Identity answers the question of "who am I?" by providing guidance on the characteristics, commonalities, principles, and values that distinguish individuals and groups from others. This enables them to understand others and accurately assess their place among peers. Deep understanding of themselves motivates effective interaction, collaboration, and integration with others to achieve desired goals.
Failure of individuals, groups, and nations to understand their own uniqueness and distinguishing features can lead to conformity and dissolution into divergent identities. This conformity, based on imitation, replication, resemblance, and integration, creates counterfeit identities that attempt to replicate images of others to whom the imitator does not belong. Consequently, individuals lose themselves and fail to compensate by artificially crafting a new, imitative self.
One of the most evident manifestations of globalization in educational curricula is the decline of education in Arabic language and the collapse of its social status
Identity expresses commonalities among individuals of the same community and nation, stemming from their unique experiences evident in language, customs, history, shared destiny, and geographic proximity. Therefore, the pillars of identity are reflected in daily practices of community members and manifest in simple actions like speech, writing, communication, religious rituals, and social customs.
Identity and the Fires of Globalization
Given that identity is a unique cultural characteristic that cannot be replicated or imitated, the essence of globalization fundamentally conflicts with identity. While globalization relies on melting differences, removing boundaries, and spreading Western culture as the pinnacle of cultural, political, and economic achievements, identity adheres to distinctive boundaries that distinguish and separate people—not for the purpose of conflict, but for integration, exchange of experiences, and enrichment of cultural diversity among nations. This respects the principle of diversity, a divine cosmic norm that cannot and should not be dissolved by claims of cultural and civilizational uniformity imposed forcefully from the West.
Western cultural uniformity had declared the end of history with the triumph of Western civilization, openly expressing a desire to impose victorious Western culture worldwide, viewing diversity and specificity as a constant threat that must be erased and worked upon for disappearance. The field of education became a fertile ground for these systematic and orchestrated policies, being the factory of identity and the source of social and cultural upbringing for all nations. Thus, education became a tool for demolition, whereas it was supposed to be a beacon of enlightenment, a tool for construction, education, and civilizational awareness, and a nurturing ground for solidifying and establishing identity among future generations.
Deleting and Flattening Many Important Historical Events that Shape the Awareness of Future Generations
Manifestations of Identity Suppression in Educational Curricula
Given that language, history, culture, and religion are crucial components in defining the identity of any society, the relentless efforts to dismantle these identity pillars in educational curricula have progressed steadily towards falsification and distortion. The most notable manifestations of globalization in Arab curricula include:
- The decline of Arabic language education and the collapse of its social status as a third education option, with little interest from parents who prefer foreign languages and international curricula.
- Deletion, modification, and oversimplification of many significant historical events that shape the awareness of emerging Arab generations. This includes the study of Islamic Caliphates, the realities of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and other rich lessons from Arab and Islamic history.
- Retreat from studying religious education as a core subject, limiting it to a small portion focusing on rituals, benign behaviors, while flattening the idea of religion as a comprehensive cultural and civilizational reference in all aspects of life and a fundamental pillar of Renaissance.
- Subjecting the educational process to the supervision and intervention of foreign and international entities that dictate educational agendas, failing to achieve desired educational outcomes as a national security issue crucial for nurturing the new generations upon whom the nation's building relies.
Fostering a Healthy Identity for Future Generations: Emphasizing Family Upbringing and Educational Curricula
- Using purely Western terms in studying Arab and Islamic historical phenomena, such as replacing "occupation" with "colonization," referring to "Israel" instead of the "occupied entity," substituting "terrorism" with "resistance," and "Middle East" with "Arab world," among others.
- Reinforcing inaccurate educational values, such as favoring natural sciences over social sciences as more prestigious, while social sciences like philosophy, logic, history, and literature are crucial for identity formation and developing young people's critical and creative thinking to counter Western cultural and intellectual invasion.
- Promoting scientific neutrality as a fundamental value, which leads to accusing anyone with a strong sense of identity of being "biased," whereas scientific neutrality, especially in social sciences influenced by cultural and civilizational backgrounds, should not adhere strictly to neutrality as in natural and mathematical sciences.
Biased Educational Approach
To create a healthy identity for future generations, reliance on family socialization first, and then embedding a sense of belonging in educational curricula second, are critical factors in protecting young minds from intellectual invasion, cultural occupation, and intellectual destruction.
Achieving this identity reinforcement in the educational process requires political will, through enhancing independent educational policies free from international directives and external interventions, and working towards a comprehensive development of the entire educational process to deliver an academic product that reflects the values and needs of society, individuals, and the nation, and meets the requirements of the labor market and the state's future economic plans.
Creating identity requires incorporating foreign sciences and expertise in the Arabic language
If such will is present, it necessitates identifying the weaknesses in the educational process and focusing on the essence of the curricula, not through partial deletions and scattered amendments, but by formulating a comprehensive vision and holistic methodology. This approach should go beyond fragmentation and disarray, which strips education of its substance as an integrated system of values and principles, rather than just isolated information and unrelated subjects.
Furthermore, emphasis should be placed on methodology over rote memorization and information transfer. This can be achieved by fostering principles that encourage reading, research, effort, thinking, critique, and creativity, and by creating a safe and attractive educational environment that encourages talent development and intellectual engagement.
Lastly, an education that shapes the identity of a nation cannot do so without its language and religion. Language expresses the depths of human psyche, and religion connects this life to the afterlife with a bond of ethics, encouraging good deeds and linking them to the eternal destiny as one continuous life lived by humans. Religion provides moral motivation, while language facilitates effective communication among community members to fulfill their duties and exchange experiences and benefits. Thus, creating identity requires incorporating foreign sciences and expertise in the Arabic language to strengthen the connection of new generations to their nation.
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