The noise filling the Arab space today over the fragmentation of public opinion surrounding the events of the Forty-Day War is not new; differing visions and divisions among elites are symptoms of a deeper ailment.

We see those who justify Iran’s assault on the Gulf states, and conversely, those who reduce the entire situation to the presence of Israel, as if the conflict can only be understood from a single perspective. Between these two positions, the ability to distinguish is lost, and politics and emotion become intertwined. This inability to separate issues is not accidental, but rather the result of long-accumulated structures of thought, which can be traced back to one of the most important institutions shaping consciousness: Arab education.

In this context, Mohamed Tawfiq’s book, "Against Logic: The Story of Egyptian Education from Muhammad Ali Pasha to the Emperor of Physics", helps us understand the roots of the dysfunction.

The book does not address Egypt alone, but rather a model whose influence has extended across much of the Arab world, where many countries have drawn inspiration for their educational structures from the Egyptian experience at foundational stages. The author explains how, over decades, education was transformed from a project aimed at building the mind into a system for stockpiling information, and from a space for critique into a mechanism for compliance.

The toxic trilogy

The writer identifies a toxic trilogy that has accompanied education, documenting it in detail. This trilogy consists of private tutoring, which has spread extensively over the years; external summary books that have grown into a massive industry; and what he describes as “furnished apartments for cheating.” He traces the evolution of exam cheating, noting how Taha Hussein once wrote: “We have overvalued exams more than necessary, making them an end, which has harmful effects on ethics, the most apparent being cheating…”

The problem, as Mohamed Tawfiq describes it, lies not only in the curricula but in the philosophy that governs them. When the goal of education becomes passing the exam rather than understanding life, we produce generations that memorize but do not think, repeat but do not analyze.

Over time, a parallel system to official education emerged, relying on private tutoring, summary books, and ultimately “cramming” as the culmination of this path. The student is no longer required to understand, but simply to reach the answer by the shortest route, even at the expense of intellectual integrity. Tawfiq’s account is striking, and his tracing of these three phenomena over the course of a century brings the full picture into sharper focus.

This educational environment produces not only weak graduates but also shapes a mode of thinking that persists throughout a person’s life. Accustomed to receiving the “ideal answer” and the summary of summaries, the individual becomes less able to tolerate multiple perspectives. Whoever grows used to truth being delivered in a ready-made form is unlikely to exert the effort required for research and analysis.

Thus, the transition from the classroom to the practice of politics becomes a smooth one: the same mind that once searched for the “expected question” is now the one seeking a “ready-made narrative” to adopt without scrutiny.

The Forty Days war

When we look at the Arab debate surrounding the Forty Days War, we begin to understand how this pattern of thinking operates. Some view the world through a simplified duality: for or against, friend or foe. There is no space for priorities, nor for hidden agendas. This mentality is not only political but also rooted in education. It is the product of a mind trained to choose between “right” and “wrong” on an exam paper, rather than to engage with a wide range of possibilities.

More dangerously, this mode of thinking opens the door to deception; when critical thinking is absent, the audience becomes more susceptible to believing any narrative, no matter how illogical it may be.

We have seen in recent years how narratives that do not rest on evidence spread, and how they have found both promoters and believers on social media. In each case, the common denominator is the absence of the ability to question and verify: who said this, why was it said, and what evidence exists? The last question being the most important.

This does not mean that education alone is responsible for everything, as there are also media, political, and cultural factors. However, education remains the foundation upon which other elements are built. If this foundation is fragile, then anything constructed on it will be prone to collapse. Therefore, reforming awareness cannot be achieved through transient media campaigns, but rather through a re-examination of the way we educate our children.

Marching against logic

Restoring the mind’s status begins with redefining success in education. Success is not achieving the highest marks, but the ability to think independently and ask creative questions. Excellence is not in memorizing the most information, but in understanding and critically engaging with it.

This transformation requires vision, as well as political and cultural will, but it remains the only path out of the vicious cycle of oversimplification and toward protecting the public from its dangers.

What we see today in the fragmentation of public opinion is merely a reflection of decades of packaged education. If we want an enlightened public opinion and the ability to discern, we must start there—from schools and universities, where the mind is formed before entering the political arena. Mohamed Tawfiq chose his title “Against Logic” to tell us, with evidence, that most of us are marching against logic.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by the writers are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Annahar.