The Dangers of Relying on Testing as a Means of Improving Quality of Education

Over the last two decades, if there\’s one thing we\’ve learnt it is that testable results alone do not account for educational quality or the quality of educational experience. The processes and relationships are as important (if not more) than what gets tested. Using test results as a proxy for quality, and hoping that an emphasis on testing will lead to improvement, is a managerial rather than educational approach (this sounds a little screechy, I know, but I feel screechy looking at the kind of damage this naive assumption is doing all around).

Take a look (link below) at emerging fallouts of one such large-scale testing based improvement programme, enacted through the No Child Left Behind law in the US.

82 percent of US schools may be labeled \’failing\’

Admittedly, this is only a news report, and there are also defenders, but the difficulties being faced by schools are real. There is also no evidence that whatever improvements that might have been brought about are long lasting, or that the nature of classroom processes and relationships has improved, or that children and teachers both find the school more worth coming to.

If you\’re an administrator or accountability activist or from an organisation that funds educational efforts – do consider that you might be doing yourself a disservice by insisting on testing as the means of assessing impact or of ensuring improvement. There\’s a lot more to education in the 21st century, and it does not lend itself to such simplistic frames!

Job losses in India too ?

My good friend who goes by the moniker of Vaingluory, at least on my travel blog, messaged me drawing attention to this story . The opinion piece from a headhunter is titled ‘Expect 100,000 to 200,000 Jobs to be Lost Every Year For The Next Three Years’ .

There is a lot of hyperbole in this – I don’t think India is going to lose jobs at that rate. Certainly not from the IT industry . But there is an undercurrent of truth , and there is a chill wind coming.

In the last 10-15 years, India, especially in the IT and BPO sectors has seen a pace of job creation that has been unmatched in its history. The impact this has had on people’s lives is very visible in India’s cities. In any other country, these job numbers would have been a spectacular miracle that would have transformed the country. India has a huge population and hence this is only a small wave in the ocean.

The young have come to believe that this scorching pace is the natural order of things and that anybody can get a job for the asking. Of course, this can’t last for ever. The IT industry has matured and the rate of job growth has slowed down. That is only to be expected. The days of “Tresspassers will be recruited” are long gone ! Companies are not recruiting in the same numbers. They are asking some underperformers to leave. Some have to cut their costs and so some layoffs have happened too. I do not see any evidence that there is going to be a large shrinkage of jobs ; there will be a much slower rate of growth and there will be some layoffs. But the overall numbers is not going to shrink in a short span of time.

But some global trends are inevitable and they will have a big impact. The most important of them is automation. This is an inexorable trend and will affect all industries including IT. This is going to be the single largest impact on jobs. It’s a global problem without any easy answers.

The second problem in India, is agriculture. Agriculture has always been the sponge – the vast majority of the Indian population is employed (more accurately underemployed) here. This sector is increasingly becoming financially strained, for reasons that are peculiar to India . Small land holdings, a major water crisis, inability to make significant profits, and the extent of risks for which there are no commensurate rewards. All these make agriculture likely to shed jobs on a scale that will be gargantuan. This has profound consequences for India. Manufacturing or services simply cannot absorb this load and even if they could, there is a massive skill gap for agricultural workers to migrate to other sectors.

India has one big advantage – an already strong services sector which will keep growing. This has the capacity to absorb skilled manpower. Touch any area and India has actually a huge potential for job creation. Judges, policemen, health care workers, retail industry workers, logistics industry workers, even professions like carpenters, plumbers, electricians – everywhere we have a shortage of qualified people even today. Jobs will keep getting created in each of these trades. Many of them will be self employed . Many of them may be in the government ; for example if we have to have a policemen to population ratio that is even remotely comparable to other countries, we will need to add millions of policemen. Ditto judges. Ditto nurses.

The issue is skills. India has a young population that is extremely keen on education and willing to work hard. It lacks a real effective skill building initiative. The National Skills Development Corporation, if it really does its job, can transform India.

