CHAPTER NINE WITH RESPECT TO EDUCATION The education you provide your children is the single most important factor in the future of your country. Ignorant of the past, how can they be equipped to conquer the future. Indeed, without knowledge of the past, there can BE no significant future. And without learning there can be no knowledge. Your country has many people of remarkable intelligence and great potential, but intelligence if not aimed at a particular goal is like a wonderful book, lying uncut and unread. A book unread, a technology not harnessed, a song never heard, a bridge never built, may as well never have existed, save in the mind of some dreamer. It has no value. Your people have imagination, but to what end if not nurtured and funneled in a given direction? The joy of learning, the excitement of discovery, is something you cannot, must not, deprive your children of. If not them, then who in the future will build the roads, bridges, structures? It cannot be done with imagination alone. Architecture, engineering require more. Mathematics, for instance. Geometry, Calculus. If not them, then where will your future doctors and nurses come from? A desire to heal is useless without the discipline of medicine, pharmacology et al. Without adequate education, where will that knowledge come from? Without an understanding of the literature, poetry and philosophy of the past, with no exposure to grammar or logic, where will your future writers come from? Politicians need a grasp of history, their own and that of other lands, to avoid repeating the mistakes of history. Police need an understanding of the law in order to enforce it. But how can you enforce laws that have as yet not been written? And your teachers. Would you have them teach when there are no books? Can they stimulate young minds without tools? Your future scientists. Where will they learn their skills if you teach them only the mantra of the warrior? The mind is a magnificent gift. But without stimulation it will atrophy. The brain is a wondrous instrument, but requires honing to keep it sharp and functioning. And it is worthless if not used. Imagination is what great dreams, and great realities are made of, but without the correct stimulation, it has no significance. Would you really deprive your children of the wonders that the world of learning have to offer, and in so doing, condemn them forever to life in its present misery? I know you have your madrassah. But a madrassah is not a place of learning, rather of indoctrination in the narrowest confines of Islam, as decided and dictated by groups with extreme views of the teachings of the Koran. They permit no discussion, no discourse, no exchange of views. Their students learn by rote one subject and one subject only, which is confined to the distorted beliefs of the strictest, most extreme mullahs who have total control over what will or will not be disseminated. And so I say to you - no, I beg of you - Open your schools again. Let in the fresh air of ideas and let the warmth of enlightenment embrace your children. Let them discover the wonders of the mind, and let their imaginations soar, as they once did. They deserve no less than that. And until you do, there can be no real future for them. The knowledge and wisdom that education imparts, is the finest gift that you can bequeath to them. And to yourselves.

©2001 Y. Smidt, Las Vegas, NV, USA All Rights Reserved