It's what they do ...

 (Above: Charles Barsotti for The New Yorker).

Speaking of religion, as we must do on meditative Sundays, it didn't take long for Kevin Donnelly to stir the pot:

Mr Donnelly says religion does not have enough of a presence in Australia's "very secular curriculum", and that it needs to be taught "more effectively". "I'm not saying we should preach to everyone, but I would argue that the great religions of the world - whether it's Islam, whether it's Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism - they should be taught over the compulsory years of school," he said. 

The references to the other religions were, of course, window dressing, fig leaf covering, a tugging of the forelock and the foreskin before getting down to the real business at hand.

"...When you look at Parliaments around Australia - they all begin with the Lord's prayer. If you look at our constitution, the preamble actually talks about God. Now we are a western liberal democratic nation, our heritage is one that goes back to Judaic Christian tradition. If you look at when the Europeans first arrived in Australia, if you look at Federation for example in 1901 90% of Australians described themselves as Christians, so that you can't airbrush that from history - it has to be recognised."

Why on earth you'd want to head back to Federation or to 1788 as a guide to reforming and modernising the Australian education system must remain an arcane mystery, a bit like transubstantiation.

 Mr Donnelly is also making the argument that Australian education has lurched to the "cultural left". "The curriculum, as with most of the Western nations - England, America, New Zealand, Australia, over the last 20 or so years - they've adopted a curriculum that I call progressive, new age. On the left side, if you like," he said. 
 "I have argued in the past, as Minister Pyne has, that we need to get the balance right in terms of Asia, Indigenous, sustainability - that's OK - but the pendulum has swung too far towards what I call a politically correct view. "So we do need to emphasise the fact that we are a Western, liberal, democratic nation." (see Education reviewer Kevin Donnelly makes case for more religion to be taught in public schools, with video clip)

Such is his ideological zealotry, Donnelly doesn't even have the nous to purport an objectivity - you know, we will enter the review with open minds, and consider all the facts and come to a conclusion.

Instead he announced, on national television, his conclusions. Education was biased, there needed to be more Christianity rammed down young throats and all that PC stuff needed to be sorted.

What this has to do with improving Australia's skills in maths and science must remain an arcane mystery, a bit like a virgin birth.

Naturally this brought out all the usual sorts of suspects:

...Christian Schools Australia says Australia's Judeo-Christian heritage cannot be ignored. 
 "We need to make sure that in telling the story of Australia through history and various other curricula, we're not airbrushing the role Christians have played out of that story, it's just anathema to the whole idea of history that you don't tell part of the story in favour of another - that would be indoctrination," he said.


As for Donnelly's proposed changes, already announced prior to the bothersome business of actually conducting a review?

Mr Pyne says he would like the changes implemented in 2015.

There you go, done and dusted, more religion and less of this PC nonsense, and all of it in place by 2015, and don't you go bothering yourself with any of this actual review nonsense ...

In short, the country is now in the hands of a form of the Taliban ... and if you happen to be a subscriber to Harpers, why not have a read of Mujib Mashal's The Pious Spy, A Taliban intelligence chief's death and resurrection, a poignant insight into the follies endured by the people of Afghanistan in all their various shades and hues ...

But back to our own Taliban.

It might well be that Donnelly and Co. are just a handy smokescreen, a culture wars fog so that the government can go about its real deviant business, as argued by Lenore Taylor in The fog of culture wars is obscuring the facts ... but that's the point.

But at the same time, as well as obscuring the facts and not providing any effective or meaningful reforms to the education system, the Taliban have managed to take significant steps to disrupt and harm the secular, public school system, as witnessed by John Howard's expensive roll out of the chaplain system, endorsed and extended by the ostensibly atheist Julia Gillard's government:

Wallace expressed the concern that Rudd had only pledged $42.8 million to fund the school chaplaincy program to the end of 2011, and that further funding would be subject to a government review. He asked what the Government could offer by way of assurances beyond 2011, and whether she would guarantee that chaplaincy will remain tethered to "the Christian faith." 
 On this topic, the Prime Minister abandoned her reserve. She praised the school chaplaincy program ("I think it's a great program... I believe it's a great program") and went out of her way to assuage any fears about its future funding. 
 "The reason we're reviewing it," she explained, "is not because we're in any way concerned with the program not meeting its objectives - quite the reverse. We think it's been a great success and what we wanted to see for the future was how we could make sure that schools around the country were fairly benefiting from it." 
Although it had not escaped her notice just how popular this program was in "the great state of Queensland," Gillard insisted that the Government wanted to get "a lot of regional and rural schools involved in it." 
To leave Wallace and the ACL's constituents in no doubt, she once again affirmed, "I am very positive toward the continuation of this program, so in my mind it's getting it sustainable and bigger rather than looking to see the program whither away - I definitely do not want to see that." 
When Wallace pressed her for a second time about the chaplaincy program retaining "its unique flavour linked to the faith, the Christian faith," Gillard assured him that "it would continue as a chaplaincy program, with everything that that implies." Once again, she pointed to the specific example of Queensland, that "has long experience [of chaplaincy] and so really good links with the churches." (The Prime Minister puts her faith in chaplaincy)

So it goes. When confronted by the Taliban, many people see the need to fall in line.