The Seven Myths That Make Education Difficult To Improve

What do they know – after all, they’re only poor people. And real knowledge is that which is written in books and taught in universities, which of course they don’t have access to, isn’t it?

By now I’m sure you’re well aware of the vast variety and depth of knowledges that non-literate people bring – only it doesn’t get the recognition it deserves and is sentenced to remain marginalized and often die out. By not respecting the knowledge heritage the vast majority of our students bring, we certainly deprive them of the one strength that can be used to learn ‘school’ knowledge – but we also lose out on the great contribution the diverse community knowledge heritage could make to the country. (I’ve written on this elsewhere in this blog hence not elaborating it further.)

How would YOU implement the RTE?

Here\’s an exchange that started in Facebook.
If YOU were in charge of implementing RTE in a district / block, exactly WHAT would you do? Could I have step by step suggestions please. That\’s because all of us have by now said all that is wrong with RTE implementation, but this is not equal to knowing what to do. I come across many district and block functionaries who are seriously looking for suggestions (they also welcome critique, but find that it doesn\’t help them decide what to do – at best they only see they\’re doing something wrong).

It would be a great contribution. I promise I\’ll share the suggestions with at least 10 \’serious\’ functionaries who have asked for support and will try to impact 300 to 3000 schools each. As they start implementing, we\’ll create a facebook page where they can record their progress and impact. But could we have specific suggestions please, maybe even a framework or a detailed note?

One response I received was from Anjela Taneja:
Gave this some thought overnight. Basically, one immediate suggestion is to put this question onto a website (read you blog atleast) so you can get a larger pool of responses. Personally, I added the question onto the RTE India page I moderate as well. However, a more user friendly interface of responding would help instead of trying to type everything on FB. In response to the actual question, I see two sets of responses- universal recommendations (only a few), but a lot of questions related to specific geographies. The solutions need to emerge from the local problems, so it would help to know where the functionaries in question are actually stuck and atleast what states one is talking about.

In response, here are some details.
As for geographies… Specific ones include: the block of Fatehpur, near Kanpur; the training coordinator of Bareilly; an informal govt school teachers\’ collective (who want things to impove) in Varanasi; in terms of states, Bihar and Gujarat to start with.

Some of the comments received:

Naaz Khair
Where there is a will there is a way! Government is running the central schools par excellence. If it wants it can change things for its other set of schools as well. The RTE Act itself is very explicit in terms of who is supposed to do what i.e. the duties that need to be performed so that educational rights of children are upheld. The RTE Act almost reads like a program and contains step by step measures to taken at different levels to ensure its implementation. This forum, along-side raising its voice whenever RTE violations took place, has also been proposing possible solutions. It is more than time now for the people in the system to make decisions given the resources in hand.

Janmejoy Patel
Yes, it is basically a question of how serious the govts are regarding implementation of RTE. Do they have required amount of political will or commitment? Are they willing to allocate adequate funds & invest in education? Once these factors are settled, there is no private school good enough to rival our schools in quality. But will the politicos do so on their own? No hope since none of them has any stake involved. Unless forced to.

Anjela Taneja there are two levels of issues here- what should be done to improve the policy and practice, and another is what can a government official do immediately within the constraints of the system

Subir Shukla
‎@Janmejoy If you take a look at the amounts released, you will find that the country as a whole is not really able to use more than 70% of the funds made available…

There\’s a need to understand the nature of social \’filters\’ involved. Things such as buildings, textbooks – concrete things that can be touched, inaugurated or \’released\’ and credit taken for – tend to get done. But a child\’s right to learn is a lot more than that, and needs a new set of relationships and processes in order to be attained. It\’s common to have \’disco bhajans\’ (i.e. allowing a western \’pollution\’ of a cultural aspect) but more difficult to implement the notion that a child does not need to be beaten in order to learn (in fact, while teachers are responsible, many parents also insist that their children be kept in discipline through corporal punishment; similarly, look at the response to CCE…). It\’s like trying to ban spitting or dowry (for which a law exists…).

