rezen: “Mr.Fetssum. But we all know the TRUTH. Don’t we? The dysfunctional nature of Western Education System AS APPLIED to the underdeveloped countries (for example) in the Continent of Africa was (and still is) simply a disaster. It is a very long and complex historical misdeed.”

Comment: Whether we like it or not, education is the key for a civilized society’s development and overall survival while western education is the standard by which many other universities around the world revolve their academic directions around. There is no doubt that every certificate is earned through hard work and consistency; PhDs have more education than the rest. They earned their value through long and tedious academic journeys to deserve respect, attention and good ears from society. I do believe, however, that education prepares you for diversified knowledge through reading other minds. Therefore, a person that does not read can hardly claim intellectual because the momentum of intellectualism depends on the motion of the mind which can only be achieved through reading books: the intellectualism stagnates otherwise at the certification level of the academic relationship, meaning that one becomes limited to the specialized education earned at school which may only be useable for survival through specified professionalism.

Certified intellectualism stagnates unless one uses it as a foundation for acquiring more knowledge through reading. Reading plays the most essential role in shaping intellectualism and creativity out of an educated mind. We have a big problem in this area my dear people and that is why many of us act up as if we know more than the others and refuse to learn from the capable minds in our communities.

In so stating, it only takes few minutes to spot an uneducated mind as much as it takes that long spotting an educated person that does not read. One of the symptoms is luck of substance; confidence and intellectual flow and resilience (flexibility) that can only be achieved through reading other minds. Enquibating knowledge to the Self in the flip of the coin is waste of opportunity because knowledge is useless unless shared and used for the betterment of a given society.

Apparently, little knowledge is very dangerous indeed, as we have seen it in our country where an idiot bosses an intellect by deliberate arrangement or a high school graduate/a freshman/sophomore runs high level positions (Afwerki, Kisha, etc) thinking one knows it all and is doing it right.

A person expresses one’s intellectual-allergy or ignorance by disrespecting Knowhow; by undermining the educated class of the society. We have seen from our communities how an uneducated person assumes educated just because one has learned speaking broken English in asylum: One does not even read Newspapers! That is not enough sirs and madams! We have seen what such a mistake can do to a nation from the confused leaders at home who think they know a lot because of little knowledge. I do believe highly specialized-educated individuals should run a government for a better result.

kk:  “To me intellectual person is someone who act rationally, someone who relate things analyze things objectively before reaching to the conclusion. Education has a big role in developing that ability, but it is not the only way to acquire intelligence, life experiences can also teach you that. Achieving PHD doesn’t qualify you automatically be intellectual. Intellectualism has to be proven in the ground, others has to see that on you. There is no university in the world which can award intellectual degrees, that title can only be given by the people you interact with be it at work or any other activity you are involved in. We have a proverb (kab Mehros Aamero).”

Response: I agree that intellectualism got to radiate its substance to be felt in the atmosphere or get recognized beyond its trademark but PhD by itself is a special academic achievement earned by close and long attachment to education.

What is correct is that people can learn a lot from experience but they cannot intellectualize their knowledge without education. Personal experience can only help you deal with something immediate like how it helps animals to deal with their immediate environments; it cannot carry you out of your own fixation without blending the knowledge with other knowledge through intense reading practice.

You can learn a lot from the streets, for that matter but you will graduate very quickly with limited experience that monotonously recycles causing a lot of existential misery for life. There is no higher education in the streets, just the same thing again and again: 30 years of street life may probably produce one year worth of cumulative knowledge, the rest being waste. It actually gets very dangerous specially if street knowledge blends with arrogance and know-it-all attitude.

The best example here for me is some members of the class called “ASMARINO” that think WEDI SHUK knows it all based on Abashawl experience while their actions clearly reflect the concept FARA in view of civilized societies. Have you ever come across the phrasing ”Ane wedi Asmera eye”, “Asmarino Wedishuk Eyu” and “Wdishuk felat eyu” coming out of some of our people in argument? The mouth can say a lot, performance tells who a person was! There were special members of this classification though, that dignify the expression in all rounded civility, academia including information, decency, compassion, literature and art. All these beautiful brothers and sisters have been sacrificed in the struggle, disappeared in exile or passed away naturally.

An educated person in the other hand cannot prove intellectualism from within ones closed doors without out-radiating ideas and creativities that make a difference in society. Free-mindedness is the secret here in so far as creativity is concerned. The independent mind is the only mind that radiates its unique creativity or substance; that creates and stimulates existence through countless thought experiments. The other is disconnected from the inner self, only conditioned to reflect the mind of others. A captivated mind like this can hardly experience its own potential and individuality because it cannot: a master-mind navigates it to only reflect its creativities and concept of life. It serves as a relay between the master-mind and the universe.

