There is no Public Record Office in the Arab World, no National Archive
In Damascus, a massive statue of the late President Hafez al-Assad sits on a mighty iron chair outside the 22,000sq m Assad Library, a giant book open in his right hand.
Behind him lie the archives of his dictatorship. But not a single state paper is open to the people of Syria. There are no archives from the foreign ministry or the interior ministry or the defence ministry. There is no 30-year rule – for none is necessary. The rule is for ever. There is no Public Record Office in the Arab world, no scholars waiting outside the National Archives.
It is the same in Cairo, in Riyadh, in Beirut and in Tripoli. Dictatorships and caliphates do not give away their secrets. The only country in the Middle East where you can burrow through the files is called Israel – and good for the Israelis. But the result is obvious. While Israeli scholars have been able to deconstruct the traditional story of little Israel – proving that there were no Arab radio stations calling for the Palestinians to leave their land, that the Arabs were indeed ethnically cleansed from their towns and villages by Irgun and the Hagana – there is no Arab scholar who can balance the books by drawing on the archives of his own history. They must go to the National Archives in London to read General Cunningham's dispatches from 1948 Palestine, or quote from Israeli books. The record stops there. Aside from the self-serving biographies of Arab dictators and generals, that's it. Even Walid Khalidi's huge tome on the destroyed villages of Palestine relies heavily on the work of Israeli historian Benny Morris.
Slowly, though, a little bag of history is being filled across the region. If we can't read the private papers of the leaders of the lamentable Arab Liberation Army of 1948, we can still hear the personal testimony of the Palestinian survivors. Rosemarie Esber, for example, has put her degrees from London and Johns Hopkins universities to good use by interviewing – in Jordan and Lebanon -- 126 Palestinian men and women who lost their homes and lands in 1948 and 1949. Her soon to be published work (Under the Cover of War) helps to balance documentation and diaries by one side with verbal recollection on the other. The book does not spare the Arabs – least of all the Arab atrocities or the Iraqi volunteers who turned up to fight for Palestine but didn't even know their geography – yet the suffering of those who fled is all too evident.
Here, for example, is Abu Mohamed from the village of Saqiya, east of Tel Aviv, describing what happened on 25 April, 1948: "Jews entered the village and started shooting women, men, and old people. They arrested girls, and we still don't know what happened to them. They came from the settlement that was near the village... They used Bren guns. Then armoured vehicles entered the centre of the village. Fourteen were killed that day... Two women could not run so they were killed in the village... The villagers ran together in the direction of al-Lid (Lod, the site of Ben Gurion airport in modern-today Israel). After that families started to leave separately... We left everything in the village... We thought it would be a short trip and we would come back."
In Lebanon, too, there is a flourishing market in books based on diaries and personal archives. Among the most intriguing is A Face in the Crowd: The Secret Papers of Emir Farid Chehab, 1942-1972, the private documents of Lebanon's post-Second World War intelligence boss. Apart from proving that Lebanese-Syrian relations could be as awful in the 1940s as they could be in the 1990s, he was an assiduous spy, nurturing his agents in Jordan in 1956 to find out why the young King Hussein had fired the British commander of the Arab Legion, Glubb Pasha. "Glubb was a spendthrift, tightly controlled the army's finances and secret expenses, and refused to share relevant information with Arab commanders and officers," a still unknown informant writes to Chehab on 11 March, 1956. "His interference (extended to) ... control over various ministries' telephone lines... A telephone employee in Amman admitted to me that even the Palace's and Prime Ministry's communication networks were under the army's surveillance. A secret communiqué addressed by Glubb to all British heads of army units was recently discovered; it said that in case of an Israeli attack they should retreat and not resist. The free officers took this communiqué up to the King."
So goodbye Glubb Pasha. But did this also, perhaps, have something to do with the equally secret Operation Cordage, first highlighted by Keith Kyle in his excellent book on Suez and even more rigorously investigated by Eric Grove of Salford University. "Cordage" was Britain's plan for defending its Jordanian ally from Israeli attack if Israel assaulted Egypt. The plan, according to Grove, included "an air campaign carried out by (RAF) Venoms based at Amman and Mafraq in Jordan to knock out the Israeli Air Force in 72 hours... A fighter wing of swept-wing aircraft (Sabres or Hunters) would be provided from Germany to operate from Cyprus..." A parachute brigade group would be flown to Jordan to defend British air bases and then – along with Glubb's Arab Legion – to defend Amman against the Israelis. It was at the end of February 1956 that Hussein dismissed Glubb; which, as Grove diplomatically puts it, "created problems". So how much did Glubb know about Operation Musketeer?
What really created "problems", of course, was Britain's own secret plan to attack Egypt, along with France and Israel after which Operation Musketeer – the Suez aggression – took over from Operation Cordage, and Britain's potential Israeli enemies suddenly became their secret allies. But of course, all this comes from British files. Alas, it will be many years before we know what is in the book that the iron Assad is reading outside his library in Damascus.