Similarly, the notion that you do not need to memorize or be given explanation – instead you should learn through activity, exploration and projects (which is what the RTE provides for) – is not the easiest to implement even for those who are seriously trying, including in the NGO sector, including in the organizations that are seen as the \’teerth sthal\’ of education. Another crisis – and this is a professional, considered opinion of a curriculum/textbook/materials developer after closely examining materials from all over the country for 20 years – is that the NGO \’products\’ in terms of curricula / materials / pedagogy / teacher development are also fairly weak when it comes to the kind of quality desired, the constructivism to be implemented, the kind of equity-oriented and diversity based classroom that is now needed. Indeed the textbooks of several states would rate much higher.

@Naaz, steps about how to make \’special training\’ or create a differential classroom which must necessarily result, are not really spelt out in RTE documents. (This is just an example, and there are several more such aspects, esp about how to help those in the system realize that post-RTE, it is THEY who are the \’beneficiaries\’ and children / parents / community are the REASON for the system to exist.)

I\’m afraid the real import of many of the RTE provisions have not really been understood and a whole lot of \”why aren\’t you doing your job\” kind of comments are being passed around. While these will help in situations such as getting children admitted, other aspects such as getting discrimination (subtle and overt) to reduce, community to be empowered, teachers to be enabled to create vibrant and equity-oriented classrooms, in 1500000+ schools, (including private schools), are something else altogether. \’Protesting\’ or \’raising\’ voice may curb something negative, but doesn\’t necessarily make something positive (e.g. teaching better) happen. I\’ve written about \’preventive power\’ vs \’generative power\’ elsewhere in this blog.

The perspective changes when you\’re someone who has to actually deliver the RTE, and I haven\’t found much in the various fora that is dramatically helpful, or not known or not being tried out. A lot of the suggestions are very vague (ideas such as \’involve the community\’, \’empower the teacher\’ are outcomes of steps, which themselves are not always spelt out, or examples given of a very preliminary level..). Many of the issues (such as teacher attendance and accountability) are larger governance issues and need a larger strategy, some of which is indeed being thought about at different levels. I still believe that people thinking and working on these issues have a great deal to contribute – both within the government set up and outside. Hence my request for the kind of engagement that foregrounds concrete actions.

Naval Exercise off the East Coast

Naval Exercise MILAN 2020 is scheduled to be held at Vishakhapatnam in March, 2020 in which 41 countries have been invited. The list of countries has been given are as under:

1. Indonesia	8. France	15. Mozambique	22. Sudan	29. Israel	36. Qatar
2. Thailand	9. Malaysia	16. Australia	23. Somalia	30. Kenya	37. Egypt
3. Sri Lanka	10. Vietnam	17. Myanmar	24. New Zealand	31. USA	38. Tanzania
4. Comoros	11. Maldives	18. Brunei	25. Philippines	32. Japan	39. UK
5. Saudi Arabia	12. Oman	19. Mauritius	26. Cambodia	33. Singapore	40. South Korea
6. South Africa	13. Kuwait	20. Iran	27. Madagascar	34. Bangladesh	41. Russia
7. Djibouti	14. Eritrea	21. Bahrain	28. UAE	35. Seychelles

The Government pursues cooperation initiatives with friendly foreign countries including in Indian Ocean Region through structured interactions like Staff Talks, Empowered Steering Group etc. The areas of cooperation include Capacity Building, Marine Domain Awareness, Training, Hydrography, Technical Assistance, Operational Exercise etc.

This information was given by Raksha Rajya Mantri Shri Shripad Naik in a written reply to Shri A. K. Selvaraj in Rajya Sabha today.

