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Irak - Udvikling, Solidaritet & UdviklingsbistandBroken links in IraqMaura Stephens, 17. august 2005 How can western citizens aid people in shattered post-war Iraq? In her first monthly openDemocracy column, Maura Stephens tells a story of fragile solidarity. Two years ago I spent about four hours in the presence of a man I’ll call
B. Such was his impression on me that hardly four hours have passed since that
day when he has not been in my thoughts. B was at the time dean of the college of arts at the University of Mosul in
the historic city
some four hours north of Baghdad. The university is approximately the size of
Cornell University in my hometown of Ithaca, New York, with about 23,000
undergraduate and graduate students studying in eighteen colleges. It was early July 2003, a little over two months since George W Bush had
declared victory
in Iraq and an end to major hostilities. The University of Mosul, like
hundreds of other colleges, libraries, schools, and museums, had been looted
on Friday 11 April, two days after the “fall of Baghdad.” The place was decimated that day. Everything down to the switch plates on the
walls was ripped out. The language labs used to house tape machines and lesson
books for students to practice their language skills in English and French.
There was nothing left. The professors’ office doors were smashed in. All
their meagre books, the office telephones, and their personal effects, including
one young English professor’s only copy of her wedding photo, were taken. From the classrooms and administrative offices, everything – computers,
copiers, phones, printers, books, papers, lightbulbs, desks, chairs, ceiling
fans – was gone within a couple of hours. The dean and the professors told us
they hadn’t recovered anything, and they hadn’t received one scrap of
paper’s worth of assistance. The dean’s April For an Iraqi who’d spent so many years under Saddam
Hussein, Dean B was a well-travelled man. He had been in Europe and earned
his doctorate in literature at an American university. His English was almost
Oxford-perfect, and his delivery was modulated but passionate. We could see the
pain in his face as he described his shock and disbelief on that terrible Friday
morning, when as he drove to his office he witnessed scores of people running
from campus with the university’s machines, books and educational materials. “I tried to speak with some of them”, he told us. “I called out to them,
asking Why? Why are you stealing from the Iraqi people? Why are you taking the
little we have? They laughed. They just kept going. They knew we were helpless
to stop them.” Tears rolled down his cheeks, and down the cheeks of the other
professors in the room, who nodded as he spoke. “I did not recognise any of these people. I searched their faces, but they were not known to me. Later in the streets of the city I saw them selling our copying machines and fax machines for $10! They were worth hundreds. They did not even receive a tenth of what they were worth. So I ask, what did anybody gain from this? I have no answer to that question.” We do not know who they were. I have a theory, that they were a mixture of different elements. First, there were foreign agitators, people who hate Saddam Hussein and wanted revenge on Iraq, people like the Kuwaitis and Iranians. They have a legitimate complaint about Iraq; after all, we invaded their countries. But this was not the way to seek revenge – by stealing from the young people of Iraq, the students, who had nothing to do with the fighting and killing. None of the perpetrators, and none of those who had purchased the stolen
items, apparently felt guilt enough to compel them to return any loot.
The college of arts, like the rest of the university – all the health sciences,
physical sciences, humanities, and professional colleges – was limping along,
and somehow they managed to finish out the school year. The students were
preparing for graduation the next day, only seven weeks after schedule. That was
quite remarkable, considering they’d been shut down for a month during the
invasion and had to finish the semester without books or supplies. The students
we spoke with said that this was accomplished just by sheer willpower of the
dean and the professors. Why did he stay here under these circumstances,
I asked Dean B. Surely, with his credentials, he could find work outside of Iraq?
“I wonder too, sometimes”, he replied. “I have thought about it for many
hours, many anguished hours. I have discussed it with my wife. But my heart is
here, with these professors and students. How little we have, how little they
have to look forward to. Now, I think, now we may have a chance to build a
society, to get recent educational materials, to catch up with the rest of the
world. You must remember, we are more than twelve years behind everyone, because
during the sanctions we were not able to get knowledge from the outside world.
