With the "Train for Life", the ministers Gelmini La Russa and introduce high school courses in military practice. On the basis of its experience of youth, our loyal reader, a Belgrade addresses an open letter to ministers. Jasmina Radivojevic , Milan October 1, 2010
Dear Ministers Gelmini and La Russa,
I am writing this open letter about your joint project called "Train for Life "and to the Protocol on you subscribed.
I was deeply shocked by your decision to introduce this content militarists in Italian high school and I will explain why.
I come from Yugoslavia, specifically from Belgrade. I belong to the generation of 1966 and so I was a pioneer of Titus. The system of Yugoslavia, as well as that of Israel, had adopted a policy of total defense of the people. It was in the military service is mandatory and regular military exercises in the population, but also in an extensive formal education on the defense of the homeland. Since last year of primary school was in school curricula at the national level, in all republics and autonomous regions of Yugoslavia, an area called "First Aid" in the last year of the medium becomes "Total People's Defence and Civil Protection ". But first we had to overcome years of the "First Aid" techniques to extract the poison of a snake bite, the famous Esmark bandage, to give mouth to mouth, CPR, and so on ... we love this subject, I must admit, it gave us a sense of adventure, we enjoyed a lot to heal each other and simulate stories, with laughter that accompanied it.
All, however, expect the most important moment, the use of a gun.
It came, too. We practice with the Mauser M-48, an old rifle, weighing 4 kg and a length of about 1 meter. He was Yugoslav production and was the most ever sold in the different friendly countries and within them are slaughtered. But this time we did not know. We did not know that our well-being also depended on the weapons sold and by which others were massacred. Years later we discovered to our cost ... The other would build on our well being, skin, and the wheel of fortune keeps turning ...
do not know if we seemed to play partisans and Nazis, the game we always did as children, only this time it was done with real guns, but I remember we liked.
We girls had a crazy fear that the gun, when firing, we remove the shoulder, because we felt to keep him as still as possible because it tended strongly back and if you were not careful the shoulder it could even break!
emotion was great to go with the class on the shooting range to the target and pull out of town. We had to lie down on special mats in a row, with their ears plugged with headphones. We supplied a load of 5 bullets and shoot them, we had to upload another 5. I did everything and was surprised when I was called by the professor and a military. I shot better than all pupils in the school. I could not believe. They invited me to participate in competition shooting in my hometown. I forgot the date and did not go. The professor was annoyed to death and deprived me of the good that I had earned by shooting.
high school for 4 years we have studied the various doctrines military: from the "Art of War" Sun Tzu of China to Carl von Clausewitz and all the strategies of popular defense of Yugoslavia, clearly inspired by partisan, thanks to which we were the only country in Europe to have freed himself. This filled us with pride.
It also continued with the use of the gun, the gun and also the hand grenade. In the first two kept my skills constantly. With the grenade I had the same luck and I nearly did blow up the professor! I was not brought, they told me ...
We were unaware that all that we learned we needed in the coming years to better slay each us in a terrible civil war. I'm not there I took part, fortunately, but many of my friends, of various ethnic groups, yes. Some I've never seen again.
In this sense, Dear Ministers, I think your wrong decision, even if you move in good faith.
kids do not need to know how to shoot better understanding of the armed forces or volunteer or to get closer to the Red Cross. The militarization of the school, sooner or later leads to the militarization of society. Take the example of the model I have described. Or that the Israeli is even harder than what was once Yugoslavia. And we see what is the Israeli reality ...
A dear friend, Nebojsa Milosavljevic, current mayor of Blace, a town in southern Serbia, in his autobiography "In a bizarre war of desperation," which describes his participation in the war in Kosovo, where he was called to arms , says: "Since children were trained to handle the rifle, the same as today, in full maturity, use in a real war! It is perhaps the first thing it has produced? To the point that this war is but a trivial (a) the effect of the unprecedented real-socialist practices, due to the fact that instead of receiving an education on democratic values, we have made practical content militarists. And Perhaps the epilogue is entitled to the militaristic conception of politics and society, that I have served here and now so paradoxical? (Kosovo, June 14, 1999).
There are many ways to bring the kids to volunteer and civil protection. And most of all Peace.
not the time nor von Clausewitz nor of the shooting with the gun, even air. It's time to build peace. With solidarity and dialogue. Starting from their home and school.