ABB/Nampi/DK/Savvy/MTJ/ADA

Why Corruption Is An Easy Issue To Raise

It\’s interesting to observe why the issue of \’corruption\’ seems to attract attention. Right now, across the country (and the world), a huge majority of people are oppressed by the accepted notion that it is OK for some to be considered \’above\’ others. That is why it is OK for some of \’us\’

to go to high fee private schools (we have \’earned\’ it),
to sit in AC coaches in the train (we paid for it after all, never mind that the others\’ capacity to pay for the same is hampered by systemic and systematic obstacles),
to feel that we belong to \’big\’ or \’important\’ families…

Such societal hierarchies have a far greater impact and preserve disadvantage.

Isn\’t it corruption too to believe that one belongs to a \’better\’ or \’purer\’ religion / caste / class / background / family than others. Yet Anna and co don\’t raise issues of social fracture (conveniently forgetting that Gandhi spent far more of his life on these issues, and regarded true independence as one from social oppression too). It\’s worth thinking on why the issue of corruption really suits the middle class – it\’s so neutral and harmless, and avoids the really frightening ones. It\’s also something where you can blame \’others\’ without feeling that you are part of the problem…

As an educator, therefore, if I had to teach children any value, it would not be an ordinary thing like \’do not be corrupt\’ but the more difficult concept of \’though you are unique and deserve the best, do not think you are more important than others or have a birthright to more than they do\’.

Five Ideas for Teachers\’ Day

Teachers\’ Day is round the corner. Once again, we\’ll have the same old speeches, boring comments and everyone showing so-called \’respect\’ for teachers for one day – then it will all be forgotten till the next year comes around again!

For those of us who feel we need to go beyond the usual platitudes, here are a few straightforward suggestions. As always, your responses and further suggestions would be very welcome indeed!

1. Prepare a \’Teacher Strength Chart\’

On a chart, put a photo of the teacher (could even be children\’s drawing) and write down 5 things that you like about the teacher or 5 good qualities the teacher has. (Every teacher has these, just that some of them may not know they have them.) Who should do this? Students / SMC or parents / CRCC or fellow teachers. Keep the chart up for as long as you want.

2. Invite the teachers\’ families and honour them

Host a function where teachers\’ parents / spouses / children are invited and honour them along with the teacher. Why? Firstly because if a teacher teaches well, gives a lot of time, and lives up to professional standards, the family has to support the teacher and sometimes even make sacrifices. On the other hand if a teacher doesn\’t live up to professional standards, the family will… you get the picture! The SMC or the CRCC would obviously have to take the lead in organizing this, with students\’ help.

3. A special \’sports\’ session for teachers

Teachers have to be so responsible that they sometimes forget what it is to be a teacher. So how about something that helps them recall the time when they themselves were young. So you could organise a kabaddi or cricket match for teachers, or even races. Other possibilities include a Talent Show (whether teachers get to display their skills such as singing or mimicry) or even a picnic. Once again, the SMC with the students\’ help and the CRCC\’s support can easily organize this.

4. Stock the school library with books bought especially for teachers

Ask the teachers what they would like to read – and buy as many of those books for your school library as the budget permits. The CRCC would need to take active lead in this, with guidance from BRC and DIETs/

5. Launch a year-long \’Search for Greatness\’

This is a difficult idea, so read carefully! Every teacher and every school can improve and reach a level far better than what it is today. In honour of teachers on Teachers\’ Day, the SMC and students as well as the CRCC can get together, promise their support and work out how they will improve the school in the year ahead. Together they will discuss what it means for their school to be \’great\’ (and will not focus on infrastructure but learning processes), identify concrete steps to attain this greatness (see suggestions separately in my blog), and work out a phased implementation plan (see ADEPTS). Teachers will naturally be part of this discussion.

You can build on the School Development Plan and dedicate the effort to teachers (of course, they too would take active part in implementing the plan). Inform the teachers that the successes will be because of them, and shortcomings because they would not have got enough support from us (that is our Teachers\’ Day gift to teachers). So this would be a year long effort to show our respect to teachers while also working with them to bring about actual improvement. Neat, no?

Five Ideas for Teachers\’ Day

For those of us who feel we need to go beyond the usual platitudes, here are a few straightforward suggestions. As always, your responses and further suggestions would be very welcome indeed!

