"But, you say, we destroy the most hallowed of relations, when we replace home education by social. And your education! Is not that also social, and determined by the social conditions under which you educate...? The Communists have not invented the intervention of society in education; they do but seek to alter the character of that intervention."
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
'Communist Manifesto', 1848
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
'Communist Manifesto', 1848
When you are promised a right and they turn it into an obligation, obviously something is wrong with the wording or the right itself. It is either that the right is not a right, or it is an obligation that is falsely called a right.
That is precisely the situation with the "right" to education in Bulgaria. Using constitutional legal pirouettes, sub-constitutional decrees and resolutions contrary to basic human rights and international law the Bulgarian state has launched a new attack against the people, parents and their children.
The newspaper 24 hours properly announced in its article title that children will be brought to school by police (Bulgarian). Initially, we thought it was a newspaper sensation. Then it turned out that the ability of government officials to think unlawfully and arbitrarily surpasses the journalistic pursuit of sensationalism.
The document which prompted this brief essay will be analyzed legally a bit later. Here we present only our reaction based on moral and ethical concerns. We are referring to
Establishing a mechanism for the collaboration of institutions for the tracking and retention in the education system of children and students in compulsory pre-school and school age
The terminology used is more than clear - TRACKING AND RETAINING IN THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM OF CHILDREN. Children will be sought out by all agencies of the state - the Regional Education Inspectorate, mayors, social workers to the "Social Assistance," ESGRAON (Unified State population Registration Service) - and will be tracked and retained, including with the help of the police. Yes, the Interior Ministry will actively engage in realizing the "right" of parents to surrender their children for compulsory education in public schools.
Of course, the proponents of this totalitarian, fascist-communist approach towards the rights of parents and children in the name of the corrupt and failed State 'education' will bring forward important arguments. They will speak about crime among the Roma and how it is the result of lack of education; they will argue about how important it is for the nation to cultivate genuine Bulgarian patriots and how this can be done only through compulsory public school.
A government that has so little respect for its citizens to treat the family as a producer of fodder for the schools supported by the taxes of these very parents is totalitarian. A totalitarian state that uses its power, intimidation, and coercion and uses the police to realize the right to education is a tyrannical police regime.
Bulgaria is turning into just such a regime. A tyrannical corrupt police state. A regime for which people are idiots who need to be protected from their own idiocy, and who have no right to family life and privacy, are not entitled to family affection, and whose children are not theirs but belong to the state.
If these qualifications seem too strong to some we present the full text of the Resolution № 373 of July 5, 2017, the Council of Ministers. The resolution also mandates the tracking and retention in the educational system, just as one totalitarian regime would track inmates in a concentration camp. Children not attending will be tracked, pursued, and covered (enrolled). Implementation, of course, is not just like a concentration camp because conditions in schools still are not like those in concentration camps. But the mentality behind such a government thinking that gave birth to such decisions of the Council of Ministers, is just like that of a tyrant who has a complete, unlimited power over his or her slaves and their offspring.
What will happen next is that the children of the small homeschooling community will be the first target of state-police squads in the tracking and retention of children into the system.
Gypsy families who do not value education will continue to not value education. In order to report activity, officials will go to search out those who are exemplary citizens, who care about their children and have opted for another form of education.
Not surprisingly the true spirit behind Resolution 373 of July 5, 2017, is the spirit of the arrogant, unlimited, unaccountable bureaucracy. This government bureaucracy exists for itself and there is nothing sacred, inviolable and human which it does not want to seize and subdue - including the Bulgarian family and the guaranteed freedom of private and family life.
Even the Roma case poses the same question regarding Resolution 373. Why, if the culture of an ethnic group does not have an interest in formal education, should the people of that ethnicity be forced to be educated? If what is good and right is being shoved down by force and threats of persecution and sanctions does it continue to be a genuine good and right? If we have an obligation to be educated only in the state model, why not change the Constitution to make it clear that in Bulgaria there is no freedom of education and that state-imposed education is an obligation? Then the law will clearly show that the ideology of public education is totalitarian, fascist and communist. Thus there will be no confusion and no sentimental expectations that a family can escape the iron-clad TRACKING AND RETENTION OF THE SYSTEM.
But the Bulgarian model "not to catch a cold and not get cheated" [an equivalent to "have the cake and eat it, too"] is visible in this public-legislative hypocrisy of constitutional and governmental proportion. We have a democracy, yet we have tyranny.
In a case where I defended a parent and his child, in which the parent had decided to educate the student at home because of violence in the compulsory public school, the government official of the Regional Inspectorate of Education literally screamed in response to the father's clearly reasoned argument as to why he would educate his son at home and away from their system:
"But he is our child!"
In conclusion, we will ask the most important question in this situation. Will parents react against this administrative arbitrariness of the unlimited power of the Council of Ministers and their power structures? Will democratically-minded people and organizations react to the next extreme, absurd administrative arbitrariness of the executive branch of the government?
Gypsy families who do not value education will continue to not value education. In order to report activity, officials will go to search out those who are exemplary citizens, who care about their children and have opted for another form of education.
Not surprisingly the true spirit behind Resolution 373 of July 5, 2017, is the spirit of the arrogant, unlimited, unaccountable bureaucracy. This government bureaucracy exists for itself and there is nothing sacred, inviolable and human which it does not want to seize and subdue - including the Bulgarian family and the guaranteed freedom of private and family life.
Even the Roma case poses the same question regarding Resolution 373. Why, if the culture of an ethnic group does not have an interest in formal education, should the people of that ethnicity be forced to be educated? If what is good and right is being shoved down by force and threats of persecution and sanctions does it continue to be a genuine good and right? If we have an obligation to be educated only in the state model, why not change the Constitution to make it clear that in Bulgaria there is no freedom of education and that state-imposed education is an obligation? Then the law will clearly show that the ideology of public education is totalitarian, fascist and communist. Thus there will be no confusion and no sentimental expectations that a family can escape the iron-clad TRACKING AND RETENTION OF THE SYSTEM.
But the Bulgarian model "not to catch a cold and not get cheated" [an equivalent to "have the cake and eat it, too"] is visible in this public-legislative hypocrisy of constitutional and governmental proportion. We have a democracy, yet we have tyranny.
In a case where I defended a parent and his child, in which the parent had decided to educate the student at home because of violence in the compulsory public school, the government official of the Regional Inspectorate of Education literally screamed in response to the father's clearly reasoned argument as to why he would educate his son at home and away from their system:
"But he is our child!"
In conclusion, we will ask the most important question in this situation. Will parents react against this administrative arbitrariness of the unlimited power of the Council of Ministers and their power structures? Will democratically-minded people and organizations react to the next extreme, absurd administrative arbitrariness of the executive branch of the government?
Bulgaria is a Police State: Your Children Are Government Property - LINKS
The original of this article in Bulgarian can be accessed here.
Resolution No. 373 of July 5, 2017, of the Council of Ministers of Bulgaria (in Bulgarian, emphasis ours)
Resolution No. 373 of July 5, 2017, of the Council of Ministers of Bulgaria (in Bulgarian, emphasis ours)
