If French is endangered, why are BC'ers queuing up for it?

How will doom-monging Francomaniacs explain this? Vancouver french immersion can't take all applicants, and more are piling in. For a province on the other end of the country, BC is quite keen on the language Duceppe, Marois and company call endangered.

The CBC report is a pleasant read. It shows many parents being much more pragmatic than certain brave-new-world-ists. Those are the cretins who'd have you believe their pathological guilt-induced mania of English, and the West, being on their way out. Chased out by Arabic, Chinese, Spanish, et cetera.

Nothing could be further from the truth, and the Van parents know it. Rather than heeding the asinine suggestion of Mandarin immersion ventilated in the comments section (always an entertaining read, if you want to gauge the extent of human ignorance that is), one is well advised to know that it's unilingual Chinese who are on their way out. In the meantime, many jobs in Canada will pay you better if (or not hire you unless) you speak French.

French has traction throughout Canada because mindful parents (and just-as-mindful students) know it's still the language that unlocks doors, or opens them wider throughout the country. It has lost momentum almost everywhere else, in no small part due to the very same people who purport to protect it.

English has the soft power of business and education, Italian entices through the arts, Arabic through oil and geopolitical events, Spanish and Portuguese through Latin American development. What is the selling point of French?

It used to be the language of the European aristocracy. It has to share its space with others in the EU bureaucracy. An uncompetitive job market at home and lack of coordinated development abroad are reducing French to just above niche language. 

It needn't be so. French-speaking nations need to find a common selling point for their language and coordinate efforts to entice learners. If sustainable development and the African renaissance spoke French, the next generation of businessmen and civil servants the world over would be blabbering in it non-stop. The continent is, on the other hand, being penetrated by English and Chinese.

I like being able to speak French. Despite this, I hate seeing others have the language rammed down their throats. A hated language is worse than a dead one, and the efforts by some in France and Quebec to impose their vernacular are nothing but a recipe for disaster.

I have no magic solution to French woes. I merely see it losing ground because some are too busy duct-taping what's solid and ignoring the rest of the house crumbling.

Free markets, air conditioning, physics and the Internet

Now here's an article to link them all.

Humid heat makes me slightly irascible and it is therefore a blessing that me and my girlfriend have bought a portable AC. Facts speak louder than words, and it says a lot about the current weather that 27 degrees feels like heaven compared to the living room. 

As it is no intention of mine to plug the Pinguino De Longhi brand (italian, funny name and a classic advertising campaign in the 90's), I'll address the issue of common sense, so dear to me.

See, the free market operates well when both buyers and sellers operate rationally and true information is available. Which means capitalism won't work when people think (or write) with their backside. And boy, does one see that in action while navigating the ocean of junk consumer reviews that litter the interwebs.

Let's begin with an easy one. Middle school physics and chemistry teaches us that nothing can be created and nothing is destroyed, including energy. Cooling your room means the heat has to go somewhere, usually in the form of the scalding hot air from the compressor being sent packing. As inevitable as our tax bill and our ultimate demise, comes the zero-star review proclaiming "dude, this portable AC has a huge exhaust hose! No-one ever mentioned it! Do not buy!". Oh man, your science teacher is proud!

Another gem can be found in the noise department. Usual complaints about the cheaper portable ACs include the fact that they're noisy buggers. I give, this is a very fair comment, particularly on hearing it soon after having started it up. Yet we're talking online reviews here rather than first impressions. As per previous constatation that the compressor is incorporated into the unit, how can one review a cheaper portable AC expecting the firm to fit a mother-of-expensive silent compressor into it?

Classic but subtler, the criticism of the AC requiring extra air from outside (ergo, hotter) to work properly. Well, thinking about it rationally, if there's a big fan blowing air from your room onto a hot heatsink and out through a big hose into the street, where does one expect the replacement air to come from? The trick, naturally, is that the massive temperature difference between the exhaust and replacement air results in a net loss of heat from the room. Ergo, it cools.

