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WHAT IS AMERICA TEACHING ITS CHILDREN?

When American children see television footage of US bombings of other countries and distant peoples presented uncritically, they are likely to draw their own conclusions about why such attacks are acceptable. Do they become inured to war waged on 'other' people? Are the children being moulded to be racists and future patriots who will support every US military escapade that comes along? Are they being taught that violence is 'the answer'?

By K Shreeram & Rebecca Johns


June 1999

Even as Bill Clinton, in the wake of the Columbine High School massacre, was busy mouthing platitudes about 'hammer(ing) home to all the children of America that violence is wrong', he was escalating the bombing of Yugoslavia and Iraq.

Apparently he had never heard the old adage of child psychology - 'Children do what we do, not what we say.'

It was the same week that our six-year-old asked us if Clinton was going to bomb Florida and whether NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) was taking over the world.

As parents, we have the unenviable task of explaining to our children why our government keeps bombing other countries.

We began to deal with this dilemma last autumn, when the media world turned around the Bill and Monica soap opera. A significant part of the coverage dealt with the problem of explaining the 'immoral actions' of our president to our children. At that time, our son came up to me while I was reading the newspaper, which had a huge photo of Bill Clinton on the front page. 'That's Bill Clinton?' Nikhil asked.

'Yes,' I said.

'Dad, what did Bill Clinton do?' he asked.

'He bombed Sudan and Afghanistan.'

Nikhil walked away. That was not quite what he had expected to hear. He had heard his friends talk at school, and the US bombing was not the subject of those conversations.

He came back in a bit. 'No, that's not it. What else did he DO?'

The child psychologists and right-wing family valuers were in full bloom. 'It's all over television,' they ranted, 'how do we explain this immoral behaviour to our children?'

We explained what Clinton had done vis-a-vis Lewinsky.

'Clinton had sex with someone other than his partner and he lied about it to the country. But, we think it is something for Clinton, his partner Hillary and Monica Lewinsky to work out.'

Despite the concern of the child experts and media pundits, we had little difficulty explaining to our child what had occurred between Clinton and Lewinsky. Explaining the bombing of Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq and Yugoslavia has proved far more difficult a task.

'Why did Clinton bomb those countries?' Nikhil asked.

How does one explain to a child why our government bombed two countries halfway around the globe?

And, yes, the bombing of Afghanistan and Sudan was all over television, too, just as the war against Yugoslavia has been. But gone are the child development experts and the family valuers. No sage advice is forthcoming about how parents might explain this one to their kids. No talk about the immorality of killing, of violating international law, of the dishonest claims that our government bombed a chemical weapons plant. Nope. Clinton lying about Lewinsky is a moral outrage. Clinton lying about a pharmaceutical company in Sudan he had just levelled is not. Having extramarital sex is immoral; killing Afghans and Iraqis and Serbs is not.

What impact does the televised bombing of other countries and distant peoples - 'different' from 'us', have on children? When they see footage of US bombings presented uncritically as a video game pilots play, our kids likely draw their own conclusions about why such attacks are acceptable.

Do they become inured to war waged on 'other' people? Do they end up seeing those 'other' people as somewhat less than we are? Are we moulding our kids to be racists and future patriots who support every US military escapade that come along? Are we teaching them that violence is, indeed, 'the answer'?

We took Nikhil to the globe, showed him where Sudan and Afghanistan were. Told him that the United States was like a schoolyard bully, beating up on smaller, less powerful countries. 'It's like when a bully wants your toy and you won't give it to him and he beats you up and takes it. You understand?'

He nodded.

'That's what our government often does. And people die as a result.'

'Kids too?'

'Yes.'

He nodded again, teary-eyed.

'But people can change things. You remember the demonstration we went to months ago, protesting the bombing of Iraq?'

'Yah.'

'Well, we were trying to change things.'

If our son has nightmares these days they are likely about bombs and planes roaring overhead in the night. About why some kids are more valuable than others. About wondering which kind of kid he is, the valuable kind or the disposable kind.

The week after the bombings of Yugoslavia began, Nikhil came home from school and told us he had played a new game with his friends on the playground. The new game was called War. He asked me if I wanted to play. I said no.

'Why not, Mommy?' he said. 'We don't use guns, we must march around like this.' He goose-stepped around the kitchen.

'Because I don't like war, honey. War is not a game. War destroys people's homes and kills them,' I said sadly. I asked him if it was a new game, or if they had played it before. He said it was new.

'I guess your friends thought up this new game because the newspaper is full of stories about the war against Yugoslavia,' I said.

'Show me the newspaper,' he said.

Together we looked at the front page, which showed a bombed-out residential neighbourhood somewhere in Yugoslavia, with people picking through the rubble. Nikhil looked at it for a long time, then he went away.

After a little while, he came back.

'Bill Clinton is a dummy head,' he said. - Third World Network Features

About the writers: K Shreema is a freelance writer. Rebecca Johns is an assistant professor of Geography at the University of South Florida.

1914/99

 


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