A letter: Yes, it is education Mr. Friedman!

Dear Mr. Friedman,

As one of your readers I have always wanted to comment on many of your Op-eds but never did mainly because of time constraints and the acceleration at which current events are controlling our attention. Today, I find myself able to do so because of the gravity of the subject and the fact that I have some free time in my hand.

Yes, it is education. As you rightly pointed out, part of this generation has been lost (one can debate how big) and the challenge here is to save next generations as well as to try to help the remaining of this generation that has not been lost yet.

Your idea of 50 new modern schools per missile dose make a lot of sense as it creates a well balanced mathematical equation for progress because it addresses the gap in the so called “war against terror”. It does that by preventing extremism from flourishing and insuring the socioeconomic development of the country at the same time. In short: caring for the well being of the Yemeni citizens. The “Building of Schools” as a concept means not only the construction of buildings but also and specifically “Building” a comprehensive Education System based on Math, Science, Engineering and the Arts. As a university professor, I must submit to you that the current system of education in Yemen produces, by and large, good followers (herds), not independent thinkers with creative minds. That is why “ideologies” and “tribalism” are basically in control.

Ideologists do not care for facts as observed in reality, they only care for their facts as are sculptured in their minds.  Scientists on the other hand study reality without pre-conceptual mind; the result is called Empirical Science.  They may make hypothesis (Theoretical Science) but only to be tested by experimentations (Experimental Science) in order for it to be accepted or rejected. If experimentation is not possible, the theory remains hypothetical. As you see, scientific thinking has not made it into the mental fabrics of our society. Not even into the mind of our government at large.

“Building Schools” is the answer.  Education as a pre-requisite for socioeconomic development is the only way to deal with both “ideology” and “tribalism”. Within the concept of “Building Schools” we must “Build” teachers and school masters, curricula and good school administration systems among other things*. The US and donors can do more in this front which is the real front as you and I seem to agree. Let me give a straight forward example:

In the 70s and 80s when USAID was active in the Yemeni higher education system scores of Yemeni nationals obtained PhDs and Masters from the US (myself included). Almost every single one of them has had a remarkable impact whether in government, business or education. The problem has been that their number is small. There hasn’t been a “critical mass” of them that could lead to the transformation of society; nevertheless they have had a lot to do with the relative stability of the country in the 80s and early 90s. But today, their number is dwindling as

basically most of the new PhDs are not produced in Western institutions of higher education. Therefore their impact today is much less (close to nothing). The argument that some extremists are western educated does not weight much because the overwhelming majority of western educated are not extremists. As we say in Physics: Individual events (isolated) can lie while statistical averages never lie.

So friend, I propose along with the 50 schools per missile, 50 USAID graduate scholarships in Math, Science and Engineering. Would the USAID start with few hundred scholarships this year to account for previous missiles? Would other donors provide similar scholarships?

As you see, we are in this together. The US is interested in combating extremism in Yemen which is fine but can’t be done without the socioeconomic development of the country which is our interest. I hope this is understood by our American friends. I am certainly encouraged by your writings and the writings of others such as the recent Op-ed by Edmund Hull on the same subject in the same journal of yours, The New York Times.


Moustafa Bahran

Professor of Physics

Ex-Minister of Electricity and Energy

qmbahran@yahoo.com

*The concept of “Building Schools” is parallel to the concept of “Building a Country”. To “Build” a country we must “Build” the technical work force (teachers), the top governmental officials (school masters), laws and bylaws (curricula) and good governance (good school administration system) among other things.

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