Education

People sometimes use the word education when in fact they mean brainwashing. I’m quite sure that most people who do that are not aware of the fact that they do so because they have been brainwashed themselves.

An example: “We should put more funding in education of African countries so that they can build a democracy from the bottom up”. Great idea, but how would this look in practice? Money would go to certain organizations, monitored by their funders according to Western standards. They would employ people to build education programs, benchmarked along Western thought, then train people to teach the deep truths that stand at the base our beautiful democracy, powered solely by light and guided by the highest ethics. Then, at the end, of course, they are checked for optimal performance.

Such structures provided by nation states are often seen as education. Mandatory programs, packages of concepts, knowledge that is transferred and tested, ranking the students into their overseeable life paths, may lift society to a different standard, but they are only a limited part, a controllable bit, of a collective learning process that could also be tuned to enlivening, respect and curiosity-driven exploration of whatever it is that the human mind is eager to find out. I would say real education starts at the point where teacher and student receive the space and the freedom to show each other their views on reality in all its colours.

Transmission of knowledge is important, but we should honour the pathway through which this occurs. That pathway would in my view be called mutual trust. The possibility that another might see something out there which you don’t, not because he or she is more or less capable or suitable to see it, but merely because that other stands on a different position. Exams and profiles undermine such trust.

To translate this back to the omnipotent West, perhaps indeed, there was a time when our long fought for ideals made sense and empowered society at large. But these ideals are starting to take the form of dogmas, heritage we should protect and keep in place with tighter rules and regulations. Our knowledge is growing old, expiring, starting to fail us and begging for fresh inputs from the same societies we have kept in the enlightened dark for centuries.

And yet more importantly, I think we should all allow our inner wise guys to sometimes shut up and listen to the voice of the weak and silent for a change. The fact that we still understand education in a top-down way, taking all these quality checks for granted, shows us a whole lot about our status quos. If only we could see that in the mirror…

Europe in times of anti-ism

The EU countries are voting for the future of the continent. In the Netherlands, one of the dominating questions in the matter is: are you pro or contra Europe? I was raised as a European and I my life is marked by transborder friendships. Regardless, I have recently started to doubt. Not because I actually doubt, but because the black and white question echoes in society and it has invaded my mind. Yet if I take some time to contemplate it, anti-Europeanism appears to me as one of the most ridiculous ideas of this time.

Some talks on this matter led me to believe that when a person says he is anti Europe, he usually doesn’t mean it that way. The person could mean that he or she is anti-capitalist or anti political power accumulation or anti politics in general, or maybe that he just hates some French guy he once met during holidays. Because of that, I’m sad to see that the pro or against debate rules so much of the political propaganda. It is an easy way to draw votes, no doubt. The concept of a European union brings forth a spectrum of collective emotion.

And does that not say enough? Doesn’t that show we have little other choice than to deal with each other the way family does? Europe has grown into a network of entangled stakes. The very parties we vote for could not operate if the European Union did not exist. They cannot interrupt its existence either. That would be comparable to a liver saying goodbye to a body because of all the crap it gives it. It would die. We need our neighbours as much as we need ourselves. Our union is a given of this time and we should be grateful for its vitality. That’s fragile.

I won’t advocate that everything is going smoothly. There have been bumps and mistakes. What I’m saying is that anti-Europeanism is a waste of thought. A fake debate. The more such virtual constructs occupy the public opinion, the less power people have.

Go vote one of these days and please do it because you believe in something better, not because you want the borders back.