CONNECT: While the textbooks of today are far better than those of the past, one Junior Cert book offers an example of glaring political editorialising - its listing of 'rogue' states for military spending is propagandistic.
Compared with the grim and grinding tomes of a generation ago, today's secondary school textbooks are remarkably appealing and attractive. Across a wide range of subjects, their layout, design, use of photographs, diagrams, maps, charts and graphs, invariably in lush colour, are splendid.
Sure, for tweenies and young teenies, they still lack the raw allure of The Premiership, The Simpsons and Buffy The Vampire Slayer. They're not there yet and, let's face it, won't ever get there. They remain, after all, schoolbooks, their very designation inducing some natural resistance in all but the most appallingly nerdy kids. But contrast, for example, today's Junior Cert Living History 1 with the forbidding Stair-Sheanchas Éireann Cuid 1 of the 1960s and learning about ancient and mediaeval Ireland, the Reformation, the Plantations and so forth seems like consuming Coca-Cola instead of cod liver oil.
In fact, today's schoolbooks look like improved versions of well-produced children's encyclopaedias and are all the better for it. Perhaps the finest of all - in terms of attractiveness - is Geo, the textbook for Junior Cert geography. Written by teachers Liam Ashe and Kieran McCarthy, with illustrations by Daghda and Duo Design and editing and layout by Bookworks, it was first published in 1999 by Edco (The Educational Company). Geo is a gem.
Earthquakes, erosion, volcanoes, rivers, oceans, mountains, rocks, climate - all the facets of physical geography and their interactions - are excellently and colourfully explained. Likewise, many aspects of social geography: population, settlement, urbanisation, economic activity and, responsibly, economic inequality, are described and attractively illustrated. Certainly, when compared with Pickles's The World, a staple school text of the past, Geo is enticing and engaging.
It, appropriately for a geography book, even advertises its own environment-conscious credentials. "The paper used in this book comes from managed forests in Northern Europe. For every tree felled, at least one new tree is planted," it proclaims on its credits page. Beside this, the earnest if PR-ish "Approved Quality System" logo (that "Q" and correction mark combined) seems deserved. Geo is certainly aware, genial and handsome.
Until, that is, page 374. Casually leafing through it last week and struck by its many merits, chapter 13, the one on economic inequality - probably the planet's most pressing contemporary problem (hence the mega-shindig in South Africa) - includes a section titled "Militarism Today". "The world is armed to the teeth," it begins. "Global military spending is frightening, accounting for about 3 per cent of all global spending." Good stuff. Kids need to know the world they're inheriting.
But turning to the following page - the dreadful 374 - a typically attractive graphic grabs attention. It's headed: "Global Military Spending 1996". It's a customised bar chart with missiles of proportionate height showing the relative amounts spent by six categories of military powers: US, US Allies, Russia, China, Others and - here it is - "Rogues"! That's the single word designation: "Rogues". A bracketed notes beneath informs kids that "Rogues" are Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Cuba, North Korea and Sudan.
A further note identifies the source as the International Institute for Strategic Studies. The commas encasing "Rogues" indicate a calculated, if understated, desire to distance the graphic from its own label. None the less, what sort of propaganda is "Rogues" to be fed to kids? For the record, the US reportedly spent $264 billion on military matters in 1996; US Allies (surely a fluid grouping) spent $299 billion; Russia spent $48 billion; China $32 billion; Others $74 billion and the vile "Rogues" $12 billion.
School textbooks, no more than any other books, cannot be expected to be utterly free of propaganda. The dreary old Stair-Sheanchas Éireann mentioned above did have an Irish nationalist bias as history books in Britain contained a British imperial bias. No doubt, France, Germany, Russia, Italy, the US and other countries ran their own agendas too. But "Rogues" really is atavistic and dangerously editorialising. Its inclusion is a nasty scar on a generally excellent book.
The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) is no shrinking violet. The outfit, which was founded in 1958, describes itself on its own website as "the world's most prestigious, private, not-for-profit membership organisation for the study of political risk, international relations, military strategy, arms control, regional security and conflict resolution". Humility and understatement would not appear to be its strongest traits.
Warming to its view of itself, the IISS effects an abashed and coy tone to inform web readers that "over time, the institute's name has been associated with generous epithets: 'authoritative', 'canny', 'influential' and 'effective'." It doesn't specify the sources of the generous epithets but adds that "our aim as we continue to grow and prosper, is to be seen as an essential part of the infrastructure of civilised international affairs". That "civilised" begs questions, but that's another day's work.
Back in early June, the US Deputy Secretary of Defence, Paul Wolfowitz, addressed a gathering convened in Singapore by the IISS. The gig was called the "Asia Security Conference: The Shangri-La Dialogue" (no, I don't get that Shangri-La bit either!). Wolfowitz, as Bush hawks do nowadays, quoted Winston Churchill, and warned that the administration of which he is a part is "engaged in a relentless war on international terrorism" and spoke about "evil of this magnitude being loose in the world".
Of course, it was predictable stuff reflecting the Bush line on contemporary international politics. But the talk of "evil", like the designation "rogue" states, is dangerous language. Some may argue that it's plain-talking but it is so loaded and so bullishly certain of its rightness and naked power, that it should have no place in civilised international affairs. Certainly, the use of the term "Rogues" should have no place in a civilised geography textbook for those studying for the Junior Cert.
Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Cuba, North Korea or Sudan are not paragon states. But which states are? Is the designation of "Rogue" meant to imply a lack of virtue or a lack of legitimacy or lack of both, perhaps? Is it mere coincidence that the "Rogues" are either Muslim or communist states? If roguery were measured on violations of human rights would not many more states, including head honcho ones in the IISS, qualify for the ungenerous epithet? Anyway, when we read about ultra-Islamic schools teaching children about "infidels" and "jihad", we can rightly be alarmed and appalled. We call it dangerous propaganda and it is precisely that. When our own schools, in an otherwise exemplary textbook (at least on a cursory leaf-through) are being casually informed about named "Rogue" states, it's time to look at ourselves. Rogues, after all, bring punishment on themselves, don't they? There's still some grim stuff in kids' schoolbooks.