“A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.”

– Edward Abbey

COMMENT | Readers of my column understand that I despise any kind of state initiatives to foster “patriotism” in young people.

What the state attempts to do has nothing to do with “patriotism”, which is an odious concept to begin with, but to instil propaganda in young people so that they would support systems which maintain the political class of the country.

Of course, the Perikatan Nasional (PN) government would want to revive “national service”, which was the most hair-brained scheme of the government that came up with it.

It is pointless going over the deaths, mismanagement, cronyism and corruption scandals that mired this government experiment in its original iteration because this would mean we would also have to wade through the various other state propaganda organs that hamper the intellectual and emotional development of young people in this country.

These programmes exist to brainwash young people into thinking that the government is a benign entity that should be supported because – depending on the quality and efficacy of said programmes – governments bring some sort of benefit to their lives. Whatever they receive in terms of experience or skill sets is built upon a foundation of propaganda.

This propaganda worms its way into young people and they conflate political parties with the independent institutions of government. They do not think of government institutions as independent, but rather as an extension of political parties. They may not articulate it as such, but it is all there in how they express what they think of the government and its role.

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