1. Prepare a \’Teacher Strength Chart\’

2. Invite the teachers\’ families and honour them

3. A special \’sports\’ session for teachers

4. Stock the school library with books bought especially for teachers

5. Launch a year-long \’Search for Greatness\’

Five Ideas for Teachers\’ Day

For those of us who feel we need to go beyond the usual platitudes, here are a few straightforward suggestions. As always, your responses and further suggestions would be very welcome indeed!

1. Prepare a \’Teacher Strength Chart\’

2. Invite the teachers\’ families and honour them

3. A special \’sports\’ session for teachers

4. Stock the school library with books bought especially for teachers

5. Launch a year-long \’Search for Greatness\’

Five Ideas for Teachers\’ Day

For those of us who feel we need to go beyond the usual platitudes, here are a few straightforward suggestions. As always, your responses and further suggestions would be very welcome indeed!

1. Prepare a \’Teacher Strength Chart\’

2. Invite the teachers\’ families and honour them

3. A special \’sports\’ session for teachers

4. Stock the school library with books bought especially for teachers

5. Launch a year-long \’Search for Greatness\’

Five Ideas for Teachers\’ Day

For those of us who feel we need to go beyond the usual platitudes, here are a few straightforward suggestions. As always, your responses and further suggestions would be very welcome indeed!

1. Prepare a \’Teacher Strength Chart\’

2. Invite the teachers\’ families and honour them

3. A special \’sports\’ session for teachers

4. Stock the school library with books bought especially for teachers

5. Launch a year-long \’Search for Greatness\’

Five Ideas for Teachers\’ Day

For those of us who feel we need to go beyond the usual platitudes, here are a few straightforward suggestions. As always, your responses and further suggestions would be very welcome indeed!

1. Prepare a \’Teacher Strength Chart\’

2. Invite the teachers\’ families and honour them

3. A special \’sports\’ session for teachers

4. Stock the school library with books bought especially for teachers

5. Launch a year-long \’Search for Greatness\’

Listening Workshops – Or the Simplest Step to Educational Reform

Is \’bottom up\’ change really possible?
If you are an educational functionary, by now you must be fed up of hearing how planning and change have to be \’bottom up\’. By which is usually meant that those who are \’under\’ you must somehow begin to contribute, own and implement a range of actions. And you inwardly wonder if this is ever going to happen!

It was during a discussion on precisely such views that the idea of a listening workshop emerged. Colleagues in the Institute of Educational Development (IED) in BRAC University, Bangladesh felt that a \’listening workshop\’ might help them understand teachers and grassroots functionaries better.

Listening workshop – a straightforward structure
It was agreed that before forming any views, it is critical to simply listen to teachers and head teachers. Hence a straightforward meeting / interaction / workshop was designed around the following three questions that would be asked of teachers and head teachers:

What do you really do? Exactly what does your work involve?
What do you like doing?
What do you find difficult or dislike doing?

It was also agreed that IED colleagues initiating the discussion would only listen, and not prompt or provide leading questions or offer any comment from their side. In other words, they really had to listen rather than talk!

So why is all this worth writing about? Because around ten such listen workshops were actually conducted, and most turned out to have a very interesting pattern, followed by an unexpected twist.

What teachers felt
The listening workshops, it transpired, tended to proceed in the following stages.

Teachers found it really difficult to believe that anyone could come down from the capital only to listen to them! There had to be a \’hidden conspiracy\’ or an \’agenda\’ they were not aware of… It would take anywhere from 40-60 minutes to convince the participants that the intention really was to listen to them. (What do you think this tells us about the functionaries that teachers usually deal with?)
Once teachers believed the above, their initial reaction was that of giving vent to all their frustration and anger at \’you people who sit up there and form all kinds of views about us without ever visiting the field and observing the realities for yourself.\’
Finally, teachers would pour their hearts out on the three questions given above.

The teachers\’ replies have of course begun to inform the work of the institute in many ways. However, it was the completely unanticipated outcome below that left everyone (cautiously) elated.

