BY WOSSENSEGED ASSEFA
“The fundamental purpose of education is to bring about civilization. The word (ስልጣኔ) civilization came from the root word (ስልጣን) authority or power. The purpose of education is therefore to gain authority/power 1) over the natural world and 2) over ourselves (the social world).”-Dr. Eguale Yohannes.
The world in which we live can be classified into two: the physical (natural) world and the social world. The natural world and the science related to it, is mainly concerned with the study of nature. Its primary focus is on the study of the natural environment surrounding human beings (plants, animals, water, air and other elements of the environment), and the physical attributes of mankind. On the other hand, the social world is primarily focused on the interaction of human beings with one another and with their society as a whole. For both of these worlds to keep on thriving, education is the most essential prerequisite.
Education is the process of introducing civilization into the world. The process of educating others formally or informally should achieve its most vital objective of enlightening them and connecting them to more civilized ideals and philosophies. Then, civilization will in turn become a power with which they are able to change the physical and social world around them. As a result, education itself can be categorized into natural and social streams.
If we take the natural world for instance, as civilization continued to advance, humanity has been able to exercise authority and develop its use of the natural surroundings to create suitable products. For example, humans have turned animal skins into leather shoes, leather jackets and even belts. They have turned wool into cotton to make different kinds of shirts. They have turned sand, cement and coarse aggregates into concrete for construction purposes. They have learnt to integrate titanium, steel and aluminum to make aircrafts. These achievements along with many others are examples of how education introduced civilization into the natural world and how civilization gave power to human beings to make use of their environment for suitable purposes. Thus, as we become more civilized in the natural world, we gain authority over it. This means we can control it, mold it and shape it in any way we want. Therefore, as we advance more in the natural world we achieve the goal of gaining more and more authority over it.
Likewise, when we come to the social world, education should empower people to gain control over their mindset. Social civilization can be defined as being empowered to have self-control and moral excellence over our own lives as well as our interactions with others. Education has the power to create open-minded individuals who are able to tolerate others with their views and control their own responses at the same time. Thus, education has the ability to introduce social as well as natural civilization into our lives, which in turn, empower us to take control of the social and natural world around us.
However, before anything can be achieved in the natural world, there should always be a level of civilization attained by a society in the social world. If we take the biblical story of creation for instance, God created all of creation (the natural world) in five days and gave the authority of governance to the man he created on the sixth day. The intention of God in doing this was so that man would govern the natural atmosphere around him based on his fellowship with the creator. In other words, the social world was designed to govern the natural world. We can see this clearly, because when man transgressed against the commandment of his creator, the first thing that God did was cursing the ground. When the fellowship between God and man ended, it resulted in the destruction of the natural world and its order.
The recent collapse of the Tekeze Bridge could also be taken as another example. The reason behind the collapse of this bridge is simply because the two opposing groups have failed to come into terms with one another, and the result of their antagonism in the social world has been reflected by the destruction of the natural environment. This shows us that it will not take too long for the introduction of chaos into the natural world if the social world fails.
In addition, we can see that when people also lose accountability to their faith and beliefs, they end up destroying their relationship with others and bringing chaos to the social order of the world around them. An example of this would be cain of the bible, who was angry because his offerings were not acceptable in the sight of God and ended up killing his brother. We can learn from his story that when the vertical relationship of human beings with their creator collapses and when we lose a sense of spiritual as well as moral accountability, we tend to destroy our horizontal relationship with others and disrupt our entire social world, which eventually leads up to the destruction of the natural environment around us.
The recent events in our country could also be taken as another example. If we look at the statistical data of our country, we can see that about 98-99 percent of our population has a religion and believes in something spiritual. However, we always hear news of citizens being killed, beheaded, or dismembered by their fellow citizens. The reason this happens is because the majority of the so-called “religious” people have lost a sense of spiritual, moral and ethical accountability to their faith and beliefs. Thus, they have lost their vertical ties with their creator and spiritual accountability to their faith, which leads them to kill their fellow brothers and sisters as well as destroy different infrastructures in the country.
Therefore, all efforts pertaining to introducing civilization into the natural world are annulled so long as we can’t fix the social world around us. If the social world that we live in is divided based on identity and ethnic politics and one of us keep on seeing the other as an enemy, we can never bring a true civilization and exercise true authority over the natural world as well. It is when the thoughts, ethics and moral principles of humanity become corrupted that nature also becomes destroyed.
There was once a story of a man reading a newspaper whose son kept on asking him to play with him. The father wanted to keep on reading his newspaper, and so, tore into pieces a page that had the world map on it from the newspaper. He then gave it to his son and told him to put all the pieces back together. A minute later, the son finished putting the pieces all together and showed it to his father. His father was so surprised and asked him how he was able to do it in such a short time. The son responded and said, “Dad, there was a picture of a man at the back of the page you gave me. When I put the man together, then the world became okay.” The morale of this story is that the world will only become okay when individuals and the social atmosphere around them become okay.
Therefore, if our social environment is not repaired in terms of controlling ourselves as individuals, keeping our vertical ties with our creator and keeping peaceful horizontal relations with others, the different economic sectors in our country including the manufacturing sector, tourism sector, road development sector, hydro-electric power sector or any other, along with the different projects carried out in each sector, will be at risk of destruction because they are all elements of civilization and development in the natural world. Therefore, if our social world is not repaired, the developments of the natural world will always be at risk. Hence, in the effort to bring an economic development into our country, we should never forget to work on human development side by side as well.
Despite the current derogatory treatment that social science and education is receiving in our country, it is the greatest key for our development. Thus, we should work on educating and training social engineers who are able to help in the mental and psychological development of our people. We should stop the biased views pertaining to this field of study, which claim that it is for less competent people in the world of education whereas natural science is for the more competent ones. We should work on introducing young and brilliant individuals into the world of social science and education.
At the end of the day, a morally, ethically and psychologically developed person can only be created in a well-developed social world. Citizens should be built mentally, morally, socially and spiritually, and hence, we should work on developing social institutions suitable for this purpose. We should work with religious institutions to hold the unethical and immoral individuals accountable to their faith. The only way we can achieve natural prosperity and peace is if we have attained social peace and prosperity; and in order to do so, we need education and civilization to be fully introduced into our social world.
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Editor’s Note: The views entertained in this article do not necessarily reflect the stance of The Ethiopian Herald
The Ethiopian Herald July 7/2021
