BY MAAD M. EL-GALI
One of the reasons why Libyans have revolted against the forty- two-year-old regime of Muammar Algaddafi is education. Despite the huge revenues that our country has been making over the past four decades, our educational system remains one of the worst in the world. It is no wonder since this was ‘the devil’s plan’ to control this great nation as long as possible. Since Muammar Algaddafi became the de-facto President of Libya by assuming power after his so-called ‘the 1969 revolution’, he certainly knew that his rule would not last as long as there was a generation of well-educated Libyans capable of challenging his eccentric ideology and unraveling his everlasting deception and sordid maneuvers. Having realized that, he worked on harassing existing generation of intellectuals at that time and destroying the generations yet to come by providing the most horrendous environment for education. He first made sure that the authority lay in the hand of those who were willing to achieve his malicious goals, and of course who were devout members of his new cult, the so-called ‘revolutionary committees’. Not surprisingly, those new officials were the least educated individuals who suffered from inferiority complexes and who did not have the right credentials for the right capacity. Consequently, they have bestowed those who believed in the devil’s doctrine generous opportunities which they did not deserve, and they have prevented intellectuals from flourishing and pursuing a better education. As a result of this, favoritism became widespread and justice hard to come across.
This is how power got invested in the wrong people and the conspiracy to marginalize a nation began. First, they distorted the history of Libya and its heroes, they tarnished the reputation of many nobles and dignitaries in order to glorify one psychopathic megalomaniac who thought of himself to be a god. Second, they started their desperate endeavor to instill his ridiculous and unrealistic thoughts of ‘a revolution and a green book’ in our national curriculums. Third, they took languages like English and French off the curriculums in the 1980s to execute one of his malignant plans to isolate Libyans; they even branded those who used English and French once as unpatriotic and another as loyal to the West. They would not stop at that, they also made school subjects a tool to impose some fantasies and mere delusions like those of naming his ‘great-man river’ the eighth wonder of the world and making his ‘green book’ the long-anticipated solution for humanity and its predicaments. On the top of all that, they kept the curriculums through all stages including the tertiary education out-of-date and sometimes stuffed to reinforce isolation upon people so they could not catch up with others. With insufficient budget and a lot of embezzlement, our schools and universities have become unwanted places to be in. Most of these institutions have not been renovated for a while with their unpainted, cracked and overcrowded classrooms, unmaintained sanitary system and the lack of labs, high-tech equipment and libraries.
Muammar Algaddafi has done everything to destroy the future generations of Libya, but he has failed to break the will and the gallantry of the youth who now have risen up to topple him. A ray of hope for Libya is finally shining at the horizon and a better future for all of us is approaching with steady and confident steps. We are about to start a new era, a ‘Muammar-Algaddafi-free’ era during which we will build the best educational system in the region, if not in the world, and we will make Libya one great nation.
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