The unexpected \’reform\’
In the case of a large number of teachers who participated, a few days after the listening workshop it was found that they were implementing many new pedagogical actions in their classrooms! In the entire discussion, at no point had they been asked to make any improvement in their classrooms. So it was not as if teachers did not know improved methods – a large number of in-service interactions had ensured that they had had exposure. It\’s just that they were not using them. But for some reason the listening workshops triggered a change process in the classrooms!

What do you think this tells us about teachers, about their motivations, and about the kind of relationships they experience? If you can bear the initial first hour, isn\’t holding a listening workshop the simplest way to initiate educational reform at the local level?

AIMS OF EDUCATION

The aims of education serve as broad guidelines to

align educational processes to chosen ideals and

accepted principles. The aims of education

simultaneously reflect the current needs and aspirations

of a society as well as its lasting values, and the

immediate concerns of a community as well as broadhuman ideals. At any given time and place they can be

called the contemporary and contextual articulations

of broad and lasting human aspirations and values.

Educational aims turn the different activities

undertaken in schools and other educational institutions

into a creative pattern and give them the distinctive

character of being ‘educational’. An educational aim

helps the teacher connect her present classroom activity

to a cherished future outcome without making it

instrumental, and therefore give it direction without

divorcing it from current concerns. Thus, an aim is a

foreseen end: it is not an idle view of a mere spectator;

rather, it influences the steps taken to reach the end. An

aim must provide foresight. It can do this in three ways:

First, it involves careful observation of the given

conditions to see what means are available for reaching

the end, and to discover the hindrances in the way.

This may require a careful study of children, and an

understanding of what they are capable of learning at

different ages. Second, this foresight suggests the proper

order or sequence that would be effective. Third, it

makes the choice of alternatives possible. Therefore,

acting with an aim allows us to act intelligently. The

school, the classroom, and related learning sites are

spaces where the core of educational activity takes

place. These must become spaces where learners have

experiences that help them achieve the desired curricular

objectives. An understanding of learners, educational

aims, the nature of knowledge, and the nature of the

school as a social space can help us arrive at principles

to guide classroom practices.

The guiding principles discussed earlier provide

the landscape of social values within which we locate

our educational aims. The first is a commitment to

democracy and the values of equality, justice, freedom,

concern for others’ well-being, secularism, respect for

human dignity and rights. Education should aim to build

a commitment to these values, which are based on

reason and understanding. The curriculum, therefore,

should provide adequate experience and space for

dialogue and discourse in the school to build such a

commitment in children.

Independence of thought and action points to a

capacity of carefully considered, value-based decision

making, both independently and collectively.

A sensitivity to others’ well-being and feelings,

together with knowledge and understanding of the

world, should form the basis of a rational commitment

to values.

Learning to learn and the willingness to unlearn

and relearn are important as means of responding to

new situations in a f lexible and creative manner. The

curriculum needs to emphasise the processes of

constructing knowledge.

Choices in life and the ability to participate in

democratic processes depend on the ability to

contribute to society in various ways. This is why

education must develop the ability to work and

participate in economic processes and social change.

This necessitates the integration of work with education.

We must ensure that work-related experiences are

sufficient and broadbased in terms of skills and

attitudes,that they foster an understanding of

socio-economic processes, and help inculcate a mental

frame that encourages working with others in a spirit

of cooperation. Work alone can create a social temper.

Appreciation of beauty and art forms is an

integral part of human life. Creativity in arts, literature

and other domains of knowledge is closely linked.

Education must provide the means and opportunities

to enhance the child’s creative expression and the

capacity for aesthetic appreciation. Education for

aesthetic appreciation and creativity is even more

important today when aesthetic gullibility allows for

opinion and taste to be manufactured and manipulated

by market forces. The effort should be to enable the

learner to appreciate beauty in its several forms.

However, we must ensure that we do not promote

stereotypes of beauty and forms of entertainment, that

might constitute an affront to women and persons with

disabilities.

