Individualism and violence| Discrimination etched in childhood

A friend, who holds a position at a training center affiliated with a key ministry in an Arab country, once told me how he noticed a clear disconnect in terms of interaction and shared understanding among the latest cohort of new hires. The group he was talking about included 60 individuals from five different educational systems—three of whom were educated abroad, yet they all struggled to understand each other’s jokes during breaks.

This inability to relate is a symptom of the kind of ​​​​​​​individualism I discussed earlier. It also points to the role educational institutions play in reinforcing class divisions. In today’s economic system, education has shifted from being a tool for social justice or equal opportunity to a mirror of class disparity and a mechanism for reproducing it.

In the decades preceding the neoliberal prevailing across the Arab region, education was a primary driver of social mobility and a key means of integrating individuals into society. It was widely viewed as a national project aimed at expanding the middle class and offering equitable paths for upward mobility.

Education was more than a means to acquire skills; it was also a space for cultural and social exchange, where students from different socioeconomic backgrounds shared classrooms and campuses. This fostered understanding and solidarity.

Education once bridged classes

In Egypt during the 1950s and 1960s, the public education system enabled those from poor backgrounds to secure prestigious jobs in the state and engage with its institutions as full citizens. This was part of a broader developmental vision that saw public education as an investment in society as a whole, and not just a service for individuals.

But the educational system that once served as a bridge between social groups has withered, giving way to a fragmented, multi-tiered system that entrenches inequality instead of overcoming it. We no longer speak of a single educational system, but of parallel systems that reflect and reinforce a person’s class position.

Egypt is no exception. Across the Arab world, it is increasingly rare to find friendships that transcend class lines among schoolchildren, thus deepening social isolation. Education has become a marker of class identity, not a means of transcending it.

In Egypt, the divide is glaring: deteriorating public schools, poorly funded and attended primarily by children from poor and rural families; experimental schools for those slightly better off; mid-range private schools serving the middle class; elite christian mission schools; and expensive international schools catering to the wealthiest.

The differences extend beyond quality and curricula. They manifest later in massive disparities in job prospects and access to the global marketplace. Even public universities contribute to this divide through their departments teaching in a foreign language, which offer advantages not available to other students.

In Lebanon, education functions as a mechanism for preserving the status quo across generations, exacerbated by the country’s fragile and sectarian structure. According to UNICEF’s 2022 report “Deprived Childhoods: Child poverty in crisis-wracked Lebanon”, 30% of refugee children are not enrolled in any form of education.

At the other end of the spectrum, elite education is dominated by private schools that follow French or American curricula. A 2021 report by the Lebanese Association for Educational Studies found that 60% of students enrolled in religious schools do not interact with peers from other faiths until they reach university.

In this context, schools lose their function as spaces of social integration and instead become tools for reproducing social divisions.

In “Life as Politics”, Asef Bayat explores how inequality and the alienation it causes drive young people to cling to sub-identities as a form of refuge. Justice, in this view, is not just about equal distribution of resources, but also about ensuring the conditions for true fairness.

The COVID-19 pandemic worsened educational disparities. A study by the Arab Forum for Alternatives revealed that 89 million children aged three to 17 in the Middle East and North Africa—roughly 75%—lacked home internet access, severely limiting their ability to learn during school closures.

By contrast, those born into privilege had access to quality education and the tools needed to maintain their advantages. This transformation of educational diversity from enrichment into institutionalized injustice has deepened isolation among the privileged and alienation among the excluded. These conditions cultivate hyper-individualistic personalities that pursue personal survival or advancement—even at the expense of others.

Beyond education, cultural spaces once served as common grounds for collective experience. For decades, public theaters, cinemas, and state-run television channels offered shared cultural moments. We watched the same shows at the same time, discussed them at school or work, laughed at the same jokes, and cried over the same stories.

Today, however, with the proliferation of streaming platforms, each individual watches what they want, when they want, in whatever language they prefer—often alone. While this multiplicity offers greater cultural richness and a wider array of aesthetic choices, it also entrenches isolation and fosters solitary habits, weakening the collective experience of art.

Now, everyone has their own watch list, which is unique to them. Even within a single household, family members often watch entirely different content on separate devices in the same room.

Even among those born in the same year, there is no longer a common reference to pop culture: one might follow dubbed Turkish dramas, another is absorbed in Korean series, a third in local or pan-Arab productions, while others immerse themselves in Western shows. This fragmentation creates not only a generational gap but also a horizontal divide within the same generation.

Art and culture become private commodities consumed in isolation, rather than a means of generating collective dialogue. While this reflects freedom of choice, it also exemplifies a mode of individual reception that deepens alienation, increases solitude, and frays the bonds of shared belonging.