The time my Teacher made me stand in front of the classroom to lead the Pledge of Allegiance

I wanted to talk about this event that happened to me when I was in the sixth grade with my school Teacher and class.

Like most Jehovah’s Witnesses, we were told that we should not salute the flag or be patriotic in anyway and also voting was looked down upon. Basically, being "neutral" was the best course of action in every day life, including even giving an opinion about who we think should be Governor, President, Senator, etc.

 

Being a young boy growing up in the Jehovah’s Witness organization I believed that it was the truth. You are led to believe that the end of the world is coming, that in the near future Armageddon is going to come and destroy all the nations and anyone in the organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses will survive Armageddon and live in paradise. 

Now in order to understand why I did not salute the flag and why I was so stuck to my beliefs you have to understand what happened to me as a child and my family.

When I was in the fourth grade my brother passed away. He was three years younger than me and it was devastating to my family because he was born sick which I can go into another blog post. So when he died we were all left to pick up the pieces. Everyone around us told us that we would see him in the New World. We were inculcated that when the end would come and we were in paradise, we would  see him again. All we had to do was devote our lives to the organization and to Jehovah. As a young kid I believed all of that. And I stuck to those beliefs; I thought the world was evil, and saluting the flag would make me part of the world. Being a Jehovah's Witness, being picked on or singled out during a class event was real to me. And as I will describe below, it led to me taking the truth too seriously.

Going back to what happened to me in sixth grade, I had already told my teacher that I was not going to salute the Flag. The teacher instead one day made me stand in front of the whole class and they were to follow me along in saluting the flag and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. And I just stood there. I did not recite the Pledge of Allegiance or put my hand over my heart. Another student had to step in and finish for me. The teacher knew what she was doing. She wanted to force me into saluting the flag, either by shaming, pressuring me or whatever her reason was. And this made my resolve to serve the organization and Jehovah even more. I believe that was I being picked on because I was a Jehovah’s Witness. So to me that was evidence that it was the true religion.

Now this is a message to my teacher and the other Teachers who are in education and dealing with a Jehovah’s Witness child: do not push them to do something that they do not want to. Because their parents will use that as the reason it is the true religion because they are being picked on, and they develop a persecution complex.  I never told my parents or my mother about this event. I internalized all of it to myself and convinced myself that I was in the truth because of events like that in my life. 

When you find out other events like the Malawi and Mexico dilemma, how people in different part of the world had to deal with life or death situations because of their beliefs in Jehovah's Witness ideology, while at the same time in another part of the world, the organization turned a blind eye just for convenience, it really makes you sick. It is disgusting what the Organization of Jehovah's Witnesses has done in the name of Jehovah. The hypocrisy is staggering.

Thank you for reading.

Daniel G