Among the crassest, an Italian's review on ciao.it. The customer in question, after consulting with his cousin who used a 7000 BTU through-the-wall unit to cool his bedroom, proceeded to purchase a 6000 BTU portable AC to cool off his 600-odd square foot living room. The obvious result is no cooling, a negative review and a distortion of the AC's rating on the site. Now can someone please tell me how I am supposed to make an informed choice when given such garbage?

Which brings me to my final point, though there would be many others. I am pretty satisfied with being spared the risk of snapping at people for no reason but the heat. However, while trying to filter out the junk and idiocy from the various AC units' reviews, I altogether forgot to contemplate, or ask about, the presence or not of an inverter.

So I am presently stuck doing research as to whether letting the compressor trip into action three times an hour at a setting of 27 degrees is a wise choice for the welfare of my wallet. Given that lower settings are expensive, higher settings are uncomfortable and an inverter-endowed AC unit would have set us back far more than this one, I reckon I shouldn't be complaining. Those 9000 BTUs are surely very appreciated.

Render unto Caesar and all that.

Whenever education, children, religion and public money mix, you know there's an explosive cocktail brewing. A Quebec court has allowed a Jesuit school to teach its children about world religions however it wishes, rather than by governmental diktat. On the surface, this ruling is a welcome break from government intrusion into private education. On the other, Pauline Marois welcomes it as well, which promptly rings all alarm bells in my head.

Is it really a school's duty to teach religion in any way? Indeed, religious scholarship is so subjective as to be twistable into many shapes. If sociology and economics - those banes of the unflexible mind -  have axioms, shouldn't academically taught religion be expected to conform to the same standard? No sir, not a chance.

Rather than persevere in the vain attempt to reconcile religious parents, private schools and an intrusive secular government Quebec should at least try to transcend religion altogether.

There hardly is a single ethical teaching in any religion that does not contribute to making a good citizen. Charity, temperance, humility, fortitude, you name it. Who needs religion when these citizenly virtues can be taught as part of an all-encompassing civic education course?

Leave religion to the history courses, where children learn more than just the tenets. When studying a religion, one has to know HOW it emerged, WHERE and WHY. Otherwise it's just empty faffle. Classrooms should educate good citizens, and leave the forging of good Christians to the church pews.

Take my exemption, but not all at once

My graduate association has brought to my attention that postdoctoral fellowships will be taxed beginning this year if the Budget passes in its current form. I read the relevant section and happen to agree with Flaherty's assessment.

The tax exemptions for grad stipends (like mine) are excellent because we study to get a qualification and the stipends would be, realistically speaking, quite small if the tax was applied. 

A postdoctoral fellowship is a larger paycheck, and the Government is creating 75,000 dollar whoppers to boot. Moreover, one is training for a faculty position which will earn not only a higher salary, but eventual tenure and lots of access to NSERC funding.

So there's nothing wrong with bringing postdoctoral money into the tax system. But is such an abrupt change the best way to address the issue?

If from one day to another you were whammed with a 20% tax you wouldn't be happy, never mind having to scrap plenty of plans. With a mortgage to pay or a child coming up, the situation becomes serious.

I would much rather the tax was introduced gradually over three years. Postdocs would pay 11% of the full rate in the 2010 fiscal year, 33% in 2011 and 100% in 2012. This way contingency plans can be made or an alternative, more lucrative career sought. Otherwise we are disgruntling a potential pool of non-liberal professors, which is a bit of a waste methinks.

One-size-burns-all

Quebec teachers burn out by the dozen. With anxiety, stress and depression on the rise (according to union stats) those who are to ensure Quebec's intellectual future reach their breaking point and refuse to cope passively with the system. From walking out on a misbehaving class to taking long term leave, a signal is sent that something just isn't right.

