2023-08-25 22:32:22
Dressed in military uniform and subjected to military discipline for one or two weeks. This is how dozens of children and young people spend the summer. During those days, they call themselves cadets. They get up at seven in the morning with a reveille call, learn to parade and to train, pay homage to the flag and, in some cases, carry out exercises with compressed air weapons, known as ‘airsoft’.
Historical memory in textbooks: “They dedicate more space to the stages of the Civil War than to the repression”
Further
“It is a camp for them to see what a different life is like than the one they have daily, [cómo es] a pseudo-military life”, explains Pepe Cuesta, organizer of the Young Infants camp, which welcomes children and young people between the ages of eleven and 21 in Murcia with the aim of “awakening in young people a sporting vocation with an admiration for” the Armed Forces, pick up the activity website. Cuesta maintains that this activity “is not a camp to make soldiers or soldiers.” “They are not soldiers, they are children, and that is how we treat them,” he insists.
Los Tercios de Lezo is another of the camps that calls itself military-oriented that is being held these days. In this case, the activities are carried out in the province of Valencia. Most of its instructors have passed or are currently linked to the Army. Dionisio Ruiz, one of its managers, maintains that in this type of activity “values such as loyalty, spirit of sacrifice, teamwork, respect for colleagues and self-respect are taught.”
Following a model extended in the United States, the offer of this type of camps has been expanding in our country. With a simple search on the internet it is easy to find half a dozen children’s colonies that have a marked military character. The organization of these camps is very similar. The day starts very early. Self defense and first aid classes are held. Military instruction lessons are also introduced so that those registered learn to parade and form.
In some camps they also incorporate history classes from “some hero of the Spanish Army,” says Ruiz. In addition, the program includes sports activities such as rappelling or tours of a military track with different obstacles. And on the last day, the participants show their parents what they have learned, with a joint military parade and a tribute to the flag, according to Cuesta.
Reviewing some of the brochures that are available on the web, it is observed that in some of these camps there is a commitment to “practical teaching” of the use of weapons. At the El Gran Capitán civic-military orientation camp, according to the program that publish on their website “precision shooter notions, especially gun safety rules and methods”. They clarify that all the artifacts that are used will be ‘airsoft’ and attendees can be between 11 and 21 years old. elDiario.es has tried to contact the organizers of these colonies, without having received a response for the moment.
Families attracted by “military discipline”
In the Tercios de Lezo they also make “weapon simulations with ‘airsoft’, as Ruiz explains. This activity is only carried out for three hours and attendees who “bring weapons” from their homes participate in it. “They throw a maximum of 20 balls each. They are tactical exercises”, reports the instructor. The price of all military camps is not public. For those who have disclosed the cost of this activity, the rate is around 600 euros a week with full board.
The educator and psychologist Jaume Funes believes that this vacation model can serve “to calm down parents”, but he does not believe that it is a “useful measure for kids”. “These camps are the opposite of summer camps”, points out the research director of the Bofill Foundation, Mónica Nadal, who recalls that in the US this type of activity has been consolidated for a profile of “troubled children” with parents who “feel They don’t know how to control them.”
Although from the associations or organizations that promote this type of camps it is warned that they are not corrective activities, the organizer of Young Infants recognizes that in 60% of the cases the families resort to their neighborhoods attracted “by military discipline”. However, they aspire to welcome kids who like sports and may feel attracted to military life or any other body of the State security forces. another quarry of assistants are the young relatives military, police or civil guards.
A camp “at the whistle” will not change a child
Using this type of activity as a disciplinary element is “a very serious mistake,” warns Nadal. This sociologist maintains that for conflicting profiles “we should analyze” the problem that causes young people “not to submit to family dynamics.” And she adds: “You shouldn’t think that wearing [a un niño] to a camp that works at the blow of a whistle it will return it to you changed. 15 days don’t change anyone’s life.”
During the first days, it is difficult for the young people to adapt to the dynamics of these camps. “It is a different change because in the institutes there is no discipline,” stresses Cuesta, who insists that with this type of activity they only seek for attendees to “have fun and learn values.” three years agothe Government warned about this leisure model.
The Youth Institute (Injuve) came to ensure that it “deplores” this type of camp. For this reason, with Pablo Iglesias still in charge of the Ministry of Social Rights, to which Injuve is attached, this body expressed its concern to the autonomous communities – in charge of supervising summer camp licenses. “Being private initiatives, it did not have much room for action,” they indicate from the department managed by Ione Belarra. At that time, the only thing they could do was “verify that no camp of this type was financed with money from the government or from European funds.”
With a militaristic spirit and in which discipline plays a crucial role, Nadal considers that this model of activities constitutes “a reactionary commitment to social changes.” He supposes, says Enrique Díez, a professor at the University of León, a “recovery of a deeply patriarchal and hyper masculinized model.” Along the same lines, this teacher reports that the military ideology “fosters” a social feeling of “need for the Armed Forces.” For their part, the organizations that promote them defend themselves. “There is nothing of indoctrination,” says Ruiz.
#week #military #uniform #shouting #cadet #learning #parade