San Francisco State UniversityWeb A-ZFind it Fast


 
SF State News
News Home
Headlines
SFSU in the News
Events Calendar
Gator Sports News

Expert commentary
Iraq Experts
Cloning
Homelessness

For Journalists
News Releases
Faculty Experts
Backgrounders
Public Affairs Staff

For Faculty
Submit a News Item
Be an Expert Source
Working with the  Media

SFSU Publications
CampusMemo
First Monday
E-News

Contacts
Public Affairs

 

Business professor assists in nation building efforts in Iraq

Gary Selnow's reports from the field

Tuesday, June 10, 2003: The Ink of the Scholar

Photo of Gary Selnow, SFSU professor of information systems and business analysisThese educators will play a crucial role in the rebuilding of a country, and their reaction to this crisis confirms that Muhammad was indeed prophetic when he wrote, "The ink of the scholar is more sacred than the blood of the martyr."

Several colleagues in the United States have asked about conditions at the universities in Iraq, and I'm finding a paradox in my answers. On the one hand, conditions could not be worse. Universities have atrophied under Saddam's starvation plan the way prisoners of war lose strength and weight and become frail images of the men they were. Laboratories and libraries grew old and worn, research and teaching facilities aged into relics. Then, a decade of international sanctions reduced the flow of information into and out of the country and halted faculty exchanges at the border; Iraq's universities became frozen in time.

Finally, in a cruel and punishing assault, massive looting of many campuses stripped from the bones any flesh that remained. Everything is gone. Labs are empty, computers are missing, phones have been ripped from the wall, fans and lights have been torn from the their fixtures. The fixtures, too, are gone and so are the wires that once fed them power. What had not been sacked has been destroyed. Chalkboards are smashed, windows broken, doors ripped from their hinges. At Bosrah University's College of Science, the faculty bricked up the doorway of its aging computer lab, but looters found another way in, and the computers were plundered. It's hard to imagine how conditions could be worse and impossible to understand how professors can view their campuses with anything but resignation and defeat.

But that's the incredible part of this story, You won't find despair; remarkably the faculty remains upbeat and optimistic. This is not just a Westerner's quixotic perception. For one thing, universities have not ended the semester. Imagine that! They have suffered unthinkable assaults and yet the semester goes on. Most campuses continue their classes and have scheduled exams for July. Students in their final year will graduate, student s studies will advance to the next level when they return in the fall.

Will there be a fall semester? No question about it. As part of an administration overhaul and "de-Baathification" process (where members of Saddam's Baathist party are removed from leadership roles) the faculties have voted their choices for replacement deans and department heads. These new leaders are now preparing for the start of classes in September even though no one can expect much in the way of campus rehabilitation other than a good housecleaning to remove the litter and the dust blown in through broken windows. Professors are amused by questions about their capacity to continue in the face of these assaults. "Of course we'll continue," they say. The exterior may have been stripped away, but the nucleus remains.

This determination came through in nearly all of my conversations with university professors in Iraq, and it got me thinking about our profession. Driven by the faculty's commitment, the teacher-student relationship -- the core of education advanced by the Greeks more than 2,400 years ago -- remains intact. Education is about the coming together of people to share ideas -- the student and the teacher in conversation and that reminds us the academy not so much a place as it is the host for a process. This is key, and it is a truth laid bare today in Iraq.

The university is not about brick and mortar, it is about the assembly of minds. Without professors, teachers, instructors, call them what you like, our university campuses in Iraq or anywhere else would be nothing more than empty buildings. The buildings don't define a university, the people who inhabit them do. Socrates never stepped foot in the classroom -- his school was the town square, the marketplace, the steps of public buildings -- yet the influences of Socrates' school have resounded across the centuries.

The optimistic, persistent, even defiant Iraqi professors have made it clear they will not yield to the offenses of bullies and thieves. Educators are the hearts and the souls of education no matter where or in what form it takes place, whether it's in a resource-rich MIT lab or in a University of Baghdad classroom stripped to the bone. These educators will play a crucial role in the rebuilding of a country and in the preparation of its youth, and their reaction to this crisis confirms that Muhammad was indeed prophetic when he wrote, "The ink of the scholar is more sacred than the blood of the martyr."

So, to the paradox: on the one hand conditions could not be worse, and on the other they could not be better. I'm telling my colleagues back home that I'm heartened by what I've seen here, these universities will rise from the ashes. I'm also telling them how this place confirms a truth about the nature of education and about the soul of our profession. Teachers will continue to be the driving spirit of any campus, and education will flourish despite a tyrant's cruel assaults, years of sanctions and the attacks of angry mobs.


