A common feature of conversations about the trajectory Africa should take if it is to become an “El Dorado” is the suggestion that we should change our system of education.
The problem, though, is that most of those who drive this line of thinking have rarely done thorough research, nor have they diagnosed the problem surgically. They merely want to discard the education system given to us by our former colonizers.
The value of curiosity
The debate is hardly ever about what to keep, but more a case of getting hold of the basin and throwing everything away – even if that means “throwing the baby out with the bath water”.
If anything is going to cripple Africa as we head into the future, it is reasoning without facts and ignoring the possibility that there could be something that we don’t know. One great maxim education teaches is that “we didn’t know that we didn’t know”.
Much of the rigidity, bad governance, injustice, intolerance, bad policies – and the resultant instability which is so common on the African continent – is mainly a result of failing to realize that we know very little. We should be trying to catch up by being curious and inquisitive, especially regarding what we know – or think we know.
Growing up on traditional folklore tales mixed up with imported folk tales – termed “religious texts” – hasn’t helped us. It has made us a very confused crowd, drunk on absurdities and the mundane while failing to question the veracity of claims that fail any test of scrutiny.
We are thus a society that believes in miracles while other societies seek to conquer planets. Why don’t we consider television, radio, telecommunications, air and space travel, electricity, the internet, modern medicine and vaccines etc. to be the miracles of our time?
Biblical stories
To my mind, a brain that doesn’t question what sort of boat could hold a pair of all existing fauna – as we are told in the story of Noah – is insufficiently curious. For that matter, how were the animals harnessed and brought on board?
And what were some of these animals feeding on given that many species eat only other animals? Such a brain is either a master of hypocrisy or is regrettably absent-minded regarding details.
If torrential rains covered the whole world in fresh water, how do whales, sharks and other creatures that can only survive in salt water still exist today? Did the floods occur before or after continental drift? Even today we still discover new animal life. Did Noah have an inventory that modern zoology is yet to assemble?
Young people should be asking such questions and if they aren’t, they should be raised by those who have become wise with age.
Similar questions can be asked about other biblical stories – creation, the exodus, Job, Sodom and Gomorrah, David and Solomon, and many others.
Many of Africa’s problems stem from us believing lies and absurdities to be true. Some of these tales justify murder and even the annihilation of whole communities. If a religious text can normalize these things, is it easy to see them as being normal when they occur in our own time.
How we can progress
If we want to progress by building a generation of sober and rational citizens, we must begin by inculcating a culture in which people question what they hear.
There is no better place to start than with schoolchildren whose brains can be moulded while still raw and unburdened by the world’s problems.
There will then be people who do not see themselves through the narrow prism of clan, tribe and nation. They will instead see everyone as being human regardless of skin colour, race or dialect.
This should not mean that natural differences between us are ignored, but rather that we should recognize that there is more to us than that. Intelligent questioning will then reveal that although we differ, we still have much in common.
A society that attains that level of development is a society that won’t fall for phony political machinations. Many of the continent’s problems stem from an emphasis on very parochial selfish interests together with a failure to consider the paramountcy of the dignity of our fellow human beings.
As that great son of the soil Nelson Mandela once said ‘‘Education is the greatest weapon you can use to change the world’’.
Very, very true. But what we need is not just education. We need critical thinking education that trains the mind to ask hard, even disturbing questions, that can challenge long-held views and disturb the status quo.
By Lukyamuzi Joseph
The author is a journalist and Executive Director of Humanist Association for Leadership, Equity and Accountability (HALEA).