New initiatives to boast national pride
Elections granted a larger majority to nationalists who push for measures aimed to increase national unity and re-consolidate Istalian identity
21 February 5115
ROMULA - The last elections were a success for the National Alliance and the Government led by Zeno Solenghi. The nationalist party has not only seen its majority in the Chamber of Deputies increase but has achieved the majority in all electoral districts as well as in the two Federal Communities where it firmly controls local presidencies and parliaments.
This result was an important confirmation for Prime Minister Solenghi who, having concluded the quick consultations with the President of the Chamber, was presented by the latter again as Prime Minister candidate, obtaining without problems the confidence of the parliament and then going to Quattroregni Palace to swear in the hands of the Emperor.
Building on this success, the Nationalist majority has announced a series of measures that the Government should implement in the coming months aimed to boast the national pride and re-consolidate Istalian identity and national unity.
Among these initiatives, a central role will be played by initiatives concerning schools and teaching: the Minister of Education of Culture has announced the adoption of a new National Curriculum, which in Istalia all schools without exception are obliged to follow, and the adoption of new textbooks for all compulsory educational cycles from primary school to high school for courses in history, Istalian literature, civics, art, philosophy and geography. Already with the restoration of the Empire the textbooks used under the Union had been progressively replaced by texts previously used until the fall of the Sixth Republic but from next year the new texts will not only obviously be updated, but there is no doubt that greater emphasis will be placed on the national and cultural unity of the country and on the millennial history of Istalia as a united nation. But another noteworthy change of the national curriculum, and which will also affect university education, will be the abandonment of measures linked to the local ethno-linguistic immersion and revival programs promoted in the early years of the first Union of Quanzar and Alaria and which they had also affected the schools. The Ministry has indicated that it will be the freedom of the regional authorities to institute local history and language classes in schools but their funding will be exclusively borne by the regions, with contributions from the respective Federal Community if agreed. Istalian will fully officially come back to be the language of instruction in the Istalian education system.
Again with regard to the national curriculum, the majority presented in parliament a bill aimed at establishing a single national curriculum for civics courses (political education) that all secondary schools must offer to students.
The same bill requires all pupils and students of any grade to learn and sing the national anthem when played in special occasions like national holidays and celebrations.
It was an initiative of the Government, a proposal by the Undersecretary for Culture Fiorenza De Marchi, the establishment of quarterly school cultural festivals, or three days that schools will have to dedicate each quarter to organize cultural and sport activities and events that all schools of all levels will have to organize with the active participation and involvement of students. The festivals may include sports competitions, recitals and theatrical activities, exhibitions as well as short training courses of various kinds, and will be enriched by stands managed by students who will be able to offer food, drinks or gadgets.
Although each school will have the freedom to choose the topic to be treated by each festival, the Ministry has nonetheless issued guidelines that promote initiatives aimed at increasing the sense of national unity and pride in Istalian culture, history and identity, themes that must be categorically respected on the occasion of important anniversaries.
Another initiative of the Government was to reorganization of public television, until now a collection of state-owned community and regional channels controlled by the government, by founding the Società Istaliana delle Reti Audiovisive Nazionali (Istalian Society of National Audiovisual Networks): SIRAN.
The new company will manage five national channels, SIRAN 1 (Generalist and family-oriented), SIRAN 2 (Generalist/Youth and urban programming) SIRAN 3 (Arts and culture programming) SIRAN NEWS (Non-stop rolling news) and SIRAN GIOVANI (Shows aimed at children and young teen), two channels of the Federal Communities, SIRAN SERRENTINA and SIRAN ALARIA (programming oriented towards the two Federal Communtiy), five regional channels, SIRAN FIDELIA/FERANO/TRIVENDITO/CISAVUGLI/NICOMA (each offering programming oriented towards their region partially in local language) and finally SIRAN MAJ (programming oriented towards the majatran minority partially in majatran language).
The new television company will be under the Ministry of Education and Culture which, however, has also issued programmatic guidelines for public television networks of an ethno-cultural nature owned and managed by the regions and the Federal Communities, imposing the obligation to offer at least one daily news service and two hours of general programming in Istalian language.
New directives have therefore been proposed by the nationalists regarding the measures concerning granting nationality: already today immigrants in the country must pass a test to gain nationality but the directives proposed by the nationalists propose that only regular immigrants, with a regular residence permit, will be able to take part in the test only after ten years in the country. As regards legal immigrant minors, however, the rules change according to the conditions of arrival and stay: minors who have completed the entire period of compulsory studies in Istalia or who arrived in Istalia before the age of 14 they will have automatically guaranteed the nationality once they have passed the high school maturity exam, while in the case of acquiring a professional license they will still have to take a test to acquire nationality but of a less demanding nature than the regular one; for minors who arrive in Istalia after the age of 14, on the other hand, they will be able to take the test five years after the acquisition of the high school diploma or a professional qualification and equally in a less demanding form than the regular one.
For the children of legal immigrants born in Istalia, on the other hand, citizenship will be automatically guaranteed at the end of lower middle school (14 years).
In any case, specific commissions of the Migratory Affairs Office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs will be responsible for evaluating the effective and healthy integration of minors into society. In the event of a negative assessment, however, investigations will be conducted on the families and further assistance for integration will instead be offered to the minor.
The new government guidelines, in fact, certainly do not impose forms of forced "instalianization" on immigrants (whoever becomes an Istalian citizen has the right to maintain language, culture and traditions in fact), but obviously require compliance with all Istalian laws and norms and therefore an adequate integration within the country's society and their communities of residence with particular attention to their children who, it is hoped, can become good citizens and productive members of society. You can in fact hear in the news from time to time bad news stories concerning parents and families who have punished, if not killed, children because they do not respect the traditions of their countries of origin and are too integrated into the Istalian society, especially families from countries of the so-called third world or with cultures very distant from the Istalian one or in general "western one".