Ignore Ignorance?

Educational outrage is nothing new, with the debate about which aspects of the world we should expose the young to at what age always bringing about heated debate. However, by 16, the time of sitting GCSE exams, most of the more controversial topics will have been covered at some stage in a child's education. The most recent controversy involving the UK educational system has been a Religious Studies AQA exam taken just this week. The offensive issue? A singular question:

'Explain briefly why some people are prejudiced against Jews?'

The question has been deemed offensive because it apparently suggests cases of anti-semitic prejudice are justified. Anti-semitism is a historic issue; the Crusades and Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice are just two historical and cultural examples of this being documented. For a student at GCSE it is particularly potent in the context of the other things studied for the examinations, most notably National Socialist Germany. The question does not imply that the majority of individuals hold this prejudice and, even more notably, the word prejudice has clearly negative connotations. As such, the claim that it is suggestive of a justification of anti-semitism seems somewhat unfounded.

Instead it seems that the boldness of the question is what may be truly stoking the controversy. It is rare that issues of unacceptable social division are addressed in such a straightforward and factual manner. It is a lot easier to render these views inexplicable, rather than acknowledging historical intolerance and conflict and the influence of this. However, it is only by making young people aware of these issues and more importantly aware that these views are wrong, in fact prejudiced, that long term future tolerance can be properly formed.

It's really a discredit to the 16 year-olds, charging towards adulthood and with the option of leaving education, that there is any assumption they could misconstrue the question to be indicative of anything other than a negative context. Instead we should surely be arming them with the knowledge to be able to fight prejudice, and the only way to do that is to confront it in mainstream life, particularly in education. 

The (New) Bush Doctrine

I've been thinking about rebooting this blog for quite some time and being a typical university student, the exam revision period appears to be the perfect opportunity. However, instead of launching straight back into current affairs again I'd like to venture briefly into the world of political biography. Or in this case, I'd like to argue, semi-fiction.

I was gifted W's memoir of his time in office, Decision Points, over the Christmas period. Although the book is coming up to 18 months old, in the run up to a fresh presidential stand off a review of the previous Republican administration's legacy seems topical. Bush's press team put a heavy emphasis at the time of release on its structure, with chapters covering a particular issue faced by Bush jnr during his presidency and how he responded to these. However, far beyond simply explaining his decision making process, Bush uses the chapter's to attempt a justification of the oft criticised judgements he came to. Although this succeeds in some cases, most notably for the war in Afghanistan, it fails miserably in others, particularly the 'enhanced interrogation' of suspected terrorists.

(copyright: Virgin Books)

A memoir is held to be a personal reflection on a series of events. Bush consistently refers to history, and particularly hindsight, but only two years after he left office had the view of history on his most important decisions had clearly not been established yet. As such the text depicts a Bush desperately trying to set the agenda of his legacy, most probably as a reaction to the controversy the majority of his decisions induced. It's notable that his closest contemporary, former Prime Minister Tony Blair, has barely commented on politics since he left office, never mind publishing literature on the topic of his own time in power.


Decision Points could have been a successful account of a President's use of judgement during some of the most difficult times in recent history. Instead, it is a premature, and unsuccessful, attempt at leveraging the debate over Bush's legacy, creating more criticism than it answers.