Vinay Harpalani: Promoting mindless compliance

Yesterday, I was glad to see Jonathan Shazar's column on biased media coverage of the war. Throughout America's "shock and awe" attack on Iraq, there has been little criticism of the president and virtually no mention of the innocent Iraqi lives he has placed at risk.

Watching this news coverage reminded me of another controversy, also covered by the media, from this past summer. In June 2002, a three-judge panel on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Pledge of Allegiance, which contains the words "under God," is an unconstitutional endorsement of religion. On the surface, the pledge issue, which centered on the separation of church and state, is not directly related to the U.S.-Iraq conflict. But biased and uncritical media perspectives characterized the two events, and in my own experiences, the shortsightedness on both issues is indelibly linked.

Much of the nation reacted fanatically when the Ninth Circuit judges struck down the words "under God" from the pledge. The Senate voted 99-0 to condemn the decision, and the media almost unanimously denounced the ruling, noting that the U.S. motto itself is "In God We Trust." Also, the Supreme Court has ruled that such public references to "God" had lost their meaning through rote repetition.

But if any word denotes religion, "God" does. And while most Americans don't even question or notice this obvious violation of secularity, I was forced to confront the pledge issue in the first grade.

Although I am now agnostic, I grew up in a Hindu family, where I learned about our religion's polytheistic traditions. Even at the age of six, I saw the contradiction between the pledge and my own views -- enough to discuss it with some of my classmates. Their response to my dilemma was pointed -- they told me that I would "go to hell" because I "did not believe in Jesus."

I knew then that the Supreme Court was wrong in its ruling. And even though a 1943 Supreme Court ruling prohibited public school students from being forced to say the pledge, I was not yet bold enough to go against the rest of my class. So I continued to recite the Pledge of Allegiance for many years.

Then, in 1991, my junior year of high school, the first Gulf War began. I was the only person of South Asian or Middle Eastern descent in most of my classes, and I was deridingly called "Saddam!" Although I had been born and raised in the U.S., I was associated with the most hated man in America.

At the time, I supported the liberation of Kuwait. But in part because of this incident, I began to ask more critical questions about America. The broader contradictions of the Pledge of Allegiance -- the obvious lack of "liberty and justice for all" -- became apparent, as did the subtle hypocrisy inherent in its recitation.

While America offers its citizens freedom of speech, some of our policies serve to curtail freedom of thought. By having children mindlessly recite the Pledge of Allegiance starting in kindergarten, the government indoctrinates them for an uncritical, robotic form of patriotism. Clearly, a 6-year-old cannot adequately consider the relative merits of American democracy versus other forms of government. And many people take America's greatness for granted so much so that they are unwilling to criticize our leaders.

That's why the media does not seriously question Bush's war rhetoric, in spite of massive, worldwide opposition to the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Much of the American public has been trained from day one to follow the government no matter what its stance.

There is nothing wrong with being religious or patriotic. Faith is important to many people, especially in these trying times. This is Jesus Week at Penn, and I support and encourage those who wish to celebrate their Christian faith. Many of the people I admire most hold deep religious convictions while also respecting my agnosticism.

But public education is not the place for religious expression, such as that contained in the Pledge of Allegiance. The phrase "under God" is disrespectful to those who do not accept a Judeo-Christian deity. This may seem trivial to some, but it is not, as I found out when I was 6 years old.

And patriotism, like religion, can be either a positive or negative force. It can effect social change, but it can also promote mindless compliance. The Pledge of Allegiance, as recited by a 6-year-old, is a form of indoctrination. It trains the public to na‹vely accept government rhetoric like the flawed logic of the Iraq invasion.

All U.S. citizens should take a critical look at America and seriously engage the possibility that our government is wrong -- in any situation. Otherwise, patriotism becomes meaningless, and even with the First Amendment, we are not that different from the totalitarian regime in Baghdad.

Vinay Harpalani is a Ph.D. candidate in Education and a Master's candidate in Bioethics from Newark, Del.

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