Oak Ameen Kareem
Dear Africans, know this: the Iranians who design these missiles, develop these drones, and build these defense systems are the same ones who go to the International Mathematical Olympiad and bring back gold medals.
Iran consistently ranks among the top nations in the world at the International Mathematical Olympiad every year. In 2025, the Iranian team won six medals in Australia: two gold, three silver, and one bronze, placing 12th out of 110 participating countries. This is nothing new. In 1994, 17-year-old Maryam Mirzakhani became the first Iranian woman to win a gold medal at the International Mathematical Olympiad with a score of 41 out of 42. The following year, in 1995, she achieved a perfect score of 42 out of 42, becoming the first Iranian student to win two gold medals in this competition. In 2014, she became the first woman to receive the Fields Medal, the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in mathematics. This is what needs to be understood. In this war, no one is waving the Bible or the Quran. It’s missiles against missiles. Technology against technology. Intelligence against intelligence.
Macron said it yesterday: “To be free, you must be feared. To be feared, you must be powerful.”
And this power, today, no longer comes from the size of your army or the number of your soldiers. It comes from the quality of your education. From the rigor of your scientific system. From the ability of your engineers to design technologies that stand up to the greatest
Over time, the Iranian education system has become ultra-elitist, based on relentless competition from middle school through university. The winners of these various competitions form an internationally recognized scientific elite. And this elite today doesn’t just design mathematical theorems. It designs ballistic missiles. It designs drones. It designs encryption systems. It designs radars.
Because mathematics, physics, and engineering are what make a country powerful. They are what make it feared. And ultimately, they are what make it free. While some African countries are producing generations of children who reach middle school without knowing how to read or write, Iran is producing geniuses who go to the International Mathematical Olympiad and bring home medals. While some African education systems recruit teachers with only a middle school diploma to compensate for a level they themselves lack, Iran has established an ultra-competitive system that identifies the most promising minds as early as middle school and pushes them to achieve excellence. And today, these same brilliant minds enable Iran to withstand the world’s most powerful army. Because they understand that without this scientific strength, there can be neither freedom nor sovereignty.
This is the lesson to be learned from this war. A country’s true power is not measured by the size of its army. It is measured by the quality of its education, the rigor of its scientific system, and the ability of its engineers to design technologies that rival those of the greatest nations. Because without this scientific foundation, without this intellectual elite, Iran would have been crushed in a matter of hours. It would be neither feared, nor powerful, nor free.
So, dear Africans, while we fight over trivialities, other countries are training their children to design missiles. And the day Africa faces an existential threat, it will be neither prayers, nor invocations, nor speeches that will save it. It will be science, technology, intelligence, or nothing at all.
