As any good authoritarian knows, the march to fascism requires capturing the courts, the media, and the schools. History and social studies classrooms are of particular consequence because that’s where the nation’s past is taught.
The playbook is well-established. Under autocratic Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s national curriculum was revised in 2020 to exclude the contributions of Jewish Hungarians and prioritize right-wing nationalist views. Meanwhile, Russia’s Vladimir Putin has been hard at work erasing Ukraine’s heritage from children’s schoolbooks. He understands that rewriting the past is vital to waging his war of aggression: last year, he declared, “Wars are won not by commanders but by schoolteachers.”
Read Full Article »