Before we suspect malicious intent, let's stop and think. Let us now imagine the frustration of discovering that your students don't care for your knowledge, that you may not uphold your right to be respected as a superior and a teacher, that there's always someone who will expect more and more of you without any right to demand it but their own perceived worth of your skill. I would quake too, and throw everything to the dogs.

One of the oft-cited concerns is the integration of special-needs students in the classrooms. Though everyone has the right to education, let's be honest and admit that learning is not something that can be fit into a one-size-fits-all model. Some may be inclined to interpretation rather than calculation, some will excel in areas of investigation and fact, some will be best served by different teaching tools and techniques. Quotas, targets and o.s.f.a. classrooms eventually lead to frustration. Compounded with discipline lack and some parents' arrogance (well, yes, there is, we the public aren't faultless either) this creates an environment which any teacher, unionized or not, would find unacceptable.

Those with no passion for teaching and learning wouldn't care to walk out or feel any sort of frustration at their growing inability to perform the job to the highest standards. Quebec's woes may be the warning sign that many of the real teachers we should guard as a jewel of our education system are about to crack.

Entitled to fail

The pervasive culture of entitlement that teaches us mantras about the world owing us something has gained momentum in Canada's universities. (Jarret (KerPlonka) also comments on this story) A study of 400 undergraduate students revealed that about a third of students believe they deserve a grade B if they attended most classes and/or completed most of the reading, or feel short-changed on the grades they get on assignments. Between a sixth and a quarter have been led to believe professors have to fir their own commitments and business around students' schedules and plans. Seriously, what the fuzz is this?

Education is not about sitting on one's backside listening to the prof. Being educated means accumulating knowledge, understanding it and knowing how to use it. Just being present and having read the stuff doesn't mean you should get a passing grade, let alone a B. These attitudes drag down the standards of any educational institution's graduates, plunging the entire degree course and degree category into irrelevance.

When grades are too easy an A stops meaning "outstanding". When no-one can fail everyone gets a Bachelor's, thus the value of a B.Sc. or a B.A. asymptotically approaches zero. Entitlement leads to mediocrity, particularly in areas where human beings are naturally prone to competing and excelling.

A message to all entitled student princesses out there. I've had my fair share of outstanding profs and mediocre ones. I saw profs who were geniuses with decades-long experiences be completely out-of-touch with a class, while newly-hired fresh-out-of-PhD lecturers energized the audience and taught almost perfectly. I know of profs in Italy who are proud of being unreachable except by paper mail and profs who check e-mails ten times a day.

But I never for one moment believed to be entitled to a pass just for being there. If I ever asked for extenuating circumstances I made sure my motives were bomb-proof, and yet I still felt a slight guilt for inconveniencing the prof. I studied hard for my exams and cried over some assignments. I showed effort by submitting the best possible work and attempting many solutions for a question I didn't understand. And I ultimately loved my uni experience and what I learned.

My father had to fight leftard slackers during his time, who advocated "common grades" for the entire class (everyone is awarded the average grade) and the "political 18" which meant everyone passed, no matter what. Today's entitlement princesses are no different.

It saddens me that more and more people of my age would rather weasel their way into merit rather than earn it by getting off their backsides and looking up the true meaning of the word "effort" in the dictionary.

Failure of US abstinence programmes exposed

When it comes to sex and education about it, a veil of stupidity and hypocrisy seems to descend upon those in charge, especially in some parts of the US. Although it is no different from most political people around the globe, in this case we are talking about influencable minds that may be driven to wrong conclusions and wrong lines of thought.

The BBC in this report shows some of the shortcomings of US abstinence programmes in schools, and how enthusiasm for them is waning.

At least 17 states have opted out of the system and others have suspended funding while Congress investigates whether such programmes work.

Congress would better spend their time fixing the economy and removing some draconian legislation (eg laws forbidding inter-state health insurance purchases). Put young healthy people of both genders together for over a decade in the restricted space of the school and sooner or later some of them will have sex, some will decide not to and some will want to but won't find the right person. If I were to be crude no piece of legislation can make a state of arousal go away, so what should be done about it?