My place is here, and I will stay to try to rebuild what we should have.” It is true that every student praised the dedication and determination of the
dean and the professors. “Iraq is the home of education”, said Dean B. “So much was developed
here. The Iraqi people are proud and have withstood so much. Life is very hard
here. But I believe that now we may at last have the chance to take control of
our own destiny. We need help from the outside, from the NGOs and humanitarian
organisations and other countries’ governments.” To date the only NGO that had visited the university was Norwegian
Church Aid. “They pledged ceiling fans”, said Dean B. “But we have not
yet received them. We have no money to purchase any ourselves, so I went to a
vendor – suddenly there are vendors of fans and air conditioners and other
appliances everywhere, when before there were none. I asked the man if he would
sell me eight fans on credit. He did.” The dean had a meeting, so he excused himself and sent us off with students
and faculty members to view classrooms and language labs, in which the dean
himself had helped to set up the new fans. He did not take one for his own
office; it was more important, he insisted, that the students be as comfortable
as possible when they were studying. The fans were huge and loud, but effective
at keeping the air moving. Although it was much cooler here in Mosul than in
Baghdad – about 125 degrees Fahrenheit – we were glad of the relief they
provided. We’d brought a few English books donated by friends from the United States.
The dean graciously accepted them, and consented to pose for a photo so we could
show the donors that the books had arrived at an Iraqi university. We promised
to collect books and ship them to him, and we exchanged email addresses. I found
it hard to leave; there was so much more I wanted to learn
here. A bridge to Mosul As soon as I returned home I sent out a call for help collecting books for
the University of Mosul college of arts. It was one thing I knew I could do
easily, as I work at a
university and have connections at many others. High school classes where I
made presentations about Iraq began collecting, too. I was in irregular touch
with Dean B by email, and I excitedly told him about the progress we were making.
He reported that things were much the same, there was still little
in the way of equipment or supplies or books. By October my office at work and living room at home were overflowing with
donated textbooks. The hard part would be getting them shipped to Iraq. I
managed to get space in a container load of goods that a humanitarian NGO was
sending by ship. I earmarked our section for the University of Mosul. First it
was November, then December, then January before the goods would ship. I tried
to contain my impatience when dealing with my contact at the NGO; I knew it
wasn’t her fault. Finally she confirmed that the ship had embarked; the goods would probably
not arrive in Baghdad before late March 2004, and then who knows how long it
would take to get the books to Mosul. It would be closing in on a year from the
time I’d promised Dean B to send him books. He told me not to feel bad; nobody
else had sent any books either – not the Coalition Provisional Authority, not
states or educational organisations in the US, not any of the other coalition
countries, not even the United Nations or other NGOs. Meantime, more donated books were coming in, as well as healthcare items like
bandages, crutches, vitamins, baby wipes, and over-the-counter medicines. How
was I ever going to find a way to ship these goods to Iraq? Nobody was sending
cash with which to ship the things, and cash was already in short supply in my
household. I’d ask B what he thought, after the first shipment arrived. Was it
worth it to him for me to hold onto these things and send them when I could? But alas, suddenly B was not answering my emails. I could not call him; the
landlines did not work and he’d never even given me his phone number. “It
would be a waste of time and just frustrate us both”, he’d said, smiling. So
I have no way to get hold of him. In the long months since then I send him an email every month or so, hoping
for a reply but receiving none. Every time another disaster is reported
from Mosul I frantically search the news for any mention of a dean of the
college of arts, or indeed of Mosul
University. The news, of course, is hardly news—just vague reports of
“23 Iraqis killed in Mosul,” “16 people killed at a marketplace,” “27
killed when a car bomb exploded,” “31 killed in separate incidents,” and
so forth. The students and faculty of the college of arts at Mosul University depended
on Dean B; he is a tremendous role model for his strength, resilience,
adaptability, outward serenity, personal commitment, and thoughtful intelligence.
Without him I fear not only for his family but for all those Iraqis at the
university whose hope lies in access to education and looking toward the future. I hope to find him alive and well, but the words he spoke to me during our
all-too-brief encounter make me fear
the worst. He said: “I think I should stay here in Mosul. There is so much
to do to help the Iraqi people.” The emails do not bounce back. I keep hoping that somehow the entire
university has switched to a new email system; that soon there will be a way to
call directly and speak directly to the dean, who is still there and well; that
maybe he decided to take up one of those offers from an institution outside the
country. I hope most of all that he reads this and gets in touch with me.
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