By Anas Alam Faizli
11th May 2016

Slightly over 200 years ago, Napoleon Bonaparte said, “I fear four hostile newspapers than a thousand bayonets.” Napoleon Bonaparte was an emperor and a military genius of his time. He faced impossible odds during his military conquests. He had fought 25,000 Ottomans with 6,000 French troops in Egypt and had also confronted the combined Armies of Austria and Russia in Austerlitz. His empire stretched from Spain, Northern Africa to the borders of Russia.

Yet, despite all that, he feared editors. Why? Because editors can control and influence ideas, words and debates. He feared domestic dissent. He wants full control. He even said that, “I want to create an educational body that will steer the way the French people think!”

Napoleon went on to establish public schools in an effort to further craft and dictate how the French would think and act. What Napoleon did through public schools is effective but he undermined and put a stop to human creativity and intellectualism. The same concept was later adopted by the French, as far west as the Americans, and eventually by the whole world. Read the rest of this entry »