Certainly something MUST be done, if this statistic is true:

[...]a report earlier this year from America's leading health agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which revealed one in four teenage girls has a sexually transmitted disease.

So how does the federal government spend its money? Funding programmes that just hammer in the "don't have sex" message. Thankfully, as the report states, only a quarter of schools teach abstinence, while the rest do some sort of sex education. Still, 25% is twenty-five percent too many.

"This national programme which has wasted $1.5bn (£750m) of tax money is a failure and our teens are paying the price," says Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood."

So is this a rant against teaching abstinence? Not at all. I decry the means, not the ends. I for one believe that teenaged kids shagging themselves silly 24/7 isn't exactly the definition of a free and civilized country. However I am outraged at the deception that is inherent in the kind of abstinence teaching those unfortunate kids are getting. Educators choose to close their eyes and look the other way.

"They don't touch on subjects like sexuality, STDs (sexually transmitted diseases), birth control - it's not allowed because of abstinence-only education. It leaves you on a cliff-hanger - and a lot of teenagers become sexually active in their middle school years."

And if they don't stay quiet and deny you information, they take things in their own hands and lie:

He [Roger Norman] runs an organization called Wonderful Days which does not receive government funding but teaches abstinence as part of the health curriculum in some local schools.

[...] "Self control leads to a happy, joyful life. If we can learn to control the most basic of drives - the sex drive - for good, then we can control drugs, gangs, alcohol and abusive anger."

His lessons promote marriage and virginity - for both partners - as an ideal. They emphasise disease as a consequence of sex before marriage.

His argument seems to be that you can blame all the problems of this world, from abusive behaviour to street gangs to alcoholism on sex. Not stupidity, not lack of education, not deprivation, not poverty, not even lack of social mobility but SEX. As per the last point, last time I checked a ring on your finger didn't protect you from genital warts. Go figure.

Furthermore, his "alumni" display a remarkably skewed view of the whole of humanity, in particular their peers employing their energy in other, dare I say more entertaining ways:

Eighteen-year-old Ashley says she believes teenagers who experiment with sex are laying the foundations for troubled relationships later in life.

"At some point everybody ends up getting married. Everybody wants commitment at some point and nobody likes to be cheated on.

"But a lot of the young people I know who go around have experiences with lots of different people are just preparing themselves for not knowing how to be committed to somebody.

"Once you get into the practice of doing whatever you want, it's hard to change when you're older."

I guess "try before you buy" rarely crosses these kids' minds. Surely enough these programmes do end up persuading SOME people not to have sex:

Sixteen-year-old Josh says he relies on friends to help him stay abstinent.

"I have a lot of close friends and we pretty much agree on the same thing so we keep each other in line most of the time. Yes, it's difficult, but my friends are there and I'm there for them, and it gets easier if you have friends who agree with you."

I do not want to judge those who are guilty of nothing but being led into deception by people they trust (including their parents). What angers me is adults who indoctrinate teenagers into lies and falsehood under the pretence of care, religion or school policy. They further encourage those indoctrinated teenagers to go find new converts, with the added pressure of the advice coming from a peer.

You want to teach abstinence and responsible sexual behavior? Fine, I'll help. Instead of making people loathe themselves for their completely natural and healthy desires teach them the purpose of those same wants. Instead of shutting your eyes teach people about STDs and pregnancy so they know there's always an amount of risk associated with sex.

Teach them also what a great measure of trust is implicitly involved in intimate contact, and how that trust should be earned by both partners. While you're at it, tell 'em sex may be good, but if you have it with a person you really love it's GREAT. Ultimately, considered it can be great, you'd want to find the person you know would make it great, and you'd also want to have your fun unspoilt by an STD. Can't a promise of greater fun work better than scare tactics?