Showing posts with label library. Show all posts
Showing posts with label library. Show all posts
Saturday, 1 November 2008
Friday, 31 October 2008
Minerva Research Initiative: Searching for the Truth or Denying the Iraqis the Rights to Know the Truth?
Saad Eskander, Iraq National Library and Archives
What has prompted me to write this paper is the continuing refusal of the U.S. to pay serious attention to Iraqi calls for the repatriation of the Iraqi records illegally seized by its military and intelligence agencies. Most recently, the Pentagon has issued an announcement, calling upon U.S. universities, research centers and scholars to submit research proposals to its Minerva Research Initiative[1] (MRI).
Under the Iraqi Perspectives Project, one of the five topic areas under the Minerva Research Initiative, the Pentagon will allow access to its collections of seized Iraqi records for the lucky ones who are interested in exploring “the political, social, and cultural workings and changes within Iraq during the years Saddam Hussein was in power”. The collection of seized records “offers a unique opportunity for multidisciplinary scholarship combined with research in methods and technologies for assisting scholarship in automated analysis, organization, retrieval, translation, and collaboration”.
This latest Pentagon initiative is not only a continuation of its previous negative attitudes, but it also constitutes an escalation in its violation of international conventions on the safeguarding of cultural heritage of occupied territories, and goes against the principles of rule of law, self-determination, and human rights that are supposed to govern the so-called Free World.
This essay approaches the issue of the use and abuse of the seized Iraqi records from legal, academic, moral, and social-political perspectives. It will be argued that the seized Iraqi records are of academic and practical significance for the Iraqis in dealing with the issue of the Saddam regime’s destructive legacy and in implementing the project of constructing a democratic Iraq, founded on the rule of law and freedom of information.
Opening Remarks
Records are fundamental for the construction of any nation’s collective historical memory. This is why the protection of documentary heritage has been enshrined in international legislation, notably the 1954 Hague Convention.
For modern societies, the accumulation, preservation, and provision of access to records are of great importance for social stability and political progress. The issue of safeguarding records is vital, particularly for the development of newly-emerged democracies, such as Iraq. Transitional regimes can sustain their political legitimacy, consolidate national unity, and create general consensus by facilitating unimpeded access to all types of information in a responsible way.
Rational and well-considered access to the records of the Saddam regime’s repressive organizations is vital for the future of the Iraqi people, as they currently suffer from severe ethnic, religious and regional divisions. From a political, legal and human rights points of view, the declassification of these records will not only help with the identification of the perpetrators of crimes and the rehabilitation of the victims, but also with the implementation of a true national reconciliation.
Those who closely follow news about Iraq will be aware that the ‘New Iraq’ needs urgently to put an immediate end to the current abuses of the seized records for political and financial gains. Without recovering the missing and the seized records, this noble goal can not be attained.
US civilian and military officials in Washington and in Baghdad are fully aware of the fact that the archives of the Saddam Regime’s repressive organizations and other civilian institutions were extensively looted during and immediately after the 2003 invasion. The Americans were themselves involved in the lootings. We all know that tens of millions of the seized Iraq records were shipped to the U.S., while the remnants are kept inside Iraq under tight American control. The seized materials include government records, non-governmental records, the Ba’ath party records and personal papers of high-ranking officials of the former regime.
During the CPA[2]’s reign and the subsequent period of Iraq’s sovereignty, U.S. military and U.S. State Department officials encouraged and even helped others to loot and then to ship abroad Iraqi records, notably the Iraqi Memory Foundation (IMF). The latter is essentially a private American initiative, whose activities unequivocally violate current Iraqi archival legislations (No. 111 of 1969 and No. 70 of 1983). The IMF does not recognize Iraq’s national government or its sovereignty. And this is ironic, given the fact that the ‘New Iraq’ is considered to be a close ally of America!
Legal Argument
The U.S. has been the hungriest scavenger of other nation’s records in the world; a position that reflects the numerous conflicts in which the U.S. has been involved, since the Second World War. U.S. seizures include records from: Germany, Russia, Poland, North Korea, North Vietnam, Grenada and Afghanistan.
While itself seizing tens of millions of current records of the former Iraqi state, during and immediately after the 2003 invasion, U.S. military and intelligence agencies tolerated the looting of what remained of Iraqi records by local political parties, organizations, citizens and even foreign reporters. In some cases, the U.S. government purchased records from a few well-known Iraqi looters of records, notably the president of the Political Prisoners Association, who fled the country after a warrant was issued for his arrest by the Iraqi authorities. He now lives in America!
