Gary
Selnow's reports from the field
Tuesday,
June 10, 2003:
The Ink of the Scholar
These
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
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