The bottom line is that the scaremongering and false approach adopted so far (by many, not all) isn't working. All it does is impose frustration and promote masturbation.

Image courtesy of ipostr.com.

Would you like a McDiploma with that?

Even nuts would say that's nuts!

Now one will be able to gain an equivalent of an A-level in "basic shift management" or similar, awarded by none else that McDonalds. Mind you (for those who aren't familiar with the system) that A-levels are the qualifications you achieve when you are 18, i.e. the ones that end your secondary education. Although I doubt these McGraduates will use this qualification to get into university, it still puzzles me as to who would actually do it. A-levels currently offer very valuable technical skills (aside from the classical academic subjects) that can be employed in a variety of fields. This addition is not something I approve of.

In all honesty, academic qualifications are for academic purposes. The skills taught by this new Mc-Level can be learned through an apprenticeship, which it ultimately is. But an apprenticeship has to be subject to rules of employment, it is much easier for a company to get paid and not have to hand out a job at the end of it. Bring back the apprenticeship and give academic qualifications their credibility back!

New exams aren't the solution

However one masks and sugar-coats it, every child going through the school system who turns out to be unable to read properly is a mark of failure on the government's record. Labour's motto "Education, education, education" clearly wasn't meant to succeed.

Not so long ago top British academics warned that their institutions had to lower admissions standards to face a growing number of youngsters whose skills were below par. Data regarding GCSEs and A-levels, especially in the sciences and languages, are not encouraging, while easier courses (excuse me, media studies, general studies and the like are easy!) are skyrocketing.

Now the british Tories are planning to introduce a reading assessment for kids leaving primary school. While this might provide more and more statistics, it doesn't tackle the root cause of illiteracy. Campaigning for phonics teaching is just part of the solution.

I remember when I was learning to read and write (in two languages with two different alphabets, mind you!) my family would spend hours helping me and compelling me to exercise, without giving me any rewards for being good but insisting that I absolutely had to be able to read and write properly and know the multiplication tables. I'm saying that because what all politicians need to realize is a very simple reality: the fundamental educational unit in the first years is the family. The school cannot do the impossible if the family neglects the child. Literacy and numeracy start in the home with mom and dad.

Intervention by the Government, as well as the attempt to monopolize people's lives, have limited people's sense of responsibility. Bring education and responsibility back in the family, get the parents involved directly, make them proud of their child's achievements. Tests and exams are either a sieve or a statistics production tool. Good if you want to sieve out the failing kids or have some statistics to wave.

Resources spent on new examinations are better spent on tackling the root causes of the problem. The Tories have the right principles and the right mindset to do this. Creating new exams is a Labour pastime; it's boring, inefficient, costly, stressful and useless.

Smart Power is yesterday!

Anyone advocating "smart power" as a combination of brute force and attractiveness misses a key point: we have lost the lead in it.

America had a great opportunity to exercise its smart power, having emerged victorious from the cold war. Their model was triumphant, their military might unparalleled and feared the world over. People saw the US as a shining light at the end of a tunnel.

What do we have today? Compare the US to a company with a "panic button" which represents brute force. In the rare occasions when the panic button is pushed everyone gives 110% to ensure the company stays afloat. The panic button is revered and its call is taken as an appeal to an employee's honour and loyalty. But what if the panic button keeps on being pushed every five minutes? Everyone is disillusioned, people seek alternative employment, the company falls apart.

Same thing with the US today. By squandering its military might in useless efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq the US have weakened their appeal for their military failures bleaken their successes in other areas. It's not about imposing your way of thinking and your system on populations who in all honesty aren't ready for it. National security is about mere survival. If somebody threatens to nuke you, you nuke him first. Plain and simple, use force only when needed. Instead the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have become a mishmash of national security, flawed democracy, Halliburton and God knows what else.

The US can't use smart power at all because they lack one of the components, and Europe is too weak on its own. They've got the "I told you not to" high ground, but this is no good tactic for attracting people to your model.

