scribblings from a deist transhumanist libertarian minarchist citizen soldier

Freedom in Iraq, as measured by academia

Posted by Trevor in military on Nov 25th, 2008 | View Comments |

The state of intellectual and academic freedom in Iraq can be used to measure forward progress. That’s assuming any forward progress is happening. EDIT: Arif has weighed in down in the comments section and he seems to think there is positive progress happening in Mosul, at least. I spent a week in Mosul in mid-2006 and the city felt dangerous as hell from where I stood (I was in uniform and an occupier). It would be nice to be invited to go back and see how things have changed for the better. I would welcome an opportunity to see higher education as it exists in 2010 and to participate in any civic activities going on.

Scholars in Iraq are still relatively isolated from the outside world, Kadhim said, citing the pertinent example of the difficulty of securing a visa for foreign research. Domestically, he added, most have severely limited and unreliable Internet access, if they have access at all.

Though not to the extent that it was during the Saddam regime, Kadhim said, academic freedom is still constrained in Iraq. Inside the classroom, he said, the free flow of ideas between student and professor is limited by former customs. For example, he noted that many Iraqis consider the questioning or challenging of a professor publicly an “act of hostility.” Even the wider academic curriculum cannot offer a diversity of interests or values to students, he said, noting that degrees are “cookie cutter” by design and leave no room for electives.

Scholars are similarly constrained by administrators and government officials, Kadhim said, calling the university just another “mini dictatorship.” Though Saddam has been deposed, he said many “Saddamists” still exercise their control over academe. He noted that many unfairly awarded degrees were given to some academic administrators now in control in Iraq. Some, for example, wrote their dissertations on topics such as the “economic genius” and the “eloquence of the speeches” of Saddam Hussein.

The United States’ failure to grant academics visas is tragic and short sighted. Discourse, visitations and relationships between academics and intellectuals should be encouraged, not discouraged.

Encouraging to some is the increase in educational opportunities for Iraqis. Amal Shlash, director of the Bayt al-Hikma Research Centre in Baghdad, described higher education as the “only achieving activity in the country.” In 2002-3, the academic year of the United States invasion of Iraq, there were 19 public universities and three private universities in major towns throughout the country — four of which were in Baghdad. Now, the country hosts 23 public universities and 23 private universities. The country went from educating 322,000 students in 2002-03 to educating around 370,000 students this year.

Shlash said that, during the Saddam era, universities were only allowed to be built in cities with populations greater than one million. Now, she said, universities can be built anywhere in the country. This has resulted in a higher number of female enrollees than ever before because many young women now no longer have to leave home to attend a university. At Baghdad University, the enrollment is 57 percent female. Even more striking, in the southern city of Nasiriyah, the university’s enrollment is 71 percent female.

Long term, Iraq may see more intellectual freedom, but only if the more radical Islamic fundamentalists are restrained. Iraq is a long way from being a good place to raise a family, and a long way from most other desirable measures of quality of life. Educational choices are one key measure of quality of life. The fact that Iraq has more universities is hopeful.

I will say that Iraq has become free when I can book a ticket to Baghdad on the Internet to attend a fine arts photography class at one of the city’s universities. Hopefully by the end of the century.

Similar Posts:

