15.11.2005 The way we played in fascists

In September I was invited by the Karelian branch of Youth Human Rights Group to give a few lessons to the pupils of the 8th and 9th forms of Petrozavodsk schools. The themes of the lessons touched such problems as racism, xenophobia, fascism, modern neo-fascism organization, values of different cultures and tolerance.
The most important question was asked by one boy: УWhy do you tell us about it?Ф And he did a right thing asking the question. Because you can doubt whether a teacher is right or weather you need it, whether you waste your time or not listening to the teacher. And you have some doubts, it is worth testing: to listen to, to ask, to have a look at. The main thing is to begin to associate with people, to show your interests and to get to know interests of others. To understand your aims and the aims of others, who are beside you, to understand opportunities and to reach the aims together.
I saw each class in front of me for the first time in my life and I had to make every pupil active and participate in a discussion- to evaluate, to think it over, and to discover. Everybody was ready to play, to put everything away and to start to discuss.
The level of knowledge of the problems varied. In one class the children associated fascism with Mussolini, with the Nazi party, concentration camps. In some classes the spectrum wasnТt so broad Ц as a rule, the pupils remembered about the Second World War. In other classes the pupils showed better knowledge Ц fascism as ideology, political regime, historical and social phenomena. Only one boy from two classes of the same form had heard a word УtoleranceФ before. The pupils from other classes knew this word and understood its meaning, but oftener they revealed the psychological contents but not social.
The game is one of good ways of teaching: children, grown-ups, pupils play with a great pleasure. The participants were offered situation conditions and provocation elements. I saw three different ways of pupilsТ behavior in the situation: it could be obedient sticking to the rules, using the rules creatively (for example, adding some conditions or adapting the rules according to the interests), or violating the rules. By means of games, through experiencing an offered role the pupils understood the theme, the problem.
In one of the games the pupils had to play roles of citizens of a country with a discriminative regime : one group had unlimited number of opportunities and rights in making laws, the other group had to distribute the unlimited number of professions which donТt require qualifications. УLegislators, having some privileges, used it fully or limited them. In one case the pupils broke up into two groups that wrote two different laws Ц the first one was discriminating and the second one was democratic. In the group that was discriminated the children distributed professions quite and then did routine matters: drawing, coloring geometric figures. It should be mentioned that in this scenario nobody tried to break the rules, for example, to announce a revolution, to initiate talks and so on. It gave me an occasion to speak about authorities, monitoring about different methods of influencing on peoplesТ behavior. Tension that appeared during the games surveyed into changing roles and into discussing experience and feelings.
In other game the children had to find a common language and to overcome speaking barriers between people with different cultural backgrounds. In this case the sides surrendered without fight or tried to reach results.
The game turned into discussions and for me it was important to speak about problems that mean a lot for social thinking and for young people actions. For example, the fascism theme could be developed in a historical direction (describing events, chronology), or from the point of view of values (assessment, points of view, thoughts); it could be used for ideology influence or for up-bringing. Speaking about historic events, we discussed technologies that was used and is being used today. IТd like to give some guidelines of our discussion Уhistoric event-topics for discussionsФ:
- creating a mass army in the Nazi Germany Ц technologies of influencing on peopleТs actions;
- distributing racism in the society Ц methods of influencing on peopleТs points of views;
- the HitlerТs phenomenon Ц technologies of creating authority and opportunities of leaders to manage;
- Symbols and ideas in modern youth fascism movements - methods of manipulating young peopleТs behavior.
What about lessons about tolerance, I was surprised that the pupils donТt associate the terms Уour-strangerФ with other social and cultural groups. For them the barriers of the school are supposed to be a symbol of security and they associate Уa strangerФ that tries to break the rules. The pupils raised the problem Уpeople from CaucasusФ. But sometimes the reaction was inadequate, the main contents of which was full of cliches from the Mass Media.
УThe standardФ is the main term that was in the center of all discussions about cultural differences. The pupils defended their rights to eat, to wear the way they want and their other habits- they called it УnormalФ, but everything another Ц not normalФ. The meeting of theirФnormalФ with УstrangerТs normalФ gave good results.
In some philosophical interpretations the number of claims of tolerance is very high. Tolerance is supposed to be a tolerant attitude plus admitting something strange that is different to what we get used to. From my point of view, such understanding is ideal and Utopian. Does anybody of grown-ups have such a virtue? Can we offer such УstandardФ to other people, for example, the to the pupils? In my opinion, tolerance can be accompanied by different feelings: from indifference and restraint to curiosity and delightness. Realizing tolerance begins with an ability to see differences, to admit their right for existing; tolerance means an ability to live beside something УdifferentФ, even strange and incomprehensible.
Belousova M. P., candidate of social science, a collaborator of Social researchers Center, The Social Institute, St.-Petersburg.