Hope: Real or Mirage?

It is important to appreciate the recent events in the Middle East starting with the Iraqi election. It doesn’t matter if you are for or against military action, if you believe this will solve the religion’s problems or believe it will make no difference in the long run. The hopeful spirit, while embryonic and uncertain, still deserves our respect. Let’s examine why.

Since the toppling of Saddam’s regime, terrorist attacks occurred on a daily basis with Iraqis as the primary target. The aim is simple: terrorize the Iraqi people into submission. Both Baathist fascists and jihadists seek power to establish the traditional repressive government that is typical of the region. From the day Saddam was removed, Iraqis were fearful of stepping forward and winding on the wrong side of the next dictatorship. Any flicker of hope for a civil society required confidence in their fellow Arabs that was non-existent. Resignation and cynicism suggested waiting for a clear victor before aligning one’s interest with the new regime.

If you remember, prior to the Iraqi election there were doubts that holding the elections as scheduled could produce a meaningful result given chaos and threats of violence. The result, however, was quite meaningful … to the “Arab Street”. What was shocking to the Arab world was seeing their fellow Arabs braving terrorist attacks to vote! How often have you wondered about the value of voting? Imagine having to vote when your life is threatened! Why did they do it? Could one vote matter that much?

Most explanations seek either a compelling concrete payback or chalk it up to some innate drive. Let me propose another explanation. The act of voting itself is a transformational act. It says that one wants to be worthy of living in a civilized society. By voting one acts like a member of a community where arguments are settled at the ballot box and under the protection of the rule of law. When Arabs saw that their fellow Arabs could act in such a manner they gained a confidence in a new future. And it sparked a sympathetic surge for democratic change in other Arab nations.

Of course, this is an aspiration that is emotional in nature. This isn’t an explicit understanding of what liberty is, what makes it important and how to secure it. However, there is a sense that the liberal societal model provides hope; there is, on some level, an awareness that living in a free society brings the good life. Despite all the propaganda and ethnic pride, the West still inspires hope.

But an emotional sense is not an articulated principle, program, or ideology. By itself, it cannot lead to clear and certain progress. At most, by mimicking the success of advanced societies a modicum of progress is possible. By osmosis, trial and error, feeling one’s way in the dark, one can take a few steps toward modernity. However, fear and cynicism are competing emotions. One ultimately needs explicit principles to secure that which is implicitly sensed, to guide specific actions and to defend against the enemies of liberty.

Standing in the wings are the devout Islamists, they have declared the liberal Arabs the enemy and their moral claims – backed by 1400 years of Islam – remains unchallenged. A liberal society will never be secure, if by some accident it is established, as long as these ideas are given respect.

I recently read a poignant example the captures the dilemma in the lives of today’s Muslims. An Iraqi father sent his son to live with relatives in Saudi Arabia in anticipation of the war. During that time he was taught about the Islamic tradition, became devout and adopted a strict puritan lifestyle. When he returned home, the father was saddened to see his joyous boy had become an angry dogmatic stern young man. There was nothing the father could say. His son knew the religion thoroughly and could refute his father’s notions of how a young Muslim should live his life. The only thing the father could do was hope that his son would wake-up from this horrible nightmare. The boy’s childhood friends were called in the hope that he would recall his more joyous days. With temptations and examples, slowly the boy started to soften. One only hopes he makes it back.

How far can emotion overcome dogma? Not for long. Sooner or later Arabs will have to explicitly attack and reject Islamic doctrine. The Islamists aren’t going away of their own free will; they will attack secularized Arabs (or any opponents of theocracy) as Infidels and that is exactly what they have been doing in Iraq. Eventually, if Iraqis ever hope to secure a free and modern society, they will have to aim for the heart of Islam and slay this vicious beast. Unless they do, they will not be able to maintain the joyous optimism of this post-election period. It will have been a fleeting moment – lost to the cynicism and fatalism so familiar in Arab and Islamic culture.

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