The idea, and the threat it seeks to represent, is not new. Nor is the move as a smoke bomb, on the same day that the government represses teachers and retirees in front of Congress, and a nationwide teacher strike takes place. “By decision of the national government, a bill will be sent to modify articles 11 and 126 of the National Education Law, with the aim of punishing indoctrination in schools,” announced spokesperson Manuel Adorni in another of his appearances. bombastic at a press conference. “In addition to this, the Ministry of Human Capital is going to be in charge of making available a channel so that parents and students can report indoctrination and political activity that does not respect freedom of expression. In short, they will be able to report when they do not feel that their right to education is being respected,” he added as a personal conclusion. The 0-800 to report “ideological inculcation” in schools had already been launched with no practical effect but with the same stridency by Mauricio Macri in 2015, and before in the City, during his government. And it was also an idea from the current Secretary of University Policies, whom many met after his post in X last month: “If they suffer from ideological persecution in a public or private university, if you witness (sic) indoctrination in a class at your university or if you are a victim of harassment for your ideas, report it to: [email protected]”, Alejandro Álvarez expressed on the social network X in his first management communication.
What is new from power is the open installation of a climate of ideological persecution and growing violence that is promoted by the national government, its information plants and its well-structured digital strategy, including an army of trolls. And it is in this new territory that an advertisement of this type is embedded, most dangerously. It had its previous construction, with a notable moment in the participation of Javier Milei in a ceremony to begin classes at his former school, the ecclesiastic Cardinal Coppello. There, in the middle of a speech full of libertarian “indoctrination”, he had targeted a professor at the University of Belgrano for “persecuting as a liberal” Iñaki Gutiérrez, the influencer and questioned communications advisor to the President. Not only that: he asked the Secretary of Education, Carlos Torrendell, present there, and the Minister of Human Capital, Sandra Pettovello (area on which Education now depends), to “put in order the overflow that exists at the University of Belgrano.” Far from defending their professor, or at least some idea of university autonomy, the institution came out to clarify that the professor no longer works there and to praise the student in question.
The “second act” was a recent Malvinas video of an event in the town of Verónica, in the province of Buenos Aires, where a teacher’s phrase (“The media convinced society that going to war was good and that it was necessary”) provoked complaints from some of the ex-combatants present and controversy with others and, once their union membership was detected, it was then inserted into the machinery. of troll wars on networks. “It saddens us to see content in classrooms and in events tinged with ideological militancy,” was Adorni’s phrase in his conference that he linked to the video that went viral, and that he also cited.
What the law says
As usually happens with the announcements of the spokesperson, and of the President himself, those responsible for the areas of government involved find out about the new idea at the same time as the audience. Thus, Education admitted to Página/12 that there is no knowledge of when, how, with what parameters and support, the aforementioned “anti-indoctrination line” would be implemented, which would lead to accusations and ideological surveillance in schools.
Article 11 of the National Education Law defines the aims and objectives of the national educational policy. It mentions the ethical and democratic values of participation, freedom, cultural diversity, equality and “respect for the differences between people without admitting gender or any other type of discrimination.” The other article referred to, 126, points to the rights and duties of students, and there it speaks, among other things, of “respect for freedom of conscience.” Also the right to “participate in decision-making” about the institution and “integrate student centers, associations and clubs” within the framework of democratic life.
With Bolsonaro as a guide
“Milei copies Bolsonaro’s project and attempts to establish a totalitarian regime of control and censorship of academic freedom and thought,” criticized the deputy and general secretary of the CTA Hugo Yasky. He thus alluded to the right-wing movement “School without a Party”, which the Brazilian took as its banner when he took office, and which, among other things, promoted the prohibition of everything that resembles “gender ideology”, distance education, the return of subjects such as Moral and Civic Education –which did not exist there since the end of the dictatorship–. In his government he also encouraged – more similarities – educational vouchers. The former far-right president of the neighboring country has on more than one occasion encouraged students to film and denounce their teachers for “indoctrination.”
“The Education Law already guarantees that there is no need to indoctrinate. What in any case should be guaranteed now is that what Milei did at his school is not done,” observed former Minister of Education Daniel Filmus, recalling Milei’s speech at Coppello, full of rosaries against “communism,” ” “Marxism” and “the murderers in green scarves.”
“The announcement is a provocation because it comes hand in hand with a campaign to discredit public education at all levels,” said Amanda Martín, deputy general secretary of the Association of Secondary and Higher Education (Ademys) and a secondary and higher education teacher. superior. For the teacher, “to indoctrinate is to uncritically instill ideas” and that, as she stated, “does not happen in public education where plurality is guaranteed.”
For María Laura Torre, deputy secretary of Suteba, the announcement was “one more provocation that will not distract from the struggle” of the teachers who carried out a national strike. “It is a title for the platform that has to do with curtailing and taking away freedoms, but which no legislator is going to take seriously. And a very great gesture of violence, because while it was announced to us they were repressing us,” she warned.
The slogan of “indoctrination” is a classic among liberal banners and, it is to be hoped, it will continue to be used as a cliché by the government. The writer Martín Kohan had referred to this construction in a production at the University of the Arts (UNA), where he is also a teacher. “For ‘indoctrination’ to exist and work, at least two elements are needed: one, the authoritative and unidirectional word of the teacher. And another, the student whose head is hollow enough so that the teacher’s word is received passively, without doing anything with it,” he described. “And this is not what happens in the daily life of a classroom, nor does it justify a general characterization of the state of education in Argentina,” he concluded.