The American seizures of current Iraqi records were not of an indiscriminate nature, in contrast to some other examples in Germany, Korea and Vietnam. If one divides the looted and destroyed Iraqi records into different categories – e.g. political, military-security, administrative, and cultural - one will find that the Americans were not interested in cultural records whatsoever. (By cultural records I mean the ones that are stored in national archives or libraries). The Americans were however extremely interested in seizing current records of a political and security-military nature. And they paid special attention to the files of the Ministry of Oil. The archive of the ruling Ba’ath party, which the Americans considered to be of lesser value, was handed over to Kanan Makiya’s IMF.
Moreover, the Americans allowed and tolerated the lootings and even the destruction of non-current historical records and rare books in Iraq. The lootings and the destruction of the Iraq National Library and Archive and other cultural institutions are notable examples. Foreign and local eyewitnesses are in agreement that American soldiers and their field commanders took an indifferent stance when most of the destruction and the lootings were taking place in Baghdad and elsewhere.
Interestingly, the Americans have adopted discriminate attitudes towards the non-current historical records of Iraq. Whilst allowing the destruction and the lootings of these records, they showed considerable concern about the Iraqi Jewish records. The latter were rescued as soon as the War ended and were shipped immediately to America where they have been receiving restoration treatment from LARA experts!
There is no doubt in my mind that the Americans violated the international law of war in tolerating the destruction and the looting of non-current records and other records they considered to be of no importance to them. However their indifferent attitudes to the lootings and the destructions went against the U.S.’s own interests in many respects. First, they damaged enormously the U.S.’s international reputation and credibility. Second, they created a very negative impression among Iraqi citizens and particularly the educated classes. The latter viewed the Americans as mere ruthless imperialists, soon after the invasion. Third, the Americans needed information contained in the looted and destroyed records for the purposes of the day-to-day administration and reconstruction of Iraq.
American military and intelligence authorities have continued to make more serious mistakes. By introducing the Minerva Research Initiative, the Pentagon is practically and overtly usurping our duty of collecting, preserving and facilitating access to Iraqi records for all people, who may and should use them for research and other legitimate purposes.
Providing access to sanctioned US universities, US research centers and US scholars is gross discrimination against the undeniable owners of the seized records, the Iraqi People, who are the main subject of the records. By taking this ill-conceived action, the Pentagon and the U.S. intelligence agencies have disregarded important considerations, including the right to privacy, the appreciation of cultural distinctions, respect for the social sensitivities of another nation, and respect for the rights of the victims.
The international conventions provide for the use of seized records for the purpose of administering the occupied territory. But, they certainly do not provide for the shipment of the seized records to the occupiers’ Capital or for making all or parts of these records accessible for propaganda and politically-motivated research purposes.
What the Iraqis want is that the U.S. Government should follow previous precedent, when for example it returned the records of other countries, such as Korea, German, Vietnam and Grenada. After signing the 1954 Hague Convention recently, the U.S. now has clear obligations to protect and to return all current and non-current records of the occupied Iraq, including the archive of the Ba’ath party seized by the IMF.
Academic Argument
The decision of the Pentagon to make the seized Iraqi records accessible for research purposes comes after the failure of the so-called Iraqi Survey Group to find evidence of weapons of mass destruction or concrete links between the Saddam regime and Bin-Laden among the seized Iraqi records. The question is why now the Pentagon is allowing the seized Iraqi records to be used for seemingly academic purposes. Is this shift of emphasis from political to academic genuine? Is the ultimate aim of the Pentagon to know nothing but the truth?
If the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies are sincere, why do not they allow us, the true owners of the records, too to use the seized records for ‘academic’ purposes? Why do not they deliberate with the Iraqis about their ‘academic’ project? Why do they keep the original Iraq records in their storage rooms, after they digitalized them?
We will argue that the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies will likely not let scholars study all the records they seized, especially those which contradict the views and policies of the U.S. administration or the alleged national interests of the U.S. What surely will be available for scholars to study are those records which, at least, do not harm the reputation or the interests of the influential political, military and intelligence establishments.
In terms of expertise, specialism, commitment and impartiality, there is a huge difference between a foreign organization whose function is primarily of a military and intelligence nature and an independent national archive that collects, preserved and facilitates access to records of a nation for academic uses and for other legitimate, non-military and non-intelligence purposes. We do not know what code of ethics or criteria the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies might have been using in treating, processing or selecting the seized records. We do not know to what extent the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies might have changed, manipulated or destroyed data or records to distort evidence or to hide undesirable facts.
There is also the issue of the gaps in the records seized by the Americans. We are all (including U.S. military and intelligence agencies) aware that tens of millions of important records are still missing or under the control of several Iraqi and non-Iraqi groups. How can one draw a complete and objective picture while there are considerable gaps in the records seized by the Americans?
We all, Iraqis and Americans, should be really concerned about the prospect that the U.S. and other powers may use the manner in which Iraqi records were seized, shipped and declassified as an example to be followed in future conflicts.
