Illiteracy does not mean ignorance since many illiterate people can handle their lives maybe better than many literates. Illiteracy falls under the umbrella of lack of education, and some literate people might not have finished their education process.
Lack of education does not represent a barrier since we know Bill Gates is one of the most successful figures in the world. He did not complete his college education but he contributed with innovations and companies in the technological revolution as well as making a huge fortune from it. He also allocated some of his money to charitable projects and the poor.
Besides, the technological revolution, including the Internet and TV satellites, narrow the gap between literates and illiterates.
I don’t want to praise illiteracy, no one should, but perception is not linked to illiteracy as much as it is linked to amount of experience of each individual.
In the world of politics, many less-educated leaders are able to rule better than those more educated because some leaders use emotions and sentiments, especially during elections season. The Germans elected Adolf Hitler, who led them into the destructive World War II.
In Egypt, many terrorism leaders in the eighties were literates, some of them even physicians and engineers and carried PhD degrees, such as Osama bin Laden, Ayman el-Zawahry, Assem Abdel Maguid, Essam Derbala, and Safwat Abdel Ghani. We also find that senior makers of sectarian strife, Muslims, Copts, Shiites, and Sunni, all have the highest educational degrees.
Egyptians respect literate figures and trust them. Since January 2001, we have seen how intellectuals can drag people into traps and we have also seen Intellectual elites who had revolutionary commands, coalitions, and unions but turned their backs to the goals of the revolution and decided to spend all their time through conflicts and scandals on Facebook, Twitter, and then on Youtube and TV satellites.
Ordinary citizens recently discovered that intellectual elites and leaders do not know so much since they do not have any real methods and advice; all what these leaders did were call to boycott elections.
And their response to every question asked by citizens, who are wondering about the aims or reasons for a certain protest, is always, “You know nothing, you are part of ‘sofa party.’”
Charges are directed against less education people who do not know, understand, or realize why, while the intellectual elites give speeches on stability and win the elections. That is how gaps were established between intellectual elites and illiterate people.
I repeat, illiteracy is not a good thing, but many opportunists have good conscious and the ability to understand the rules of the politics game.
Illiteracy does not mean ignorance, and education does not mean high conscious. A good evidence for this argument is the large number of intellectual analysts who appear on TV to drive people to confusion, ignorance, and intolerance among each other. Others promote for killing and racism instead of informing people of what is happening around them.
Our problem is not limited to lack of education only but also because a lack of morality and the ability to differentiate good and bad.
