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1974,'' which was accepted "without protest by the subjugated and bureaucratized structures on the political scene in Serbia.'' Changes in this state of affairs took place in 1987, says the 8th grade History textbook. "At the 8th session of the League of Communists of Serbia, the concept which carried the day was the one which urged the democratization of society, a revision of the existing Constitution, the protection of Serbs and Montenegrins in Kosovo and Metohija and the setting up of a single Serbia in all its territory.'' The author goes on to say that with time, nationalism and separatism in Yugoslavia strengthened. "The Slovenian leadership took the initiative in this, especially from 1989, hinting at secession from Yugoslavia.'' It is interesting that the author believes that there were two vital factors for Yugoslavia's unity at the time: the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (SKJ) and the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA). That is why the enemy, "according to a previously drawn up plan decided on breaking up the first factor of unity the SKJ, and then the second, the JNA.'' According to the author this is the reason why the SKJ ceased to exist after the 14th congress, "thus destroying one of the factors for the preservation of Yugoslavia.'' It remains unclear if this should be regarded as the author's personal stand or that of the Ministry of Education.

With the disappearance of this integral factor, we arrived at general elections in all the republics in 1990. This did not resolve the crisis, says the author, "because the ultra right won in some republics. In this way, one totalitarian system was replaced by another.'' This is an example of the tasteless, boorish and inadmissible commenting of another republic's choice, in the still single state.

Children in 4th grade primary school are told that the Serbs were thrown out of the Croatian Constitution, that they were proclaimed a national minority and thus disfranchised. This is why the "Serbian people armed,'' while the JNA, the army of the still joint state, tried to protect them. "After being attacked and threatened, the Serbs had to protect themselves from new suffering and destruction. By accepting the enforced battle, the Serbs reached the belief that they too, just like others, had the right to decide on their fate.'' The war which then broke out is described as a national-religious one. Foreign enemies enter the fray.

The role of the Vatican is also given: "The Vatican's political role in the Yugoslav syndrome is also important. The battle against the Orthodox Church and Serbs is being conducted through the Catholic Church and its fanatical followers.'' In short: "The stand held by Serbia and Montenegro which did not agree to the disintegration of Yugoslavia, resulted in the anger and the revenge of the initiators and inspirators of the New World Order who were resolved to punish the disobedient,'' says the 8th grade History textbook.

The language used in the texts points to the unscrupulous politicization of education. These texts abound in xenophobia, scorn and hatred of neighboring nations, Europe, the world, and they are part of the propaganda system which made the war possible. Schoolbooks are not the place to continue with the war, even less for praising the Serbian leadership. By enforcing explicit political conclusions, these textbooks have lost their main raison d'etre, and that is education. This preoccupation with earlier historical experiences leaves the impression that the current events have followed directly from them.

Elusive Borders

The question which crops up, is what state do the pupils for whom the textbooks have been written, live in? Uncertainties over the state we live in, start in 3rd grade primary school, in which the pupils are taught that their fatherland is Serbia and that Belgrade is its capital (and not the capital of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia), and that it borders with Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro. This book was written in 1987, but changes weren't entered in later editions. When they reach 4th grade the pupils will learn that Serbia and Montenegro are in a confederation called Yugoslavia which borders with BH and Croatia. In order that these borders might be given veracity, they are called natural borders: "The Drina River is the natural boundary with BH, while the Danube is the border with Croatia and Romania.'' This leads to the conclusion that Yugoslavia borders with Croatia and Bosnia, i.e., that Yugoslavia recognizes the border on the Drina River and the Danube. This however, is denied in the 8th grade Geography textbook which claims that our neighboring countries are called the Former Yugoslav Republic of Croatia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

Political abstruseness has thus entered Geography. The problems are much more complicated than they seem at first glance, because in the lesson on "Serb lands outside Yugoslavia's borders'' entire paragraphs are devoted to geographical, economic and even tourist details pertaining to the Republic of Serb Krajina and the Serb Republic in BH, which have not been recognized by Yugoslavia. No explanations are given as to their relationship with the states of Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina or Yugoslavia, so that a less informed child might think that these Serb republics are also part of Yugoslavia.

Male-Female Relations

What to say of the presentation of differences between the sexes as set out in readers and primers? How does the model of sexual socialization change with the age of the pupils?

Compared to primers, male-female relations are presented to older pupils through professional rather than family relations. In this changed presentation of male-female relations, the male role has been more defined, with the male in the more dominant role, whereas women are presented as figures in the background.

Apart from the fact that women in readers are presented in a more professional role, than is the case with primers, the professions pursued by men in the readers are different. The greatest number of them are in the military or they are persons who handle weapons. These military professions are differentiated in the readers for older pupils. Men are also involved in professions which have traditionally been the male domain, such as sports.

The picture of the family is given more rarely in the readers than in the primers. The readers show pictures of mother and son, and not just father and son. However pictures showing father and daughter are still absent. The family model in readers is made up of the mother, father and son. This is the reason for the disproportionate number of male and female children in a family.

In spite of the above mentioned differences in the approach to sexes in primers and readers, these changes are not heading towards more modern concepts of these relations. There are still easily recognizable patriarchal role models in male-female relations which the school upholds instead of helping change them.