Shirin Ebadi

Shirin Ebadi is an Iranian human rights lawyer fighting for liberty and social justice, especially for the marginalised. She was Nobel Peace Prize winner for her work in 2003. Here is the BBC estimate of her work. She was the first female judge in Iran, and teaches law in the University of Tehran. Her offices from which she complained for the marginal was closed down by the authorities and staff arrested.

Much of her work has been on women's liberty and rights. Since the Iranian revolution, freedoms for women have been considerably eroded.

Her recent work has been to support the Iranian Bahai community. Bahais have been persecuted in Iran ever fince their founding in the middle of the 19th century. Since the Iranian revolution, Bahais have been executed for teaching children, and for being Bahais (regarded by some Muslims as a heresy of Islam, but believing themselves to be a separate world religion). Family wealth and property has been confiscated, and children have been denied an education and entry to university. In January, arrests of six Bahais hit the news, including a member of her own staff. More details linked here. On Channel 4 News today, she showed desecrated Bahai gravestones and expressed great concern for both the treatment of the Bahai minority, and civil rights generally.

The Bahai Faith emerged as a peaceful religion in Iran from the 1850s. Their first teacher, called The Bab, was executed, their first 'Manifestation of God', Bahaullah, was imprisoned until his death in 1892. Both left a considerable body of teaching that encouraged world development to an ideal in which men and women are considered equal in status, that all races and nations should be deemed equal, that extortion and impoverishing must be stopped, that the world should develop a democratic politics in which everyone are valued. They teach that all religions should be valued as expressions of God's revelation. The encourage the empowerment of both families and communities. What is there in this philosophy that must be silenced?

Power in this world is held by vested interests who demand obedience and deny freedom of thought, religion and action. Those in power have mechanisms, such as police and army, to assert their dominence. Individuals therefore have to decide whether to allow this to happen uncontested, or be counted as ethical opponents, and thereby as workers towards peace, equity, respect and human well-being. The opposite is to be supporters of aggression, injustice, disrespect and human degradation. Whatever our beliefs, we have to stand up and be counted as ethical workers towards global and local peace.


See further: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirin_Ebadi.

Ivan Illich and Deschooling

Back in the early 1970s Ivan Illich was persuaded that school education was so bad that the only answer was to scrap them. His book, Deschooling Society was iconic. He contrasted learning with schooling. Schooling is about compliance and obedience whilst learning is about excitement, motivation and empowerment. He referred both to an inappropriate curriculum, and an undemocratic school ethos. Schooling is done to children and not with children. His vision was of a global network of expertise that people could buy into (and offer good or bad feedback) instead of the state providing an education system. To the call to introduce free schooling worldwide, his view that this was the most unhelpful thing to impose onto a developing country. More knowledge, yes, more learning, yes, but NOT more schooling.

This has been a challenging thought. The 1980s UK government imposed a National Curriculum to improve things - it was even called the Education Reform Act in 1988. That was a botched disaster which saw annually revised versions, important afterthoughts such as citizenship, environmental education and careers education. Then a bolted on personal and social education permeation. Angst about standards, behaviour and school quality provide annual post-mortems. Employers still campaign about low literacy and numeracy levels. Campaigns about respect, and 'behaviour modification' are constantly reinvented. Education costs billions, but the problems have not gone away.

Of course, the issue for Illich was what would take the place of schools. He said, a network of expertise. We now have the internet so there is a means for delivering such a network. Of course, the good needs sifting from the awful, but that is not impossible.

It is time to reconsider Illich's arguments. Do schools need to disempower pupils? How could they in contrast empower them? Do schools (or colleges, universities) need to pretend to be the only holders of knowledge? Can education institutions prepare students to become adaptable thinking adults who will live in a world where knowledge is unrecognizably different from what we now think we know? Is the internet the best way of achieving this? Or will other things follow?

So Illich argued that schools made pupils dependent and not independent. That the NHS makes people dependent on experts rather that independent pursuers of healthy lifestyles. That in general all government institutions should empower rather than disempower, and produce motivated and enterprising people. That is still an important national and global aspiration. Schools, Colleges and Universities are only as good as they are at delivering such an enriching agenda.