Choices
The International Relations Center has a simple flash video illustrating the choice facing the country and the world:
Add comment December 21st, 2006
Archive for December 21st, 2006
Iraqi government orders suicide of university faculty and students
In a brilliant attempt to avoid the total closing of Iraq’s university system where multiple faculty are often killed in a single day, Iraq’s Prime Minister al Maliki, safe in the Green Zone, has ordered attendance or face firing or expulsion, McClatchy reports. Al Maliki is, of course, going to do nothing about the terrible security situation at universities:
An odd thing has happened at Baghdad’s universities: the professors have begun hiding their education by donning ratty clothes, pulling on traditional Arab head scarves and driving to campus in beat-up cars.
It’s all part of an effort to keep from getting fired.
With the threat of violence emptying university campuses, Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki took the rare step earlier this month of ordering students and professors back to class. Anyone who doesn’t obey could face dismissal or expulsion.
Maliki’s aides defend the order, saying that education is the lifeblood of Iraq and its collapse would threaten the government and the nation.
But those forced to obey the order complain that they’re risking their lives as unwilling pawns of a government that can’t guarantee their security. …
Iraq’s universities have been a target for insurgents and militias alike almost since the war began in 2003. Professors tell of armed gangs taking over buildings and classrooms and even issuing threats about grades. Thousands of students have requested transfers to campuses where their sects - Sunni Muslim or Shiite Muslim - are in the majority. Thousands of professors and students, seeking to avoid violence and threats, have fled the nation to pursue their studies in neighboring countries.
Around Baghdad, many campuses are desolate. Many families refuse to let their children, particularly women, finish their education for fear of what will happen either en route to class or once they get there.
According to the Iraq Students and Youth League, a university advocacy group, at least 10 violent incidents racked Baghdad’s two main universities in the first week of this month, when Maliki issued his order. Among them were attempted kidnappings in front of Iraqi police officers, who didn’t try to stop the attacks.
At Baghdad University, only 6 percent of student and professors attended in early December, the group found. The highest attendance level was 59 percent at private universities.
Ali Adeeb, a top Maliki adviser, said he recommended to the prime minister that he issue the order after a Sunni insurgent group, Ansar al Sunna, posted fliers around campuses threatening to kill students and professors for coming to campus. …
Badri, the professor, said it wasn’t fair to expect academics to defy violence when no one else in Iraq was forced to. He pointed out that the nation’s 275-member parliament often can’t meet because too many members don’t attend, sometimes because the roads leading to the heavily fortified Green Zone are too dangerous.
Presumably, al Maliki feels that Iraq will be better off when all the country’s professors are dead.
Add comment December 21st, 2006
Music: Katie Melua - Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
Katie Melua sings Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds from the Sharon Osbourn Show:
Add comment December 21st, 2006