It’s Getting Better All the Time

The next time Administration officials and PR people tell us about how Iraq is improving, just refer to this article about life at Baghdad University as reported in this past Thursday’s Washington Post.

It's finals time in Iraq. Black-clad gunmen have stormed a dormitory to snatch students from their rooms. Professors fear failing and angering their pupils. Administrators curtailed graduation ceremonies to avoid convening large groups of people into an obvious bombing target. Perhaps nowhere else does the prospect of two months' summer vacation -- for those who can afford it, a chance to flee the country -- bring such unbridled relief.

"From the point of view of exchanging or expressing opinions, there is no comparison. Back then, there was no possibility to express your views in any way," said the school's president, Mosa al-Mosawe. "But in terms of security, during the Baath regime it was much better."

Mosawe spoke on Thursday, the day Baghdad University's chief of security was assassinated by gunmen outside his home. About 50 university staff members have been killed since the invasion, more than half of roughly 90 university employees killed across Iraq, said Mosawe. Other calculations of slain professors are even higher: An antiwar organization called the Brussels Tribunal lists 250 names.

Some professors say the killings are motivated by the same sectarian rivalries between Shiite and Sunni Muslims that take Iraqi lives every day and are intertwined with the country's political struggles. Regardless of the reason, the killings are inspiring an exodus of professors from the university system.
At Baghdad University, 300 staff members have requested one-year leaves of absence to flee the violence, and about half of all professors will spend the summer out of the country or in Iraq's more peaceful northern region, Mosawe said.

"The religious people are taking over the universities, and all the secular people are being driven out," said Mustafa al-Hiti, the former dean of the university's College of Pharmacy and now a member of parliament. The intimidation of teachers has spread to the daily workings of the classroom. During a meeting between the minister of higher education and senior professors last week, Hassan Hashim, the head of the journalism department, decried the influence of Shiite militiamen in the school. He said professors were changing the grades of students who belonged to the Mahdi Army, a militia loyal to Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Professors gave students from hard-line religious groups the answers to tests, he said.

"This is a radical religious movement and they want power," said Juwab Abu Rafal, a professor of mass media. "The problem is nobody talks about it because everyone is afraid."

Abu Rafal said he avoids controversial subjects in class. Fearing retaliation, he said, he once failed to punish a student who was caught cheating. Professors now bring guns to school and leave them with the receptionist, he said.

The students are not immune from the aggression. Female students who once walked their campus quads in jeans and T-shirts now often bundle up in traditional head scarves and abayas to appease religious extremists. Music and dancing have been prohibited at some college gatherings. In central Baghdad last week, gunmen wearing black raided a dormitory of the University of Technology, beat 10 students and kidnapped them. The students were said to be Sunnis from such insurgent strongholds as Ramadi in western Iraq.