“To bridge the gap between the inability of the
reality and the ambition of hopes”… I stopped long before this phrase when I
was reading president Sisi speech in celebrating Science Day as I believe this
gap is the black hole absorbing any achievement or even any thinking of
achievement.
In my humble understanding of the expression, I
believe “inability of the reality” exceeds what is important of financial and
technical capabilities and difficult circumstances that have to do with the
educational and research process in Egypt to what is equally and perhaps more
important… I here mean values, morals, traditions, and behaviors; that system
including all those together and which was dismantled or bypassed… or as our folks
say became “empty” or having nothing useful inside.
Of course most of us know by heart or remember what
was said about morals like the poem verse saying “nations are nothing without
morals… should their morals decline, these nations will vanish”… and the one
saying “good manners are your key to a good soul… so train yourself to good
manners so that you can have a kind soul”… some may mock this “morals” thing either
because they consider it outdated and nothing but empty talking that never been
real on the ground… or because the word is more reiterated by those who do not
have morals… or for many other reasons unlimited to count.
However, I believe we are all invited to discuss the “inability
of the reality” in our universities, research centres and all positions
occupied by those who obtained the highest scientific degrees and academic
awards… also, other positions held by those who consider themselves, and the
society as well considers them, crème de la crème of the society.
This inability of the reality has to do first with the
inter-relations between professors, assistant professors, lecturers, assistant
lecturers and teaching assistants… also between all those and the library,
laboratory, disciplines of research and students.
And second, it has to do with the relation between
science and culture… and between them and the public affairs; meaning the society
problems on all levels… and how soon this thing of “staying in an ivory tower” will
come to an end… also, it is about when it is time to put an end to falling short
of fulfilling the academic duty.
Third, this inability of the reality has to do with
absence of connection and integration between what is supposed to be the main spots
of renaissance in any society; these are universities, libraries, academies and
schools of arts… and in the same level of importance, the national capitalism
represented in capitalists, factories, banks and others… the terrible catastrophe
is that the relation of some capitalists in Egypt to the tertiary education in
specific made it a profit-gaining relation where greed and ignorance dominate…
examples are many but it is not our point right now.
Now we come to the fourth aspect of this inability of
the reality; that is the frightening duplicity in the educational system and as
a result, the scientific and research system… as since the time of Mohammed Ali
Pasha, we have a duplicity problem between an educational institution whose
main curricula depend on rote learning and regarding what was written by the
ancestors as better than working our minds to come up with what suits our
current affairs today… or at best place them in the same level… and another
institution whose curricula depend on understanding, criticizing and working
out our mind as the main methodology to go through life… then things even
became worse as other duplicity problems occurred when interest in studying our
mother language; Arabic, our national history and all that connects to the
civilization and cultural aspects of Egypt vanished.
As the article is about to finish, there is one final
thing I would like to write about… that is, I would like to say that praising
Dr. Ismail Serag ed-Din; the human, scholar, intellectual and expert has
nothing to do with a judicial verdict that is able to be reversed by higher
courts… also, Bibliotheca Alexandrina has issued a statement signed by its head
Dr. Mostafa Elfeqi, in which they hailed Dr. Serag ed-Din and his role… and
more than a writer wrote about the same thing.
Here I would like to join all those who expressed their
loyalty to Dr. Ismail whom I got near to in many situations and knew him very
well and knew how much he loves our country… also the humane feelings and
stances he had.
Translated into English by: Dalia Elnaggar
This article was published in
Al Ahram newspaper on August 10, 2017.
To see the original article,
go to:
#alahram #ahmed_elgammal
#Egypt #sisi_speech
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