Military education back in schools in Georgia

(BRUSSELS2) The phenomenon is truly worrying, as one of my Georgian colleagues wrote, Tamar Kickacheishvili. Military patriotism lessons will be given in Georgia public schools to children at all levels.

Here are some excerpts (in English, for once).

• Presidential proxy Manana Manjgaladze said military-patriotic education, part of a package of proposals by Saakashvili and Education Minister Dimitry Shashkin, would include training in civil defense and cultivating a martial spirit, “which historically was always in the nature of the Georgian people.” The ministry is still working on the curriculum for the course. Natia Jokhadze, director of the National Curriculum and Assessment Center, said the new curriculum will be ready by the fall and classes will start in the upcoming school year. She said military patriotism classes will be taught at every grade level and they will include civic participation, civil defense, and emergency situations.

• (...) In the Soviet era students were given military lessons, and some countries in the Commonwealth of Independent States still have the subject in their curricula. The textbook for those classes typically included praise for the Communist Party and its ideology. Aladashvili said it would be key that the new classes should not be used to indoctrinate students. “I think politics should not have any place in this modern military patriotism course. It should just be about patriotic souls.”

• Full article here

This project led by President Saakashvili, a year and a half after the war between Georgia and Russia, sounds like a return to good old Soviet habits. It also shows that the fake newspaper television Imedi TV showing a new Russian invasion reflects a desire of the Georgian power to instill a context of tension and fear in the population. Behavior judged irresponsible by the European Union.