Power to the oppressed

"What magic process turns evil lobby groups into friendly charities when the money comes from the state rather than from industry? Or is it just that industry is always evil and government is always benign?" asks The Filthy Smoker on http://devilskitchen.me.uk/2009/05/rob-by-name-rob-by-nature.html

Now we know from the Sometimes it's Peaceful blog that both BECTA (Badman) and Notschool (Heppell) are 'charities' and are given government money... Oh, pardon me, our money. The first promotes lots and lots of ICT, and the second promotes ICT for school-aged children that school, apparently, has given up on.

So, we have the government pushing yet more stuff at us that we may or may not want to do, but you bet your buns that the stuff they push now will become statutory in the future. In other words, we won't have any choice.

The government and it's false charities are oppressors, and we, the workers at the bottom of the economic triangle, are the oppressed.

Just to set this blog up, I will explain that I was kindly given 'The Pedagogy of the Oppressed' a book by Paolo Freire, a man my husband has quoted to me for some time. It's my turn to quote Paolo F. to you now.

"Any situation in which 'A' objectively exploits 'B' or hinders his and her pursuit of self-affirmation as a responsible person is one of oppression. Such a situation in itself constitutes violence, even when sweetened by false generosity, because it interferes with the individual's ontological and historical vocation to be more fully human."

Here, I think we have the key. We, the home educating people, are, as objects to bureaucracy, told how to look after our children or rather how to let other people look after them, how to live our lives (expending our days in work, naturally, as it keeps the elite among us in the position to which they have been accustomed), to surrender our little ones to school because that's the place where the truth is taught to them, or hidden from them, but they go on to learn to keep the elite in idle and rich comfort. No wonder the government resents home educators. Our children think for themselves. They observe the inequalities; they may ignite the revolution.

That is why our status quo cannot remain, isn't it, Mr. Badman? In case, we and our children see what you're up to. Your status quo, like those of the masters, will stay the same. Slimy objects like home educators cannot be allowed to challenge the oppressors neat and tidy little world, can we? We cannot speak for ourselves or determine our own course. Now, thanks to Every Child Matters, you're going to appropriate our very dreams and make them work for you too.

And, I would say in response to Mr. Heppell accusing Gill (Sometimes it's peaceful blogspot) of bullying him: "It is not the despised who initiate hatred, but those who despise. It is not those whose humanity is denied them who negate humankind, but those who denied that humanity (thus negating their own will as well)."

False generosity: Parents are allowed to educate their children at home, and we have no plans to interfere with that right (to paraphrase the government position). Oh, gee, thanks. Kind of you, I'm sure. Yet, how can lone home educating parents who once had income called, nattily, Income Support, be allowed to stay at home and educate these subversives who might one day lead the revolution against people who have too much? Well, change the law to make the lazy layabouts work and, if in sending them to work, you turf their kids into school, so much the better.

"The oppressors do not perceive their monopoly on having more as a privilege which dehumanizes others and themselves. They cannot see that, in the egoistic pursuit of having as a possessing class, they suffocate in their own possessions and no longer are; they merely have. For them, having more is an inalienable right, a right they acquired through their own 'effort,' with their 'courage to take risks.' If others do not have more, it is because they are incompetent and lazy, and worst of all is their unjustifiable ingratitude towards the 'generous gestures' of the dominant class. Precisely because they are 'ungrateful' and 'envious,' the oppressed are regarded as potential enemies who must be watched."

This explains all the CCTV, the Home Office scrutiny of phone calls and blogs and emails, and the government's championing of databases. Most of us are lazy, scrounging, dirty little layabouts who are enemies of the ruling class. We must be watched, and conquered through 'sloganizing' and being told how lucky we are to have jobs at all where we flag ourselves to death making some other geezers absolutely insanely rich.

The oppressed, in other Freire words, have been reduced to the status of things, and things have no voice. They exist merely to be used.

Next blog - Education of the oppressed.

The author of 'Power of the oppressed' would like to acknowledge the vital part that Paolo Freire's book, The Pedagogy of the Oppressed' has played in this blog. Thank you, Paolo, wherever you are.