By Yousuf Al-Azmi

"True ignorance is not the absence of knowledge, but the refusal to acquire it." - Karl R Popper

first thing that comes to mind when we speak about ignorance and backwardness is the nature of ignorance, its reasons and results, whether there is a manufacturing of ignorance and its cost calculations, profits and loses, failure and success, or is it spontaneous due to time features that influenced the spread of knowledge, and the presence of ignorance in its place as an inevitable result due to what things will turn out later. Ignorance has its various forms in each era, and has its popular goods!

Maybe the most important reasons for the spread of ignorance is poverty, so you mostly find the spread of ignorance - from understanding religion to understanding life - in poor environment. Also, among the most important effects of ignorance is that it directly affects the individuals' manners, so because of the unavailable human being needs, he may resort to using banned matters. Notice with me that the most important reason for the spread of illegal drugs, prostitution and theft is poverty. When you find a drug pusher selling his goods through aids who were forced by poverty and need to carry out illegal acts, also when you ask anyone who is involved in prostitution, they instantly say it is out of need. Also, for those who commit illegal acts and embezzlements, you find the answer ready that it is poverty.

So, ignorance and poverty are synonymous, and it is very difficult to find ignorance in a country where development and good education is available. Of course, I am talking to you about a medium not accurate standard, because there must be holes in some walls, but education closes the holes and mends the basic structure for the development of the human being. Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel was asked, why does the majority of Germany's budget go for education, culture, arts and most human knowledge, and salaries of teachers, intellectuals, innovators in Germany? She answered: Simply because the cost of ignorance is too high!

The main cost of ignorance is the spread of all types of crimes, and possibly the corruption of administrative and financial systems in the state, and the weak tendency for all types of development in many of the citizens. Also, in such environment that is rich with corruption, the fake academic certificates will be something widespread. Imagine if the person treating you is a fake doctor who received his qualification illegally, and the engineer who builds your house, then the foundations collapse because the engineer's degree is not genuine, the teacher who is in reality an employee and not a teacher and the responsibility of educating the future generations is on his shoulders. Imagine the destiny of those upcoming generations that were in the trust of a so-called teacher but in fact he does not have true academic qualifications, and because of that, private lessons are widespread, and at the end the main goal for going to school becomes to receive a certificate and not to learn, and you can imagine the future of this generation!

In countries where ignorance and backwardness is common, we find the sectarian expression in abundance, and the status of the corrupt is high, rather they will be in the forefront of the social political scene, and you find bribes everywhere, and you find the trade in religion, principles and sectarianism, on which the fraudulent are living, as ignorance became of slogans that do not represent open societies where co-living exists as well as the tolerance of others. In the ignorant society, we find those who resort to religion to make a living, and those who are sincere only to the social group he belongs to, and finally we find the majority of those succeed because ignorance instilled its roots and the naive and ignorant are convinced with the credibility of those lairs!

In the society where ignorance is spreading, you find the failed person fighting the successful person, because he does not imagine the presence of a successful person in his environment. Even at work in failed countries, evaluation will be done on basis that are not related to productivity or achievement, rather it will be on different basis that far way from that, mainly jealousy.

When the human being in the ignorant and backward society wakes up and decides to learn and improve himself, he will be fought everywhere starting from closer circle to the learning place, and obstacles will be put for him in order to make him fail and keep him from improving, because it is hard for the ignorant to see those who shed ignorance! In our current era, within the spread of social media and various applications, we find ignorance present, and among the forms of ignorance is to honor the fools as the famous on social media.