Lebanon: Weathering the Storm

Visitors to Lebanon tend to wonder why the country is in a chronic and growing mess despite the high level of education in the country – and the large proportion of people with advanced degrees. Is it just “corruption” that is causing the retardation, or is it something deeper? Let us try to define a proper education.

The UNESCO International Commission on Education for the 21st century has identified four pillars of learning:

1. Learning to know (acquiring relevant knowledge)

2. Learning to do (preparing to contribute to economic development)

3. Learning to be (developing personality/ individual self-reliance)

4. Learning to live together (promoting social harmony)

Education in Lebanon has traditionally been very strong on knowledge - perhaps too strong in the sense of emphasizing memorization and cramming rather than true comprehension, analytical and critical thinking. Could it be that practical knowledge, personality development, and a sense of community have not been accorded enough attention, compared with theoretical knowledge? Possibly, at least in the distant past – and such matters take time to change. Even though there may be greater awareness now of the importance of self-reliance, we still see passiveness, attitudes of dependency, and a waiting for Godot tendency rather than concerted efforts for change. The generations that lacked the important skills are still in power, steering a heavy ship in the middle of a stormy, polluted sea. 

With the Covid-19 pandemic impacting education, UNESCO has recently recognised the importance of resilience as a component of learning, resilience being the ability to succeed despite serious threats. Therefore, resilience may be added to the four pillars of learning soon, as mentioned by two bloggers at UNESCO’s International Portal for Educational Planning (“21st Century Skills in the Time of Covid”). The Lebanese will certainly need resilience to weather the current storm.

From Pandemic to Infodemic

 

The term infodemic ( a blend of information and epidemic) is not very new. However, it has become popular lately, with the spread of Covid-19 related news. The Cambridge dictionary has incorporated it.

The Merriam-Webster editors commented last spring that they were “watching” this word although it had not yet entered their dictionary. In fact, almost a year later, a search for it in Merriam-Webster still produces no result. Where it is discussed, here is how they define it: “a rapid and far-reaching spread of both accurate and inaccurate information about something, such as a disease. As facts, rumors, and fears mix and disperse, it becomes difficult to learn essential information about an issue” (“Words We’re Watching: Infodemic”).

According to Merriam-Webster, the term was coined by Washington Post journalist David Rothkopf in relation to SARS back in 2003:

What exactly do I mean by the "infodemic"? A few facts, mixed with fear, speculation and rumor, amplified and relayed swiftly worldwide by modern information technologies, have affected national and international economies, politics and even security in ways that are utterly disproportionate with the root realities. It is a phenomenon we have seen with greater frequency in recent years—not only in our reaction to SARS, for example, but also in our response to terrorism and even to relatively minor occurrences such as shark sightings.
David Rothkopf, The Washington Post, 11 May 2003

Last spring, the World Health Organization warned about misinformation and disinformation surrounding Covid-19 in “Let’s Flatten the Infodemic Curve”. The site encourages information literacy, from checking sources, authors, and dates, to examining evidence and biases. More recently, The Guardian newspaper published an opinion piece by Oxford Professor Melinda Mills entitled “We Must Prevent a Vaccine 'Infodemic' from Fuelling the Covid Pandemic”. Mills fears that researchers’ work on the vaccines will be wasted if anti-vaccination campaigners’ misinformation is not counteracted using effective communication with the public, including local dialogue rather than one-way information-heavy communications.

Similarly, the World Economic Forum is concerned: “There's No Vaccine for the Infodemic - So How Can We Combat the Virus of Misinformation?”. Information literacy is the key, as opposed to – for example - “plandemic” conspiracy theories.