The recent controversy over a Scottish textbook, where a photograph of a 'dancing girl' with a bare torso was deemed inappropriate and subsequently restored after public outrage, is not merely a trivial cultural skirmish. It is a textbook case in the erosion of societal resilience, a distraction from more pressing strategic concerns. The initial removal of the image, a common practice in the name of sensitivity, reveals a deeper vulnerability: a population conditioned to react to symbols rather than substance.
Our adversaries in hostile state actors and non-state groups note such incidents. They catalogue them. They weaponise them.
They understand that a society divided by trivialities is a society unprepared for real threats. The restoration of the image, while a victory for common sense, does not rectify the underlying weakness. We must treat cultural debates as part of the broader hybrid warfare landscape.
Every concession to ideological pressure is a chip off our strategic armour. The procurement of textbooks, the oversight of educational content, these are not separate from defence policy. They are components of national resilience.
The fact that a single photograph could command national attention, consuming news cycles and public discourse, indicates a misallocation of cognitive resources. While we focus on dancing girls, potential adversaries are studying our supply chains, our infrastructure, our cyber vulnerabilities. This is a threat vector we cannot ignore.
The strategic pivot must be towards hardening our societal will, not against external aggression first, but against internal fracturing. The textbook incident is a warning: we are fighting a battle for perception, and we are losing ground. Every distraction, every manufactured controversy, is a gift to those who wish us harm.
The restoration of the image is a tactical win, but the war for strategic coherence continues.
