We have reached a point in history where the concept of equal opportunity has gradually become fused, blurred and even manipulated into becoming a synonym to equal results… and to add to the gravity of the situation, the intrusion of political correctness has produced a grotesque inversion of all standards with the ultimate result of social disarray and seemingly irreparable damage, not only to many major companies but also to whole countries, including but not limited to western so called advanced nations.

If you are a parent of two children, one of them is hard working, brilliant kid  and the other is a dopy slow witted and lazy  kid, would you buy each of them the car of his choice just to be fair ? what kind of results would you expect in such case? You shall always find those who shall point fingers at you saying that it would not be fair to deprive the slow lazy kid from having a car. The child himself will certainly feel – and claim – he has been treated unfairly because he felt entitled to have the same privileges as his brother . But as a parent you realize it would be better to be accused of all this than to contribute to your child’s demise or even worse if he kills somebody – and, or himself – while driving. Mind you, not all parents are willing to take in that much pressure and blame… some others will let their emotions make their decisions for them notwithstanding the subsequent resulting catastrophe…

However, an objection may arise that the circumstances are not always that clear cut. After all a parent is expected to be even handed in dealing with his or her children who grew up in the same environment and have the same privileges as well as disadvantages. Therefore the situation becomes much more complicated for persons of different backgrounds, ethnicity, gender or religion… as all these factors become involved in the decision making process… not to mention the economic and social environment. What happens when an employer – or country – is faced with a choice between a black woman and a white man… a moslem man and a Christian woman… a gay woman or a straight man… etc. it becomes even worse, when the hiring – or immigration officer – is pressured by a superior or a relative or a friend to make a specific choice.

It is amazing how the most ardent defenders of equal opportunity, are themselves asking for preferential treatment once they get the equal opportunity they called for originally !! when fifty students apply for thirty spots in a certain course, equal opportunity means that you choose the thirty most qualified among the 50 students… period. Yet, the equal opportunity defenders – skewered by political correctness – will come back to inject certain caveats … exception for women, another for certain ethnic group, and yet another for the poor and so on and on. The end result will be excluding some of the brightest and most talented students in favor of less qualified ones… if this is an engineering class or medical class etc. you shall get mediocre graduates who shall forever be a burden on whatever profession in whatever establishment they join while you could have achieved a lot better results if the brilliant and the brightest were chosen from the beginning… actually half of those lesser graduates are bound to fail most of the time in producing, or contributing to society as a whole. That is usually the difference between a mediocre graduate and a successful one. Let me give you a practical  illustration from real life. It is a well known common practice in a country like Egypt to find blatant and out in the open discrimination against Christians – a minority – in Education as well as the job market. In a flagrant example a position was advertised as required by law to fill a spot for a staff member in one of the universities. The best qualified applicant happened to be a Christian graduate. The chairman of the department rejected the applicant and after six months with no hope of finding a qualified Muslim applicant, he cancelled the position altogether vowing, “no Christian will take this spot in my department.” In another example, during the practical exam of the final year at one university, the visiting professor before grading a certain student asked about his name – usual practice to reveal the religion of the student – and finding that the full name of the student was so ambiguous and could not reveal the religion of the student, he went to ask the local professor bluntly whether the student was Christian or Muslim … it so happened that the student in question overheard the enquiry, and answered loudly himself, “I am Christian Doc.” Only recently in this 21st century, a major scandal erupted in Egypt, when it was discovered that the answer-sheets in the most important exam for graduating high school,  of a brilliant Christian girl – which are supposed to be graded by unmarked secret ballots – were taken out and given to another failing student  – a relative of a high official – while the Christian girl was given blank answer sheets to justify giving her zeros in all subjects. It even turned out to be a common practice in the Egyptian education system when the media were allowed to investigate the matter. Because of such practices, most Egyptian Christians seek education  – and eventual immigration – outside Egypt. So the country is left with mediocre half educated graduates who cannot lift the country up into the echelons of 21st century technology.. it is well known that a Christian graduate in any Egyptian college with a passing grade, is highly endeared over any muslim graduate, because the first one had to study and work ten times harder in order to graduate, while the second had to merely show up at the exam.

Now let us take this piece of information to the level of an industrial company or commercial organization, when you have ten applicants for two spots in your roster. Five of them were educated outside the US while the other five were educated in the US. The first question you shall ask me… where outside the US? And certainly you understand the implications of that one question. You and I know why… but the law of equal opportunity is being challenged here… and for good reason… a graduate educated in Japan or South Korea is expected to have better grasp of his subjects even if he or she is schizophrenic… a graduate from New Delhi school is expected to work twice as hard for half the salary.. regardless whether he can write a report in English or communicate perfectly on the phone.

The rise or fall of nations is completely dependent on the competency of their education systems, because this is what guarantees for these nations producing competent leaders, entrepreneurs, and a highly skilled work force. In a recent report by a British official to her government regarding the education system in Egypt, she wrote, that the top tier graduates usually go into Engineering and medicine while the second tier ones go into social studies and economics. Which makes the second tier group become the arbiters and controllers of the future of the first group. The third tier graduates are usually directed into manual professional skills while at the end the fourth group which is at the bottom of the skill range go into politics and local government activism which makes them finally in control of all the other groups. It is a system that breeds problems and inefficiency. She is right, as I myself have witnessed this system at work when I graduated from the top university and all along my future was hounded by illiterate and half educated mayors, police chiefs and managers who never stopped asking for bribes, pushing illicit products or at least demanding favors.

It is true that corruption exists in every society, it exists in Chicago, New York city, London and many other cities… may be even worse than it is in Cairo, Egypt. yet when it becomes so prevalent, it certainly undercuts the chances of society as a whole to become prosperous and free… check the meteoric rise of crime in London and Chicago in the past few years.. check the homeless explosion in San Francisco and the shameless explosion of violence on “respectable” American  university campus, not to mention the latest scandal of admission to elite top Universities in the USA.  The only guardian of any society is the media, however, the media itself is the product of the education system. That is how the end… begins… fundamental  sweeping solutions are needed.. it may be painful and cause some social contortions, but it may be the only way to return to basics, to the original principles which made these same societies great at a certain point in time.