Indoctrination

I was fairly suprised, or rather disapointed, when i heard that an american friend of mine, although not badly educated never actually learnd anything about "indoctrination" in her history-class. "Disapointed", because i consider indoctrination as an important part of the younger history.
You might ask now:"What does "indoctrination" mean?" - If that is the case i'll give you a short describtion of the meaning.
If you tell your siblings/childern/students/fans that the moslems/jews/christians/black people/white people/nazis/komunists are the bad guys, i'd say:"Congratulations, you have been taking part in indoctrination!". To be more specific: indoctrination means to teach some one a certain doctrine. Now there is the question, what indoctrination has to do with history, right?
Well...there once was a time, when childern were only taught three things: to obay superiors, not to question orders...and to hate jews. Yepp, i'm talking about Nazi-Germany. It was often asked, why the germans were so loyal to Hitler and the regime, the answere is quite simple. They were taught to be loyal from earliest childhood, not by their parents, the nazis just made sure that the young children spend most of their time with party functionaries, wether in school, where the teachers were functionaries, or in free-time activities, that were organized by the nazis.
When children are born, they are like an empty canvas and if all you ever paint on that canvas is a hack-cross, that canvas can't display anything except that hack-cross.
But why am i telling you this?
Today we have various conflicts around the world involving different groups of different backrounds, some of these groups are fragments of larger groups, that are none-agressive by themselves.
You all know of September 11.
Some time ago, on the annual day of that tragic day, there was a coloring book for children brought out, which contained pictures of Osama bin-Laden and Airplanes. Now what do we expect our children to learn from that? Do we really think that a six year old child can tell the difference between a moslem and an islamist? although this was probably made with the best intentions, to rember what happened at that day, but also remeber the canvas. If we keep teaching our children that evil comes from the east and when they grow up give them a weapon and send them to afghanistan or iran...what do you think how much peace will that bring to us? And whjat is more important, how much peace will it bring to our children?
I don't want to complain, or judge anyone, but as german i know whgere indoctrination can lead. Think of what i said and the next time a small child askes you about September 11, mind your words, for they might fall back on that child...