We have failed … Most schools have failed to raise generations to live peacefully on earth. We have been unable to understand and respect others.
We haven’t just failed; we have also distorted everything. All the concepts are mislaid, and humans are divided into three groups: supporters, opponents, and the lost. How could we not be lost when everything we learn is mixed with lies? Everything we see is marked with bias, extremism, and propaganda.
I still remember the history book for ninth grade in Lebanon. First, it wasn’t a unified history book; each school taught it from a different perspective. From the perspective of its political party and sect. A book from which the Ministry of Education decided to remove an entire chapter on Palestine.
I grew up living through all the Israeli wars in my country, Lebanon… in the south… in my city, Saida. I grew up with images of massacres carved into my memory. I grew up with pictures of destruction no one could prevent engraved in my imagination. I grew up with one dream: to live in peace.
I grew up remembering every detail of the French Revolution and the importance of resistance, human rights, the United Nations, the Arab League, and the International Court of Justice. From the history book, I remember that Lebanon was one of the founding countries of these international organizations and that human rights, freedom, and democracy are slogans some nations repeat while others are deprived of them.
I grew up and traveled, meeting many teachers, intellectuals, and trainers, and everyone knew the details of the Holocaust that the Jews faced during World War II. Yet, no one knows a single detail or awareness about what we’ve lived through for over 70 years in the Middle East.
I grew up discovering that a lot of media is simply fake, biased, and serving a cruel agenda. I don’t know whose interests they serve. Are we living in a global conspiracy? What equality, rights, and duties are they talking about when all we see around us is oppression, destruction, and wars? Everything is manipulated on social media and mainstream news. You become a terrorist if you resist and ask for your rights, and the invader becomes the victim.
We all know the role social media plays in our day. These days, we are using it to share images of destruction, martyrs, tears, and blood being shed on humans. Life continues. Violence has become a routine; your child plays with soldiers and tanks, then enjoys war video games and watches movies and series focusing on killing, making the killer a hero.
The world leaders will continue to dance and sing. They haven’t met to stop this tragedy. When they decided to meet, they agreed to disagree. If this indicates anything, it suggests the failure of schools, educators, and those running it.
How do we allow the killing of children and the destruction of homes, hospitals, and places of worship today? Who are these rulers who control the destiny of other nations and spend money on weapons of mass destruction? What schools did they graduate from? Who will explain to me this mad policy that governs our lives?
How do we teach about Arab unity in schools when none of this unity exists? Why don’t we teach about the inability of Arabs to unite despite all of the points of similarity that should connect them? Divide and conquer has been allowed.
This ongoing war in several countries, specifically on Gaza, its people, its children, and its schools, teaches us one thing: that the truth never dies. It teaches us that this planet is not well because our curricula glorify rulers and praise them. Because our curricula are outdated and subject to policies that no one understands. Because our curricula still discriminate between the poor and the rich, between black and white, and between religions and sects. Because our curricula do not emphasize that pain is one and injustice is one, we are one because the curricula do not teach us to avoid past mistakes. Because history repeats itself, and the world sits and allows it.
I write from the heart; my tears fall as I search for a utopia where we can live in peace.
This blog was written one year ago, and you are all aware that my home country, Lebanon, has been living in a terrible war for three weeks, and we can’t do anything to stop it.