Where will "smart power" come from then? My bets are on India and China. Nations are eyeing up to them as a model for economic development, these countries are investing in Africa and Central Asia, they know their stuff. They don't waste time arguing with the US because they know there's a whole world out there ready to be conquered. You can't mess with them as their military (especially nuclear) might is something to fear without hesitation. Face it, they've got the lead now and they will use it.

Our soft power is our only resort. And we can use it only if we expand our horizons showing everyone else that we are doing it and achieving marvellous results. What are our assets?

1) Education. Our systems are the best. In their diversity they give the individual something beyond mere technical knowledge necessary for his/her profession. It is a global outlook and hopefully a mind that values ambition and effort. As long as other educational systems focus on the utilitarian approach to education, we've got a competitive advantage that we must rub in their faces. Not to impose our system on them, but to encourage them to change their system to something maybe even better than ours!

2) Our values.

We are founded on freedom. Freedom for an individual to dream, to live according to his wills, to satisfy his wants, to make his own decisions.

We are founded on rights. The right to own yourself and everything associated with your life, to own property and dispose of it as you see fit, to pursue your ambitions, to express your thinking and seek knowledge.

We are founded on the individual. Everything begins and ends at every single one of us. No entity is above the individual and his imprescriptible rights. No family, no State, no culture.

These mere three values are worth more than any might, because we are in the RIGHT. We have to realise this and stand armed with these three spears against the aggression by sets of values that aim to impose constraints on our rights, on our freedom or on the individual as a whole. And I speak of China especially here.

3) Trade. The exchange of goods fosters more efficient production and ultimately the best use of resources. Trade is a double-edged weapon, and we can use both edges. It is a vector for conveying our success to others (e.g. exporting our better products) as well as a coercion tool (I won't trade with you because you are crap). Let me exemplify with two controversial case studies:

a) GM seeds being sold to Africa. Now I am no expert in the field of agriculture, but if someone can't grow anything good on his land and we have something that'll grow like mad, it seems reasonable that we will want to sell this good and the poor sod will want to buy it. Free trade, duh. If the African countries don't want to be dependent on our seeds then sometime soon they'll realise that maybe building a lab and a factory is a better investment than buying AK-47s for rebels in a neighbouring country. Their squandering of their own resources and of our aid is no concern of ours because in a liberal world the entity has the right to make wrong decisions.

b) The Jackson-Vanik amendment and the extensions of it I advocate. If trade is free then I'm free to choose whom to trade with. And if the country doesn't satisfy my criteria then I must be free to not trade with them. If we set our criteria wisely we can compel the most despotic and mediocre countries into reform. Not necessarily "our reform", but some kind of change driving them into a new direction.

But is this all? Is it the usual "clash of civilisations" talk? Us against them? Right against wrong? Good against Evil? The never-ending deadlock that lies at the origin of today's troubles, trapping us in a spiral of mediocrity and utter short-sightedness and idiocy? Of course not. If we want others to change and follow our lead we've got to demonstrate we are going somewhere.

Now I maintain that our way of thinking as defined by the culture of freedom, independence, free trade and liberalism is the best so far achieved by mankind. While other mentalities/cultures might have enhanced certain positive aspects of human beings (industriousness, attachment to one's family, loyalty, etc) they have failed miserably to achieve the fine balance that allows our yet imperfect society to function as the leader in world progress. We've made the G7, for God's sake!

The greatest asset we possess is the ability to challenge ourselves and our knowledge. We can think centuries ahead, dream up new ideas, new approaches, new ways of thinking. Our greatest treasure and our best export is therefore ambition and the willingness to pursue it.

We've got an advantage over those able to use smart power: our soft power is stronger, is based on solid ground and is open to progress. Lets therefore focus on developing our thinking and rubbing our advantage into the faces of those who think they're smart enough to progress without reforming their ways.

