|
|
        
|
 |
Malala's alphabet
by Thanos Kalamidas
2012-10-19 10:47:21 |
| Print - Comment - Send to a Friend - More from this Author |
   
 |
Now it is official and signed with two bullets. The worst enemy is not tanks, airplanes and submarines; the worst enemy is education. And this is happening for centuries. The worst enemy for dictators and invaders. The first target in their agenda has always been education. And is always the same, less education, controlled education, controlled information.
What a fourteen year-old school girl did to the “freedom fighters” Taliban that demanded the sacrifice her life as punishment? In her little community she campaigned to the girls’ right for an education. Her right to become a better person, a better mother, a better citizen. But this better person terrified the “freedom fighter” because she asked too much, she asked for freedom. The fourteen year-old crimes were included in two words, rights and education. But according to the Taliban and the rest of the dictators and invaders of this world the word s rights and education are evil. The right to have rights belongs only to the few. The right to education belongs only to the holy.
And the sad part is that they do all that in the name of freedom. Amazing but one of their basic arguments is that it is their right to want people without rights. The Bible, the Koran and I don’t know what else have always been convenient excuses. The truth is that they have one and only one aim, absolute power that surrounds the few and they want the rest obedience without will and opinion. And education stops that.
The first thing any invasion army has done is to close the schools and try to change education. The first thing the Nazis did in occupational France and Greece was to reform education accordingly to their needs; the first thing Hitler did in Germany when he came into power was to change the education system. The Nazi movement started with burning books. The first resistance in Germany against Hitler started in the universities. If you don’t know the story of the “White Rose”, check history books. The French resistance in France started from the schools and the Greek resistance to the ottoman occupation for four hundred years started and rose in schools. The first thing Franco did in Spain was to change all the heads of the education institutions and change the system and the uprising of the polytechnic in Athens marked the end of the seven-year dictatorship. It was the French Universities in the end of 1960s to rebel and demand a change and the American the first to campaign against the Vietnam war. Always education institutes.
Even now in the rise of the 21st century all these monsters target education. From the KKK in USA, to the Greek Neo-Nazis of the Golden Dawn to the Taliban all of them blame for all the “evils” education and they target fourteen year-old girls.
Malala Yousafzai has become a martyr and a symbol this moment but she shouldn’t be either. Malala should be a normal fourteen year-old girl who wants exactly the same things all fourteen year-olds all around the world want, freedom of expression and the right to an education. There is nothing in that that would excuse her symbolism and martyrdom. On the contrary there is a crime not only against a fourteen year-old girl but a crime against humanity from those monsters that dare call themselves “freedom fighters” and they should be punished as that. As common criminals.
Malala Yousafzai’s story is not new, it has been making headlines for days and the latest news was her transport to England for further operations and reconstruction of her face but every time I wanted to write something about it I was feeling so angry I was afraid anger would make me cross the line but again this morning looking at the photos of the fourteen year-old I found it hard to believe that anybody would try to kill her just because she wanted to learn , I could not get it how an ideology or a religion fanatism could blind people so much to kill a fourteen year-old because she was holding books. And talking about religion and especially about the Taliban there is something I have always said and beloved, there is nothing wrong with all the holy books that in their fundamentals teach love and equality, the wrongs start with the people who think that they know what these books “really” want to say and they preach that. And I don’t want to be misunderstood, this applies to all religions is just that the Taliban have become the latest example and to my opinion one of the worst.
Education and especially educating the youth is our best weapon to fight fascism, prejudice and racism; education is the best weapon democracy has and this is why states and global institutions should invest to instead of banks and wars.
Ovi+Education ovi+society Ovi+environment Ovi+culture Thanos_Kalamidas Ovi |
|
| Print - Comment - Send to a Friend - More from this Author |
|
|
|
Newsletter
Subscribe
Contact
Search
