Opera's Window to a World Ablaze: Why We Need the Right Kind of Learning and Teachers Right Now

When I opened the Opera browser on Saturday evening and scrolled through the news feed, the world had, once again, changed. Images flashed from Tehran that I never thought I'd see: plumes of smoke and the tear-streaked faces of Iranian news anchors as they had to tell their nation that the country's long-time spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had been killed in a joint US-Israeli strike. It's in moments like these that you realise the immense importance, not just of how information is conveyed, but of how we learn to understand this new, terrifyingly complex world.

As I delved deeper into the sequence of events, an operation of a completely different magnitude to the summer's 12-day war between Iran and Israel was revealed. This was a strike aimed directly at the head of the hydra. Intelligence services had spent months tracking Khamenei's movements, his daily routine, even his methods of communication. They were waiting for that rare moment when all the key leaders would be in the same place. That moment came on Saturday morning when the security council and defence elite gathered in Tehran's administrative quarter. An operation planned for the cover of night was rapidly converted into a precisely timed daylight mission – and with surgical strikes, all three buildings were destroyed simultaneously.

A history lesson and Oppenheimer's dilemma

This is a historic moment, the likes of which we haven't seen since the 1979 revolution. The Shah's son, Reza Pahlavi, living in exile, has already declared that the Islamic Republic has reached the end of the road. But what does this mean for ordinary Finns, reading the news from the comfort of our own sofas?

At this point, Oppenheimer inevitably comes to mind. It's not just that we're now talking about nuclear weapons and their threat, even though the official line has already promised to "raze Iran's missiles to the ground." It's about a broader phenomenon: the dual-use nature of knowledge and technology. Just as the atomic bomb developed by Oppenheimer changed the world, today's technology – like, for instance, the humble Opera browser – is a double-edged sword. It's a window to the world, but at the same time, it's a platform through which both truth and lies spread. The very same tools used to plan this precise strike to kill Khamenei are the ones with which the Iranian people are now trying to organise, and the ones being used to try and cut off their communication. According to insiders, internet connections in the country have been almost completely severed.

The teacher's role in the new world order

In this chaos, the importance of one thing stands out above all else: the role of the teacher and of learning. We can no longer raise our children to see the world in black and white. This isn't a film with clear-cut heroes and villains. On the streets of Tehran, both shouts of joy and people crushed by grief can reportedly be heard.

• Critical thinking: We must learn to identify disinformation when news channels label some as "martyrs" and others as "terrorists."
• Understanding context: Why did Israel and the USA act now? And why did the Russian leadership immediately offer its deepest condolences on the "murder" of Khamenei?
• Mastering the tools: We need to know how to use digital tools – browsers, learning games – not just for entertainment, but as instruments for deep information gathering.

I can only imagine what it's like to be a teacher in Iran or Israel right now. How do you explain to your students that the world is on the brink of igniting? How do you make them believe that learning matters when missiles are flying? Or how does a Finnish history teacher make sense of this moment, where old, established structures are crumbling before our eyes?

Where do we go from here?

It seems we are only at the beginning. The Israeli military operation is called "Operation Roaring Lion," and it has only just begun. The fighting could continue for days, and Iranian retaliatory strikes have already killed people in Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv. Although, according to sources, the US administration is hinting that a "new potential leadership" would be open to negotiations, the current focus is entirely on military force.

Amidst all of this, one task remains for each of us: to be an active learner. We cannot turn a blind eye. We must follow reliable sources, question, and strive to understand. And when we switch on our computers and open Opera, or any other browser, we must remember that it is not just a source of entertainment – it is a tool for enlightenment and survival in the midst of accelerating chaos.