I am sure Genet responded effectively to Rezen’s in “Are you proposing Africa should have “African education system”? What could that be? To me, I don’t think Western Education system has to do with anything. I think, it is all about individual mindset and whether a country in Africa is controlled by illiterates or not.:. “. Others such as MightyEmbasoyra, Meretse, aus 17 and Zufana did theirs as well overall needless to say that Sara gave us a good analysis on the anti-education system from practical experience. Thank you all for this, education, however, is common to the human race as being the only way of developing the mind and changing the conditions of a society. There is no white or black education but only education for all. Western education is therefore equally available and good for the universe; application is the problem!

“Dostoevsky’s observation that consciousness was the “greatest misfortune of man” makes sense in the absence of spirituality. As great a quality as consciousness had been, it could also be a source of misery and conflict if it does not blend with humility because ego disconnects a conscious person from veracity. It impairs a person’s intelligence by misrepresenting his/her subjective logic as the ultimate standard and conclusion in the objective reality. This of course effectively down-sizes one’s potential for positive social effects. It drops the elite to the intelligence level of an ignorant.

A highly educated fundamentalist declares, “TO HAVE BEEN BORN IN ETHIOPIA AND OR BE AN ETHIOPIAN IS THE GREATEST GIFT GOD CAN GIVE YOU AND TO BE PROUD OF THAT IS THE GREATEST GIFT YOU CAN GIVE TO GOD” in an article posted in an Ethiopian web sites on 11/1/04.

Analyzing the full article in question, first of all pride is anti-spirituality because it is strongly affiliated by self-obsession. As Rousseau stated; “pride and self-love [are] two passions very different in their nature and in their effects. Self-love is a natural sentiment which prompts every animal to watch over its own conservation. Pride is only a relative, artificial sentiment born in society, a sentiment which prompts each individual to attach more importance to [the self] than to anyone else. “

I also think that pride is a sign of immaturity and slavery for ego. It is a derivative of irrational and inordinate self-esteem. What the author needed was dignity instead of pride because dignity is strength of character which helps us to deal with life, maturely: we survive the ups and downs of life through it. Pride on the other hand leads to a closed character that causes conflicts.

Furthermore, anything including life passes away but a dignified universal character stays forever. A stage is impossible without its prerequisite like there is no calculus without algebra. If one plays with time in algebra, time stagnates one in algebra. Calculus will not wait for a person in this situation to finish playing with time, the person does. Time can offer a person the opportunity to do something productive but does not give one a second chance to compensate for the effects of self deception after the limit is exhausted; the person’s life does. Nobody but you wait for you in so far as your human character is concerned. You outsmart your mind’s fixed habits through feedback thinking process, meaning that you can chose comparative existence but you must be ready to live your life getting even all the time. Whether he knew it or not, this was the author’s pride driven concept of existence.

Second, any self-advertisement appears to me as a display of discontent about the self. A genuine person’s quality is too visible to require self advertisement, should image be considered that important in life. For self advertisement to take place, the advertised entity must most probably be invisible and unreal. I consider the intellect’s open declaration of being a member of the best society in the human race as powerful resentment of one’s identity and a self-inflicted inferiority byzantine in relation to all other non-Ethiopian human beings. Excessively comparative individuals with such a syndrome appear to be in constant mindset of trying to prove their vitality to others because they neither can prove it practically nor do they honestly believe in their theory. They appear to be sick of themselves and can no longer contain their extraordinary emotions to themselves: they must explode the negative energy out for ventilation!

Ironically, the transmitter discloses the tragic and inferior nature of his country’s general situation in favor of nation building through “devoid of fundamentalism”, “respect of all ethnic groups”, and “peaceful coexistence”. A fundamentalist preaching against fundamentalism should have been a fluke. That mentality cannot be expected to respect other ethnic groups for peaceful coexistence in my opinion because a mind that narrows down pride to being one from his country certainly would not hesitate to further limit it to his ethnicity. With a little push from anyone taking such a person seriously, I expect this person to make his immediate family members as God’s best design of human beings and their home the final parking spot of ultimate pride.

He further defines “emotional stability”, “empathy” and “maturity” as necessary qualities of an effective leader. The problem, however, is that his level of ego cannot produce the maturity necessary for the emotional stability of his suggestion. The article’s content with all its limitations indirectly targets spirituality as the means of solution to social problems but the means finds itself nullified by the title’s egocentric arrogance: a contradictive conceptual yo-yo between universalistic content and individualistic appearance as though universalism is in individualist outfit! If only could Ethiopia express its feelings on her concrete conditions vis-à-vis her child’s highly charged emotions, and if mother nature could comment on his hypothesis.

Nothing in my opinion could have been stronger expression of illusion and better example of the works of ego, which denies human beings the true knowledge of themselves. Bad as it is worse is when the spiritual decadence magnetizes vulnerable Ethiopians in view of the intellect’s strong tendency to teach and to lead. It so seems like the net result of ego always turns out to be negative. A humorous associate thinks it could basically obliterate the chance of a person’s recovery, because a self-centered individual may be seriously ill to begin with.” Thank you