YOUTH IN PAWN

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20917, 23 September 1939, Page 13 (Supplement)

YOUTH IN PAWN

Children & Totalitarianism : Generation Enslaved

CHILDREN OF THE WORLD—a generation tragically enslaved to the vengeance, pride, and lust of militarism’s new aggressions—are emerging as the real hostages of war in the modern conquests by threat and by force. Totalitarianism is concerned not only with arms and the man, but with arms and the child. Dressing the infant in uniform, teaching him to drill and parade, arousing his admiration for the false glories of battle, preparing him to fight and to kill is only half of the totalitarian technique. The other half is the attempt to pervert the ideals of justice, humanity, and tolerance; to bring the youth to maturity despising the lessons of war’s futility which civilisation has laboriously learned. No one has ever counted all the children in the world, but there are well over 500,000,000. And it is regarded as probable that at least twenty-five per cent, of these are either drilling to build the forces of aggression, have lost their families in war, or have seen their homes destroyed, or live in nations where the tension of proximity to conflict, if not actual war, Gravely Affects Their Lives. For war today not only may demolish the nursery with bombs. Warmakers have learned to demolish the children themselves with false ideas. Today, it is not children that are playing with war. War is playing with children. Bred in this dictatorial atmosphere, no little Peterkin and Wilhelmine need ask about a “famous victory,” such as “The Battle of Blenheim” describes. Nor in many lands today would a Southey be permitted this ironic reply: “With fire and sword the country round Was wasted far and wide, And many a childing mother then, And new-born baby died; But things like that, you know, must be At every famous “victory.” Under the modern dictatorship, little Peterkins do not ask, “But what good came of it at last?” Nor do little Wilhelmines call battle “a wicked thing!” Totalitarian States teach their children to accept rather than to think; not to question, but to subscribe; not to shun barbarism—but to march. It is the plan for little Peterkin to bear arms and little Wilhelmine to bear armies. Peterkin and Wilhelmine found the soldier’s skull which led to their uqestions as they “sported on the green” during a warm summer evening. War came to these children at play, and so it comes to modern children. Mitsuo of Japan loves his country and his playtime just as other of the world’s children do. Nowadays, he is given holidays on which to prove his patriotism. On such days, he is one of 12,000,000 children who assemble to cheer and flag-wave Nipponese troops to victory in China—where they have already rendered homeless 500,000 little Chinese children. Playtime Has Taken On a New Meaning for 12-year-old Giovanni of Italy, too. His mother must send him .off in uniform to march with other boy-soldiers, to crawl on his stomach over rough terrain, gas mask securely fastened, miniature rifle in a grasp which might be wielding a butterfly net. Fourteen-year-old Josefina of Spain—whatever cause her parents may have espoused—loved her home and her family. But today her memory is of playmates killed, of a father unheard from in two years, of air raids and starvation. Little Mei Ling of Shanghai once looked into the sky to see the sun and the stars. She once watched for the birds which had become familiar as decorations on the screens in her home. Now Mei Ling turns in terror from the sky, “where no birds sing.” Now she stumbles through ruins, the dust of gunpowder and debris, to beg for a pan of rice.

ience Monitor) From even such isolated illustrations, it becomes obvious that totalitarianism victimises its own youth equally with the youth in countries against which its aggression is directed. The totalitarian child comes under the influence of his State even before birth. As part of its new “baby campaign,” the German Government has recently decreed that the country’s 1,500,000 childless couples are to pay a 40 per cent, income tax increase for remaining childless. Premier Mussolini, who wants 60,000,000 Italians by 1950, has offered “birth prizes,” special privileges to large families, holidays for married State employees, pay raises according to the number of children born to a family, marriage loans, and other inducements. Russia has predicted that its present population of 170,000,000 will jump to 300,000,000 by 1971. Having assumed responsibility for its birth, the totalitarian State early takes over responsibility for the Child’s Mental and Ethical Guidance. Whether the training is directed toward the “nation” as in Italy, the “race” as in Germany, or the “working class” as in Russia, its fundamental principle remains the same —not the State for man, but man for the State. As yet, the remaining democracies have not been forced to meet the bill for world aggression with the lives of their young people. Yet the cost of arms today may be theirs to bear tomorrow, even if human sacrifice is avoided and the impact of war ideology restrained. The Jack and Jills of Democracy are privileged to attend free schools where teachers are not merely puppets of a propaganda department. Democracy’s children learn that law and justice mean trial by peers and freedom of the courts, not secret prosecution, and the persecution of a minority because of race prejudice. Democracy teaches that truth is a two-edged sword, not a machine gun which mows down those who oppose the Government. Responsibility, as the children learn it, means responsibility to one’s best ideals, not merely to the State and the leader. Patriotism means building a better Nation in a better world, not marching to conquer others. And service means something more than military service. * Jack and Jill still learn arithmetic in terms of “if I had four apples,” and not “if I had four submarines.” Yet even in England conscription is on the eve of affecting the “men” of 20. Preparations for defence, including air raid precautions and city evacuation must necessarily have their imprint on the child. France, Switzerland, and a dozen other liberal States feel the same deep-rootei problem. And many are asking “if the four years of a World War could annihilate a generation, what must be the result of training youth for war from the cradle onward?” What must be the destiny, the mental outlook of a man at 30 whose Birth Was Forced By Militaristic Demands; whose chubby hand held a gun at eight; whose child mind was inspired to fight, to kill, to destroy at a time when life habita were being formed; whose natural idealism has been distorted to see war glamourised as, in itself, a noble purpose ? These are the questions which challenge a world reeking with the smoke of aggression. The drilling, marching, parading, the glorification of war are moulding the war monument of tomorrow from the children of today. Believers in the democratic ideal thus face a problem in which totalitarianism is sowing the wind, while the world’s children reap the whirlwind. The world turns to the ideals that have made democracy, that have given reign to the free spirit and safeguarded the heritage of individual liberty for the inspiration to cope with one of the gravest aspects of modern aggression.