Zia Yusuf, the Reform UK chairman (at the time) said, in the aftermath of the party's strong showing in the recent local elections, that young people were being taught to "hate their country", they needed a "sense of pride" about the UK, as he said his party's mission would be to "remoralise" young people.
It's 30 or so years since I was a teacher, and I've never taught in a primary school, so I have no idea what pupils are taught nowadays but common sense would suggest that hating their country isn't part of it. Nor is stimulating a sense of pride in their country. More likely is that teachers are performing their duties to open their students' minds through thoughtful examination and analysis of facts.
There are two issues here. Firstly factual accuracy and context; the job of education is not to close people's minds but to present and explore in a balanced way the history of your own country, say. But there is also the hidden truth that the United Kingdom is a multiracial and multicultural society and not all of a school's pupils will regard the UK as "their" country. Is it not reasonable that young people whose families have strong Asian heritage should be encouraged to have pride in the lands of their parents as well as the land in which they were born? I suppose I should take Yusuf at his word; he didn't say pride about the UK exclusively.
But why pride at all? I'm British, having been born here of British parents, but I can't honestly say I feel proud to be British, any more than to be a European or a citizen of the world. I don't remember at school the issue of pride in my country came up at all. Maybe I missed that class; my secondary school History teacher was the most unpleasant person who ever taught me, and I failed his subject miserably.
I could talk about football here but not all my readers are interested so I'll go for cricket instead. Remember Norman Tebbit and his "cricket test"? I think it was in the 1990s that he used the phrase to suggest that it was necessary for South Asian and other immigrants to the UK to support England against, say, India in a test match. If they "failed" the test, they were insufficiently assimilated (his word, not mine).
Of course it's not unreasonable to expect immigrants to respect the culture and values of a country in which they choose to live. To learn the language, abide by both laws and customs, absorb and understand the history of their new country and, above all, integrate. Maybe inter-marry. Retain pride in both old and new heritages.
I had begun floundering here, because immigration is such a complex and treacherous issue to debate. Then along came Emma Duncan. She is a regular columnist in the Times, where she writes mostly on economic issues from - in my opinion - a centre right perspective. Today she wrote about Parallel Histories, an educational charity. She describes their teaching of controversial history using a dual-narrative methodology. A teenager states "the repeated refusal by Palestinian groups to accept the existence of Israel is a major obstacle to peace. There cannot be a negotiation when one side refuses to accept the other's existence." The student is then required to change sides and articulate contrary views: "Israel has to be accountable for its actions. Until then there will be no peace, just a surrender and the people of Palestine will never accept surrender disguised as diplomacy."
This sounds to me a better type of education than dog whistles about pride and hate.
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