Tuesday, May 27, 2003
I have been observing the sincerity and commitment of the people working on this large reconstruction team -- Americans and a long roster of other nationals. They display none of the cynicism one might expect, none of the enmity or attitude that could reasonably follow in the face of a conflict that, despite official pronouncements, is not quite over (two American soldiers were killed Monday night, May 26, in Baghdad and one was wounded when their vehicle was hit by an explosive).

This team of military and civilians from government and the private sector is really quite remarkable. I've watched these people start their 20-hour workdays at dawn. An American civilian working with the Iraqi media told me that at home, in Little Rock, she needs her eight hours sleep; here in Baghdad, she gets only four. "That's what it takes to do the job," she said with no resentment in her voice.

For the few thousand people living here, Saddam's Palace is no lap of luxury despite what you might think; the beauty of this stone marvel is skin deep. The makeshift beds are small and spare, they have no sheets or pillows. Rooms are packed dorm style with five or more residents; my room has 12 snorers who stop by for a few zees, and they all share a one-commode, one-sink, one-stall shower whose water supply has been more a promise than a probability. In close quarters, Spartan bathing facilities are no joy when the mercury hits 110. So, this place is no spa and these people do not come here for the waters.

They also don't come here to get rich. Most are mid-level employees who earn a good wage, but they could do just as well back home. The people are driven by a real interest to help Iraq get beyond Saddam and on a course for recovery. They offer their skills and share their knowledge about the gritty business of running a country that has been neglected and abused and most recently defeated in war. Office doors here bear signs such as "Ministry of Health," "Ministry of Justice," "Ministry of Finance" each dedicated to the development of a system that can move Iraq closer to a functional society.

And, you will see Iraqis in this palace, hundreds of them. Nearly everyone I've spoken with on the coalition teams has expressed a keen interest in transferring to the Iraqis as quickly as possible the task of running the country, and for that they need lots of face time. The sentiment here is "we're desperately trying to work ourselves out of a job." Their plan to do that is to help design the blueprints, organize the Iraqi agencies, train the trainers and go home. That, at least, is how the people I've talked with see it, and to pull that off they work side-by-side with the Iraqis who soon will run this place Evidence gleaned from the working team here is that the plan really is to give Iraq back to the Iraqis -- lock, stock and barrel -- and to do that as quickly as possible.

These reconstruction efforts go through phases, and these early phases are typically adrenalin driven and chaotic. That describes things at the Saddam Palace in Baghdad, but that environment will soon change. Days will still be long but not as long and not as frenetic, routines will take hold, firmed-up policies will drive beefed-up procedures, and the reconstruction effort will transform more or less into a regular assignment -- although on a few steroids. Pity that the spirit evident here will likely transform into the ordinary as well. In the meanwhile, it's a real inspiration.


Sunday, May 25, 2003
The team drove eight hours from Kuwait City to Baghdad in an armed, three-vehicle convoy and arrived at the largest of Saddam Hussein's palaces where the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) has established its headquarters. In addition to housing the transition team's administrative offices, the palace (untouched by the war) also billets troops, coalition officials and contractors.

Saddam's palace is a gilded, marbled, frescoed, crystal chandeliered display of a tyrant's self-indulgence. Other despots have venerated themselves with monuments of such extravagance, but few have built their tributes in the midst of such utter poverty and at such a great cost to their people. With the money spent on this palace, Saddam could have constructed a well-equipped town for a few thousand Iraqis or revamped the country's educational system, its health care programs or its communication system.

Large as a museum, garish as a Vegas hotel, secure as a fortress, this palace perched on the Tigris River makes for an odd headquarters and encampment. We may never know how Saddam used this place, but today the palace is as busy as a bus station and a bit noisier. A few thousand coalition soldiers and civilian workers tread on Saddam's polished floors, sit on Saddam's stuffed chairs, dine in Saddam's banquet hall, bathe in Saddam's marble bathrooms. Workers are repairing a filtering system, and soon the troops will swim in Saddam's pool. What a splendid irony that this shameless tribute to a tyrant now houses the tyrant's evictors. The new occupants are taking good care of the place, and in time they will turn it over to the Iraqi people.

-- Gary Selnow

         

San Francisco State University Home     Search     Need Help?    

1600 Holloway Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94132    (415) 338-1111
Last modified June 13, 2003, by the Office of Public Affairs