Print This Post |

Arif Alashoor

A Tale of Two Cities and the liberation of Iraq
To begin, I would like to focus on what Dickens quoted from Carlyle as one epoch must be destroyed in order for a new one to flourish. Dickens believed, as Carlyle did, that history is an evolutionary phenomenon. In other words, one era must be destroyed before a new one can develop and thrive, or as Carlyle noted, “each new age is born like the phoenix out of the ashes of the past”.
I should call this paper a tale of two cities, Paris and Baghdad. For similar events took place in these two capitals. Cruelty, oppression, high tax, obligatory military service, poverty and starvation were the features of both regimes found in both Paris and Baghdad. While on the other hand, the guillotine in Paris and hangings in Baghdad, removed the unjust leaders, and put an end to the oppressive reign of both systems. After the collapse of the ruling systems, drastic social and political changes took place as well.
When one goes through the lines of A Tale of Two Cities, one remembers the cruelty and the oppression of the aristocratic rule in Paris and how they used people at that time, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”. The ruling class was corrupted and peasants were treated cruelly. Thirst and hunger is shown clearly during the wine scene when people gathered around the broken cask of wine. People of different ages and both sexes knelt and scoop up the wine that was spilled on the dirty street of Saint Antonio in the poorest suburb of Paris
One could compare this scene to the period of Saddam's reign in Iraq in the eighties and nineties, and how Saddam’s gang was controlling everything beginning with trade, industry, and agriculture ultimately in even small business. He treated people like slaves, but even wrose. He made appearances on TV, pretending to pray in mosques, but in fact he was torturing people to death. During his reign people were starving. A salary of an employee like a university professor would be $3-6 a month. Saddam was the only one who had the right to speak and eat, and nobody had the right to criticize his regime. The 1948 Human Rights declaration was like a time bomb. Nobody was allowed to voice their opinion of the declaration or argue about it. If somebody did that would cost him his head.
Children that were left behind not attend school, for their family was unable to make available essentials like food and clothes at the time Saddam was importing marble from Italy to build hundreds of luxury palaces.
A time of liberation and violence is experienced in both cities. In Paris the symbol of change is the collapse of the Bastille and in Baghdad it is the collapse of Saddam’s statue in Fardus Square. Revolution and resurrection are the two major themes, in Paris the city of dissipation of aristocratic ruled system revolution broke out, the Bastille fell down and many prisoners were released. Dickens compares the collapse of the Bastille with the collapse of feudalism. And in Baghdad dictatorship is the other face of feudalism. Resurrection is clear in Dickens’s novel, through Mr. Lorry’s mission to bring Dr. Manette back to England. After the collapse of the Bastille, resurrection is also clear in an escape of a prisoner from La Force. The same image is repeated in Iraq, after the liberation, many prisoners were released, and mass graves were uncovered where Saddam buries hundred of thousands alive. The other image of resurrection in Iraq after the liberation can be seen by means of many people who used to be Saddam’s dissidents in the past (who lived abroad) going back to their families in Iraq.
Another importan, similar scene between the aristocratic system and Saddam’s regime, which is worth mention her, is what Foulon declared in A Tale of Two Cities, if somebody got hungry he should eat grass. News of Foulon capture arrives in Paris by Defarge. The mob hangs him up, but he died in the third try because the robe gave out. Saddam also declared that if employees and university professors are not content with their salaries, they must go and look for mud- jobs in rural places. Imagine how university professor who devoted his life to reading and researching could make additional earnings with mud- job in rural places. And if there were even such a job for the villagers themselves! Saddam also found in a hole underground and sent to gallows and he meets the same destiny to that of Foulon. Revolutionaries in Paris looted the aristocratic palaces, and in Baghdad presidential palaces were looted by starving people as well.
Inhumanity and brutality can be seen in the scene of Madame Defarge. She is not content with the death sentence of Evermonde. She meets the woodcutter and makes a plan to bring Lucie and her daughter to court to be beheaded. And not very far from Baghdad, a group of men loaded with guns headed to cemetery in Tikrit where Saddam’s body was buried wanting to dig up his grave and amputate his body.
I may mention the old proverb that says history always repeats itself. The revolutionaries in Paris succeeded in building a good democratic system, a system which maintains the freedom of man.
Carlyle foresaw the renaissance of our time. In 1831, Carlyle intimated that the West would come back to life in about two hundred years, like the phoenix rising from its ashes. The renaissance that Carlyle foresaw is now at hand. (Home of Philosophy and Literature 14)
Similar to what happened in Paris, in Iraq, the second parliamentary election was held on seventh March 2010, and we will witness the birth of a new democratic government in the days to come. People are beginning to taste the fruits of democracy in all its aspects, freedom, free press, decentralization, freedom of association, democratic elections every four years, and freedom of speech. And tell me now are all of these privileges not worth to sacrificing?
Arif A. Al-ashoor
Head of the Development and Dialogue Association
www.ninawadada.org
university professor
Mosul
Iraq
Trevor

Professor Al-ashoor,

Thank you for stopping by to comment. I am glad to hear that you feel that people are beginning to taste the fruits of democracy. How does Iraqi democracy equate to personal freedom? How have your range of choices become more palatable? Could an American safely walk the streets of Mosul and engage in commerce or make small talk with the citizens of Mosul today or would an American or other foreigner still need a military escort to travel safely in and around the city?
Alashoor

The same insurgents who are shooting the Americans are shooting Iraqi people, and I think you used to hear that in daily news. Terrorists are targeting doctors, heads of the tribes, professors, and even normal employee who used to collect garbage. Terrorists came to Iraq from different countries, because the border left open in 2003. And I also like you to know that many neighbor countries of Iraq are afraid of new emerging democracy in Iraq.
Trevor

Is your personal security good? How do Iraqis in Mosul feel about the Iraqi police and Iraqi Army and the level of security they are able to provide? Do you have any sense when Iraq will be able to develop tourism and welcome visitors from around the world in to see the progress happening in the country? How much longer do you think the United States needs to maintain any forces in Iraq if at all?
Alashoor

It is not tourism we can use to measure the level of stability, because building is on the contrary of demolishing. Can you tell me how long it take to build the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, and how long it take the terrorists to collapsed them?
The same thing is happing now in Iraq, building of security needs time and by help of our good friends we are now passing this critical dark tunnel. We are dealing with terrorists!
Another example is what happened in Lebanon last two years also spoils tourism.
I can give you another example in 2006, civilians like me unable to drive to Baghdad, but last January I drove my car with my family after sun set from Baghdad to Mosul and at 10:00 pm I was crossing Bajje town.