Meanwhile, another front threatens Donnelly:

You can read the rest of Bianca Hall's piece here, and what fun to discover that along with your new Federation style 1901 emphasis on Christianity, and a world stripped of PC, you can make your own decisions about having a fag or three, or as many as would make Phillip Morris very happy, bless your little exploratory teenage hearts.

In Hall's piece, Donnelly comes up with that classic fudge:

Dr Donnelly said on Saturday he had never hidden his work for Phillip Morris ...

Which, when you think about it for a nano second, is a bit like someone saying that they had never hidden their work for the Taliban, or for fundamentalist Christians or for Kevin Andrews ...

... (he) had taken the project on condition he would have full editorial control over the content. ''It was more a resilience program,'' he said of the fact the material did not mention the health risks of smoking. ''A lot of the health impacts had been, and were being, covered very well.'' 
Announcing the curriculum review, Mr Pyne said the pair's appointment was ''an important step on the path to a world class national curriculum''. He did not mention that Dr Donnelly had worked as Liberal frontbencher Kevin Andrews' chief of staff in 2004 and 2005. 

Indeed. Hall also took the trouble to read through the incessant scribbles Donnelly has delivered to the media over the years:

In 2004, he wrote that ''many parents'' would consider homosexuality ''abnormal behaviour'', arguing: ''the reality is that gays, lesbians and same-sex couples with children are a very small minority and such groups do not represent the mainstream.'' 
He has also called for the Bible to be taught in state schools. 
But Dr Donnelly said his work would be independent. ''I've written a lot for the popular media but, really, I think people need to distinguish between the day-to-day political debates and what is a significant challenging, but sensitive, review of the curriculum,'' he said.

But, but, but, you billy goat, you just went  on national television and explained your agenda, a return to Federation 1901 and a stripping out of any of that PC malarkey ...

In this context, the pond couldn't help noting on a Saturday stroll that the scientology school around the corner, recipient of federal funding and therefore some handy new infrastructure, had attempted to remove identifying L Ron Hubbard material from the front gate:

Poignant really, just a trace left of 'piness' and 'L. Ron Hubba'.

Hubba hubba ...

The new emphasis was on getting them young:

But if you go online, here, happily you can still see L. Ron's Applied Scholastics front and centre:

Yep, there it is:

And if you like, following in the noble footsteps of Greg Hunt, you can read more about Applied Scholastics at its wiki here, while resting safe in the knowledge that the federal government has lent the school a helping hand.

Bet they didn't have Applied Scholastics in 1901.

The funny thing is that the Christians have shot themselves in the foot in this area, and they did it long ago, and the fact that Kevin Donnelly had to start off his quest by tugging the forelock to Islam and Hinduism and Buddhism shows the how and the why.

These days the federal government funds a cacophonous range of religious voices, from fundie Islamics to fundie Exclusive Brethren to L Ron Hubbard's methods of teaching, all because to get more for their own cult they had to conform to "fair dibs" notions and hand out some of the goodies to other cults.

It's not just the angry Sydney Anglicans and the Pellists with their paws out for cash, it's any one who can hang out a shingle. And next thing you know, a born again speaker in tongues is running gulags (in a most Xian way) for the federal government ..

As a result, trying to get this herd of cats to toe the Donnelly/Pyne line will require a handy array of loaves and fishes, and more than a few flagons of water ready to turn into wine.

According to Taylor:

A good culture war full of shouty generalisations can provide a government with very handy cover ...
...It’s easy to yell over someone who’s yelling back. It’s much harder to argue against scrutiny based on facts and real comparisons.

Sadly in terms of Australian education, exactly the opposite is true.

Donnelly has been yelling at everyone for years, and has now scored his reward, and if you're an ideologue it's terribly easy to argue against scrutiny based on facts and real comparisons. Facts and real comparisons rarely bother fundamentalists like Pyne

The lord will provide, just as She did in 1901 and as She does in Federal Parliament, and there's an end to the argument.

Uh huh, but the new Taliban, anxious to transport us back to 1901 or at least the 1950s, should bear in mind this anecdote about the old Taliban ...

In private, some members of the Taliban enjoyed the entertainments they attempted to deny the rest of us. One of the reasons Ahmadullah's bodyguards came over to my uncle's house so often was that he owned a VCR. They would enjoy a meal prepared by my aunts, then retire to watch whatever smuggled film was available. Sourcing these films required stealth and shrewdness, because cinema, music, and many other forms of art were banned. My uncle and his neighbourhood friends shared their collection of old movies and Hindi-language gulcheen, compilations of Bollywood sound tracks. But if they wanted the latest release, they had to get it from a red shipping container down the street. My uncle once asked me to pick up a movie from him there, saying I should be sure to tell the shopkeeper who sent me. The container was partitioned. In front was a kiosk with a small array of snacks and drinks. At the back of this kiosk was a little door, behind which, I assumed, lay the illicit film stash. I waited as the owner attended to another customer, like me a boy of about eleven.
"How much are the orange Anata biscuits?" the boy asked, pointing to a neat stack of boxes.
"We're out of Anatas," the shopkeeper responded.
Apparently this customer wasn't worth the trouble of keeping up appearances ...

No matter how you try to herd them, the secular cats and their corrupting ways will always keep turning up ...

(Below: and since we opened with a Charles Barsotti cartoon for The New Yorker, here's a Barsotti for writers of the masculine kind)