“Educations purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.”
                        – Malcolm Forbes (1919-1990)

A great achievement of human kind in these days is to have a clear understanding of the indispensable interaction of culture and democracy. All cultures are constantly being influenced by the intrinsic social systems.  Our families and schools as social educators play crucial role in building the moral values and confidence.  We ought to respect our families, our teachers and our elderly for that is the culture we are all proud of and we have to maintain them by building democratic principles that are sound to our culture and our social capital. But we have to be keen not to influence our confidence negatively.

In our traditional families the way we were raised as children is to do what we are told by our parents and our elders, to inquire anything is taboo and punishable. The father or mother chooses and enforces his choice and we have to comply, the parent disciplines and we are disciplined, the parent thinks and acts and we are thought about and illusioned by the act. Of course all this is done out of compassion and love. But on the other hand this inadvertently create on us dependency, halting the inquisitiveness of our mind and degrading our self-confidence.  

Next to family that impacts the whole society, through influencing children and the youth are schools, the educational system and teachers. Our educational system considers knowledge as a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing. Projecting ones attitude on the other, a characteristic of our educational system and our curriculum negates education and knowledge as processes of inquiry. The students, alienated from taking part in the teaching learning processes, we never discover that we can educate the teacher; we can correct their wrongs.  It turns us into “receptacles” to be “filled” by the teacher. The teacher teaches and we are taught; The teacher knows everything and we know nothing; The teacher talks and we listen — meekly, The teacher chooses the program content, and we adapt to it; The teacher is the Subject of the learning process, while we are mere objects. And there it starts the withering of our self-confidence and accepting what is given into us unquestionably.

The outstanding characteristic of this educational system is not transforming us into enlightened and liberated citizens but conditioned by what we are thought at school.  As Malcolm Forbes puts it however “Education’s purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.” If instead it produces a conditioned mind however the empty mind is then much better so that one can see things objectively and ones potential of differentiating good and evil, right and wrong would be maintained. In other words the individual will be innocent, honest and he will acquire knowledge from reality and experience making him much better than the conditioned mined.   Such an educational system   weakens the self-confidence and the capacity of our inquisitive mind. “Four times four is sixteen; the capital of Eritrea is Asmara.” The student records, memorizes, and repeats these phrases without perceiving what four times four really means, or realizing the true significance of “capital” in the affirmation “the capital of Eritrea is Asmara,” that is, what Asmara means for Eritrea.  This in turn develops taking things for granted and accepting things even when they are not to our advantage, through time it grows as a norm and culture stagnating our inquisitive mind and enslaving us systematically in the mind. Ultimately making us submissive and obedient citizens who do not even dare to claim our own rights. When one educational expert in Asmara University - the late Dr.Fessaha Haile explained this on one incident saying, “You are zipped not to talk via the curriculum” he was so disappointed that we as students do not even dare to ask our own rights. He made his point while in class he was teaching his audience; the students started complaining that he should let them off, as they have to attend a meeting with Yemane Gebreab from the PFDJ office so the doctor so worried by the situation made the comment to imply that you will listen and you don’t have any confidence to ask him, you are zipped he said.