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Morning Star 20.04�02 Intellectual Genocide. Felicity Arbuthnot Palestine and Iraq have much in common. The desert slaughter - misnamed a war - of 1991, left Iraq: �reduced to a pre-industrial age for a considerable time to come�, according to the UN Special Rapporteur, who visited barely a month after the end of hostilities. Palestine too, lies in ruins. In both cases, the silence of those who could exert pressure has been truly deafening. That �history will slaughter those responsible� - to use the words of Denis Halliday, distinguished UN Diplomat and UN Under Secretary General, who resigned in disgust as UN Co-ordinator in Iraq, citing the �destruction of an entire nation� - will be of little comfort to the dead, maimed, disposessed, bereaved and dying of both countries. However, as the silent slaughter continues in Iraq, resulting from the world�s most draconian UN embargo and another continues in Palestine at the hands of Israel - whilst possibly the most pathetic incumbant UN Secretary General ever, bleats apologetically about �restraint�, in an expensive suit and the quiestest of voices. Priorities, however, are not alone food, water, medicines - they are what Halliday�s successor, Count Hans von Sponeck, an equally distinguished diplomat cited as: �intellectual genocide.� Palestine and Iraq have the highest number of Ph�D�s in the Middle East, women and men educated without discrimination. In both countries the education system has been targetted and dismantled. As the west crows of restoring education in Afganistan, it is silent on decimating it in a part of the world where writing, algebra, mathematics, domestic law and record keeping began. Iraq, prior to the embargo was awarded, two years running, a unique accolade from UNESCO. The education system was globally unparallelled in that a child could be born into abject poverty, of illiterate parents and emerge from this free, high quality system (including University) as anything he or she wished to be. Western Post graduate courses were paid for by the Iraqi government, resulting in rounded east-west expertise. With the onset of the UN embargo on Hiroshima Day 1990, all educational materials to Iraq were halted. Blackboards, pencils, pens, course books, medical journals, computers, even paper. A doctor qualifying today will be twelve years out of date - he or she will still be using 1989 materials, apart from the small amount taken in by occasional sanctions breakers. When the UN Weapons Inspectors (UNSCOM) raided the Science Laboratory at Baghdad�s famous, formerly resplendantly equipped University (built by the Gulbenkian oil foundation in the 1970�s as a result of an oil deal, the Inspectors laughed at it�s sorry state - then threw out the few remaining books. (ED - I HAVE THE UN VIDEO) The language laboratory is silent. Computers and visual aids long dead, denying a western orientated society the ability to perfect western languages - in a society where all university students are taught in english in order to enable them to access overseas post graduate courses. An abiding memory is visiting the University and talking to the Professor of Literature, a passionate, elegant educationalist, who had been a distinguished visiting Professor, to a number of US and UK Universities. He searched for the words to explain the magnitude of the educational decimation under the embargo. Education for him - as in all Iraq and Palestine - was not a profession, it was a burning passion - the learning young, where ever they were, were a country�s future. The tweed jacketed Professor spoke better english than I and personified passion, pride and dignity. As I thanked him and offered my hand, he clutched it, in both of his and said: �I beg you, please, send us paper, send us books, send us pens and pencils ... I beg you, I beg you.� Four months later, he was dead. All those who knew him, said he died of a broken heart - he could no longer give his students the wherewithall to equip them for whatever they chose in life. In Palestine, the blockade of the great Beir Zeit University, has been little reported. Roads bulldozed, students and academics, forced to scramble over mountains of rubble and take circuitous routes to reach. Frequently it was impossible. Now, along with lives and homes, all educational infrastructure has been detonated by the Israeli Defence Force. The seven Palestinian Universitites, painstakingly re-opened, community outreaching, in a community where one third of the three million population is under fifteen and education a cornerstone, are under threat. The Ministry of Education in Ramallah - a walled compound - was reportedly attacked by thirty Israeli tanks, despite the employees offers for the building to be inspected. Soldiers destroyed outer and inner doors, safes, filing cabinets, computers, hard disks, files, students records �were damaged, or reduced to rubble.� As with Iraq: �audo visual equipment and other learning tools were taken and destroyed.� Some one hundred and sixty six schools have been destroyed or damaged, three have been taken over by the Israeli military but of the rest (one thousand six hundred and ninety eight in the West Bank and six hundred and forty two in Gaza) little is known since independent observers are unable to gain access, often threatened with their life by the IDF. State of the art educational television stations (such as in Ramallah - part of Al Quds University ) have been invaded and destroyed and the international donor community is owed nearly four thousand million dollars in that which has been destroyed - donated in aid for Palestine�s educational system. As with Iraq, nothing will repay the destroyed future of Palestine - young denied their education - and nothing will heal their trauma, the enormity of which, will only be known when the full truth finally comes out. Do Britain and America fear educated Middle East populations? As for the limp, impotent leadership of the United Nations: Rest in Peace. --------------------------- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: [email protected] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9617B Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
