Thanks for those links, johanvz.
Once the public comment phase has ended, we will consider the proposals and provide then a schools pledge to all schools.
In other words, Minister, it’s a foregone conclusion that your pledge will be instituted in one form or another and it’s only the wording that needs deciding? That’s a fine way of espousing and promoting democratic principles: we’ll do this pledge anyway because the people are too ill-informed to decide correctly but we’ll throw them a little bone in the form of input on the wording.
Moreover, all of that fancy verbal footwork deployed in defending the pledge misses the crux of the issue, namely that it is not the function of a pledge to educate. By all means, teach the injustices of the past in history class, even if this needs to be made a compulsory part of the curriculum. In contrast, the pledge will inevitably lose force and meaning through daily repetition and produce mostly good, obedient little robots. It is hardly like singing the national anthem because the latter is reserved for special occasions rather than done daily. Loyalty cannot be petitioned with such a mindless device. It is akin to “teaching” children mathematics by having them learn the multiplication tables by rote and leaving out the bit about the principles of multiplication. Rather, loyalty comes, if it does, through an understanding of the broader objectives.
Finally, as hypocritical and contradictory as it may sound, SA’s Constitution guarantees each individual the freedom to choose allegiances and associations, and this freedom must include the right to reject the very values the pledge seeks to uphold. While one would hope that such rejection is rare to non-existent, the pledge, through brainwashing, effectively diminishes the young individual’s later ability to choose by exerting even more peer pressure than society already does on him or her to “go along to get along.” In short, the pledge is a good way to discourage, if not destroy, individualism.
And we will continue to reject it forcefully.
'Luthon64