If we are strong enough to demonstrate our superiority despite a lack of hard power we will show hard power is barely needed at all in a globalised, informatised, liberalised and ultimately CIVILISED world.

On education and freedom

As John F. Kennedy once said, Liberty without Education is always in peril, Education without Liberty is always in vain.

What did he mean? Does it imply that we shouldn't teach people in undemocratic countries, or that in countries where education is failing liberties should be taken away out of fear of misuse?

Totally oppositely, as you might have guessed, JFK merely meant to express in simple terms a very straightforward truth: we need to be free to learn, and we need to learn to be free. The world has been driven by two powerful forces: Man's desire of freedom and Man's desire to know.

How do these two forces interact? The possible interpretations are as numerous as the grains of sand in a desert, but let me pick one of them and look at it in detail.

Education is not all about mnemonics. You might learn whole books by heart and still never understand how to apply the general knowledge you have acquired. Whether you know that 2+2 is 4 doesn't mean you grasp the principle behind addition.

Education is the development of a human mind into something unique, powerful and independent. The whole purpose of teaching children to read is to enable them to acquire further knowledge later in both academic and independent study. A teacher's purpose is to teach students to ask themselves questions, and seek answers.

But what happens when you ask yourself questions, and seek answers? You don't think just about the elementary things in life; you might wander into the abstract realms of philosophical thinking, taking human nature and the world to bits in order to analyse it.

Here's where liberty becomes essential. Philosophical and independent thinking in general require no boundaries for it to be set, to foster exploration and discovery of new concepts and doctrines. Had the ancients surrounded their lands with walls assuming there was nothing beyond, Columbus would have never been an explorer.

Free thinking, independent philosophical analysis and knowledge development occur only in those societies that are prepared to accept or debate the new findings in order to establish their validity. Where this is not the case, human beings drift into a state of idleness, performing only subsistence tasks without challenging the marvellous ability given to us in the form of critical thinking.

What is then the purpose of breeding new thinkers and educated people if we will deny them the right to develop their thinking talent and share their findings with us? Whereby we deny the liberty to think in a novel way, we take all purpose away from education beyond the level needed to carry out basic subsistence tasks such as counting the money at a rural market stall. This is unacceptable and is an insult to the human nature of Man.

Taking a look at the problem from the opposite direction, we notice a different focus. Whereby we have the freedom but not the infrastructure to deliver education and knowledge, people find themselves in an awkward situation of handling the precious gift of freedom without knowing even which way to hold it. We witness this situation in recently freed countries such as de-colonised Africa. Leaving aside the many responsibilities of the colonising powers in creating today's problems, we notice a particularly worrying trend.

Sub-Saharan Africa's crippling or non-existent education is an endemic problem brought by many factors such as unrest and poverty, and there's a vicious circle which makes these countries spiral deeper into trouble. Let us take a part of this chain, lack of education.

What happened? With de-colonisation, peoples who were used to some sort of domination (foreign, tribal or other) were bestowed with a precious gift which was independence and freedom to run themselves as a country. However, their critical thinking had not been fostered (full blame goes to the colonising powers), thus the newly-acquired freedom was squandered by loyalties arising along ethnic, religious or other lines instead of becoming a loyalty to the newly-freed community. As if this wasn't enough on its own, unscrupulous (and frequently uneducated but ferocious) leaders indoctrinated their people to believe that the only way to settle a dispute is to kill your opponent.

We left these populations at the mercy of unscrupulous warlords, unaware of how precious independence and liberty were to give them away. Had we educated these populations and opened their minds to the vast ocean of knowledge that centuries of civilisations have helped to fill, the value of freedom would have been much more appreciated.

All this serves to prove one essential point, grasped fully by Kennedy. As much as we need to set no boundaries to human thought and independence, we also have a moral obligation to empower people to cross known boundaries and explore the world outside their mindsets. Miss out on one of those commitments, and all your efforts are vain and result in nothing but waste and disaster.