Reports to the Nation: Report #5: Education for Justice [Archives:2000/49/Reportage]

Dr. Abdulmageed Ghaleb Almikhlafi
Lecturer,
Sanaa University
Oppression and Education
Oppression is oppression, whether it is the product of domestic oppressive structures or of external dependent structures; it is a condition of retardation. Central to the relationship between oppression and education is the illiteracy of the Arab masses and its dehumanizing effects. The best source of information on this point is the work of Paulo Freire. If we look over Freire’s shoulder as he directly presents the characteristics of the typical illiterate, a similar picture of the Arab illiterate emerges. The same in authenticity, acceptance of justifying myths, attacks on and low levels of self-confidence, the acting out of norms of a strange culture, and the same culture of silence come into focus. Fatalism and belief in magic and the invulnerability of the master boss dominate the mind of the oppressed illiterate. The oppressed are not accorded the courtesy of dialogue. In its stead, they receive slogans and myth foisted upon them by organized propaganda. Control is maintained in part by what Freire chooses to call “a cultural invasion.” It gives them the oppressor’s vision of the world, and it is at the expense of their originality. It is important for the preservation of his dominion that the oppressed see reality with his view and not with theirs. The majority of the Arab masses are living on myths. Such myths include the myth that all can work who want to; that all who are not lazy can become entrepreneurs; that the street vendor is as much a businessman as the owner of a large factory; that there is class equality; that of the harmony of class interests; the myth of foreign aid; that of private property and the myth that the rebellion of the people is a sin against God. These myths are consciously spread by well-organized retarding propaganda campaigns. Their acceptance is necessary for the preservation of historical and cultural retardation and the delaying of transformation. They are a call to preserve dependent capitalism and to avoid revolution, the latter as unnecessary as it is sinful.
Intimately related to the myths, the type of culture, and the repressive structure is the kind of educational system provided to the oppressed. Freire names it the “banking” type, and its nature is suggested by the metaphor of the deposit of knowledge by the educator into the head of a passive student. This type of pedagogy implies a teacher as narrator and patient, listening “objects” called students. The educator sends out communications; the student receives them patiently, memorizes, catalogues, and stores them away. The student becomes an archivist. The process continues in a formal abstract manner, with no references to the existential experience of the student, and it is not related to praxis. It stifles creativity and any desire to transform. Education, in this view, is a gift from he who judges himself knowledgeable to those he judges do not know. The teacher is the active element who educates, knows, thinks, speaks, etc. The student is the passive element, on the receiving side of these activities. The enterprise is paternalistic help with sympathy given to the marginalized. Students get entangled in partial visions of reality, deal with one point or another, or with one problem or the other. They are taught to adjust to society, not to change it , let alone transform it. Hence the preservation of conditions of retardation.

Justice and Education:
The Arab masses want to live in a just society which is also efficient. They believe, in a general way, in freedom for the individual, but they also want order. They want also to reward merit. They want schools to be used not only as an instrument for increasing equality and therefore freedom, but also as a system for sorting, credentialing, and tracking, along with inculcating the values appropriate for such arrangements. However, if the Arab society is organized around the principle of merit only it will tend to accumulate differences in life chances and emancipatory opportunities among Arab citizens. For the Arab society to be a just society it must contribute most to the advantage of the oppressed and retarded. The structural relations in the Arab society must be ordered in such a way as to equalize access to and actual control of social, economic, cultural, educational, and political institutions. Thus, the need for a reorganization of the forces and relations of production is relevant to the question of restructuring the power base in the Arab society. Continuity, especially the degree of contiguity, in development or underdevelopment of the Arab Nation is determined by its power structure. This is relevant to justice as a condition of emancipation. The possibility of a meaningful transformation of the retarded society into an emancipated society, seems remote without a basic change in the power structure.
The role of education in eradicating inequalities between town and countryside, between physical and intellectual labor, between men and women, between the majority and the minority, is a very important role in changing that power structure. The educational systems in the Arab countries must be designed to bring the educational standards of farmers, workers, and office workers closer together as a first step in changing that power structure. Headway in the eradication of significant inequalities between town and countryside and between intellectual and physical work is dependent to a large extent on attaining sustained educational advances among the entire population, especially that of the rural areas. In other words, further progress toward social justice in the Arab nation is predominantly contingent on overcoming educational disparities between urban and rural inhabitants and between white-and blue-collar workers. The entire Arab educational system has to be objectively capable of helping to bring classes and social groupings closer together and to surmount social distinctions between town and countryside and between white-and blue-collar workers. Campaigns to eradicate public illiteracy have to be waged in every corner of the Arab world, putting in mind that 75% of the Arab population are still illiterate.
At the heart of the relationship between justice and education, is the equality of educational opportunity. The sad fact is that 75% of the Arab population do not enjoy that opportunity. Arabs can have no justice as the basis of their social life and as a condition of their emancipation until education has done its full work. Arabs cannot have political freedom or moral freedom until people’s powers and transformative potentials have been developed. This is very important because we find men and women with just and emanipatory causes are unable to state them in a way which might enable them to prevail. This is to say that there are mental forms of slavery, oppression, and retardation that are as real as the economic and the social forms. Arabs must pledge to destroy these forms. If they want human justice and emancipation, they must have education and educated people.

——
[archive-e:49-v:2000-y:2000-d:2000-12-04-p:./2000/iss49/report.htm]