Govt Departments (2) – The Dept of Education

For as long as South Africans can remember, religion has been strongly and rigidly enforced in government schools – and not just ‘any’ religion, but Christianity coupled with the propaganda service of the SAPS’s Occult Unit. Many people now approaching their mid 40’s can remember visits to their schools by then Major Kobus Jonker who came to spread the gospel of fear about the hidden threat of “Satanists” hiding behind every bush.

20 years later, it is disturbing that in a country which is Constitutionally obligated to provide secular public schooling, where learners and their parents are free to adhere to or identify with the religious beliefs of their choice and to do so free of intimidation and shame and scapegoating, that this pattern has scarcely changed one iota from the vestige of the Old Regime.

Public schools, funded by tax money which is also contributed to by Pagans, Satanists and other occultists, still hold an ethos and culture firmly entrenched in Christian evangelicalist foundations, and the entire system – which is oppressive and threatening to those who do not identify with the religion, is resistant to change.

Further, the SAPS’s ORC unit, as well as former members of that unit still pay frequent visits to public schools to peddle their misunderstandings of occult belief systems and to wrongfully associate them with criminal acts and to slander religions which Christianity views as ‘competition’ – and they do so as Christian evangelists, unconstitutionally enjoying the full support and co-operation of the school staff as well as the Department of Education itself.

The Dept has in the recent past been increasingly more vocal in its persecution of non-Christian religions, particularly in the past two years, in which it has joined forces with what it calls “faith based organizations” – all of which happen to be of the Abrahamic affiliation (ie, Christianity, Judaism and Islam) to the exclusion of all others. Together, this conglomerate workgroup views occult beliefs as threatening competition which must be erradicated and prevented from having any kind of presence in the public school system – and in the past two years, the Dept has made statements to this very effect – most notably the article in 2013 in which Education MEC Barbara Creecy declared “war on Satanism in our schools”! The Dept’s utterances of late have been nothing short of hysterical.

More disturbingly, complaints to watchdog bodies such as the Press Ombudsman and Human Rights Commission on issues affecting the civil rights of Pagans and occultists have since the advent of the new Constitution in 1996, proved fruitless. Most recently, the SA HRC dismissed the complaints of several entities against the statements of MEC Creecy without reasonable explanation, leaving adherents of minority faiths in no doubt that they are in effect, second class citizens in a country with the most advanced impotent Constitution on Earth.

Unbelievably, the Department of Education – and along with it, the government of this county, appears to have forgotten the detail that it is not in the evangelism business, and that one of its mandates is to protect the secular interests of ALL its learners in defending them from discrimination or indoctrination in the classroom.

Just as the country is diverse and has diverse religious beliefs, public schools being a microcosm of the nation too have diverse beliefs represented among their student bodies. Why does the Department see it justified to force one religion on its students and then also enable that same religion to conduct a witch-hunt slash inquisition against other religions specifically not tolerated by that religion? Is the public school system a school – or a recruiting ground for Christian evangelists?

According to them, schools in South Africa are overflowing with “Satanists” and kids involved in “the occult”. Certain schools, particularly in rural areas ARE experiencing problems with children who have committed crimes and used the “the Devil made me do it” argument, reciting tell-tale signs that they are under the influence NOT of Satanist religion or even other Occult religion – but legend-trippers of the media-created myth of “Satanic Ritual Abuse” peddled by nobody besides Christian evangelists in the private sector, the SAPS’s ORC unit, and increasingly now by pundits of this myth in the Dept of Education itself.

Instead of concentrating on the real problem – that of hysteria resulting from ASSUMPTION based upon IGNORANCE and MISINFORMATION, the Department now appears focused on rallying the hysterics and applying them to the end of destroying all opposition to Christian religious indoctrination and the continued Christian domination of public schools.