In her address at the UN Security Council recently, First Lady Melania Trump talked about making education accessible for all. The Security Council’s presidency rotates each month. This month it was the US’s turn to head the proceedings, where Mrs Trump spoke earnestly about bringing peace through education in today’s strife-torn world. While the idea appears noble, it is the intent that leaves much to be desired. Though the First Lady’s intent is “rooted in the concept of ‘democratising knowledge’ for everyone in this ‘age of imagination’”.
Contradictions in policy and practice
It is a noble thought indeed, but one that is fraught with many contradictions. To start with, for a country that projects itself as the protector of children’s rights, there has hardly been any concrete step taken by the US under Trump to end the genocide in Gaza. In fact, early last year, he promoted the idea that Palestinians should relocate to other areas permanently and had declared to all and sundry that America would take over the Gaza Strip and “do a real job with it”. He shared his vision of the Gaza Strip at a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House.
That the number of children killed or maimed in Gaza by October 2025 had reached a staggering 64,000, according to a statement by the UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell, seemed of little or no consequence to Mr and Mrs Trump, who have stayed mum on the issue. Neither did the duo condemn Israel’s recent attack on the Sharjareh Tayyebeh girls’ school in Minab in the ongoing war with Iran, which killed 180 people, most of whom were girls aged between 7 and 12. Initially, both the Trump administration and the Israel Defence Forces claimed ignorance in the matter, a claim that offered a rather weak defence for the technically advanced nations. But then on the morning of March 10, in the face of mounting protests over the attack, the president made a baseless claim that it was done by “someone else” or the Iranians themselves.
Debate over the meaning of intelligence
Another contradiction that surfaces in the speech is the understanding of the term “intelligence”. In her speech, Melania Trump stated that “Children raised in a culture rooted in intelligence develop confidence, innovate, build, compete, and maintain a deep value system… But children raised in a culture rooted in ignorance are surrounded by disorder, and sometimes even conflict. These societies are filled with rigid thinkers who embrace prejudice and shun human dignity.”
Strictly speaking, “intelligence” is a subjective as well as an objective term, depending on the context it is used in, and varies across societies and cultures. It is often region-specific too and is reflected in the food choices one makes or the way he/she dresses. For example, it makes good sense to wear an abaya when in a desert country, as it protects one from extreme heat or sandstorms. When Melania Trump spoke about the “culture rooted in ignorance”, she was referring to states that are not yet technology-friendly or digitally savvy.
Cultural knowledge and survival
Judging a society as culturally ignorant shows the limited knowledge the Trumps possess. A tribe residing deep in the forests of the Congo Basin in Africa may be ignorant of the new-age world, yet it is intelligent enough to have survived in harsh conditions without depending on modern-day technology. In fact, when it comes to understanding the region, their intelligence far exceeds ours. Yes, when talking about cognitive functions, intelligence does become objective. But that is a ridiculously narrow look at a term that encompasses all aspects of life.
In essence, what it means is that a civilisation that has survived for thousands of years cannot lack intelligence. And by that definition, America has a history extending to a mere 250 years in the past. So, when Mrs Trump talks of the “culture rooted in intelligence” and the “culture rooted in ignorance”, she seems to be talking about the measurable aspects of the terms, which makes them objective in nature.
Limits of cultural understanding
She is right in saying that when a nation restricts thought, it restricts its own future. But then it is a two-way street. The US of A, the most technologically advanced, democratic, and supposedly liberal nation in the world, a superpower that has been the fulcrum of the world economy since World War II and has extended its influence over the rest of the world culturally as well, has been rather wanting in its understanding of the various cultures that co-habit planet Earth.
Violence against children and societal contradictions
According to a 2022 report by Johns Hopkins University on gun violence in the United States, gun deaths among children in the age group of 1 to 17 “have increased by 106 per cent since 2013 and have been the leading cause of death among this group since 2020”. This year, so far there have been six incidents of school shootings in the US, as per a CNN report.
The First Lady’s observation that the “path to peace depends on us taking responsibility to empower our children through education and technology” is crucial. But equally crucial is understanding that all conflicts are not a result of ignorance; some originate due to greed, such as Israel’s greed for a Greater Israel or America’s greed for the oil. Unless that greed is tackled, the observation remains a talking point on paper only.
A warning sign for humanity
For the past few years, talks of an apocalypse have gained momentum; they have become a subject of mainstream discourse. The end of the world as we see it, coupled with the dominance of machines, has generated great concern among the masses, and their response to it has been as varied as the belief in the cause leading to it and its timing. However, one thing is decidedly certain: when children start becoming the target in a war, it is a sure-shot sign of the beginning of the end.