We hope that our American colleagues will not follow the example of the Hoover Institute in avoiding its academic responsibility. A true academic institute will not give shelter to the illegitimately-seized and illegally-shipped records of the Ba’ath party.
American universities, research centers and independent scholars should reflect on what has happened in Iraq, since the 2003 Invasion, before applying to the Pentagon’s Minerva Research Initiative. We believe that they should be interested in supporting our efforts to make all the records of the former regime accessible to all of us in a responsible manner, without violating the sovereignty of Iraq and the dignity of its people.
The Moral Argument
The issue of seized records of other nations has a clear ethical dimension for both sides: the occupier and the occupied. There is hope that U.S. universities, research centers and independent scholars will acknowledge the moral dimension of the issue of seized Iraqi records, and react to it accordingly in a positive and a constructive manner. From an Iraqi point of view, moral values are especially relevant to those who are thinking of using such records in their researches.
There is a shortage of studies on the ethical issues surrounding the use of records of conquered nations by the institutions and the people of the conquering nations. But one can distinguish two general types of ethics in this respect: first, pragmatic and second, academic. U.S. political, military and intelligence institutions resort to pragmatic morality to justify their monopolized use of seized records of other nations. For the Iraqis, this is an undeniable cultural imperialism, which is not really different from the colonists’ looting and smuggling of ancient artifacts of colonized peoples during the last two centuries.
Moreover, there is no real difference between the actions of the arsonists loyal to Saddam Hussein, who destroyed millions of records, including those of Iraq National Archive, and the actions of the U.S. army and intelligence agencies that seized, shipped and abused tens of millions of other Iraqi records. The actions of the arsonists and those in the U.S. army and intelligence agencies are identical insofar as they impinge considerably upon the true interests of Iraq’s citizens.
The monopolized use of the records of the conquered nations by the conquerors for questionable research purposes should not be interpreted as mere misconduct. By their very nature, such researches will involve premeditated abuses. They will definitely benefit the political and military establishments of the conquerors, and will be detriment to the newly-established political regime and especially to the people of the conquered territories.
The main concern of the Iraqis is not that their seized records have been used to assist the Americans with conducting their military campaigns against al-Qaeda and the Ba’athists or with the implementation of their policies in the occupied Iraq. Such actions are allowed or at least tolerated by the international laws of war. The real concern is that the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies have hid or even destroyed certain undesirable Iraqi records. Are not these awful actions morally wrong? The Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies have been abusing the information contained in the seized records for tightly controlling the life and the destiny of Iraqi people. So far, evidence shows that the records have been used to blackmail or recruit many of those who were part of, or cooperated with, the former regime. By keeping anonymous the identity of all those who are the opponents of the new regime, the Americans have been intentionally obstructing the course of justice and undermining the construction process of a new Iraq. The Iraqis do not know the names of many politically dangerous and often corrupt elements that have occupied, or continue to occupy, sensitive positions in the state and in the government.
If one deeply examines the post-WWII experiences, one will discover that there is an urgent need to replace the prevailing pragmatic morality with a new academic one; one that gives priority to the interests of the conquered nations, and respects unconditionally the principles of national self-determination and the rule of law at international level.
It is a matter of urgency that, in the foreseeable future, international experts on archives and related archival problems will be able to set definite rules for the use of and accessibility to seized records of conquered nations.
Social and Political Argument
During his 35 years in power, Saddam built several oppressive organizations and enlarged the military for the purpose of waging wars of aggression and suppressing internal opposition. These agencies and the Ba’ath party made hundreds of millions of records that well-documented the daily lives, the deaths, the reactions, and the activities of millions of Iraqis.
In the post-Saddam era, these records have continued, and will continue, to have far-reaching effects on Iraqis’ lives and destinies, due to the fact that the Saddam regime bequeathed a massive legacy, especially in the fields of inter-communal relations, politics and culture. For this very reason, the Iraqis, not the Americans or any other foreign people, should first deal with or come to terms with their bitter past through responsible and legitimate use of the records. Iraqi people have every right to discover the truth by themselves about the forces and the events that left terrible effects on them for many years, especially those who suffered enormously during Saddam’s brutal dictatorship. This is common sense.
In the post-Saddam era, the Iraqis have been encountering many and enormous challenges from every direction. True scholars, who are experts on Iraqi’s modern history and politics, recognize that overcoming internal divisions, defeating terrorism, and containing blind religious fanaticism will require a deep understanding and an objective representation of the recent past.
The Iraqi side has made its position as clear as possible. The access to, and the use of, the Iraqi records must be governed by special Iraqi legislation that will be enacted by an elected Iraqi legislative body. The legislation must objectively take into consideration the priorities and the reality of the situation in the post-Saddam Iraq, which are as follow:
* granting the victims a genuine opportunity to rehabilitate and restore their human dignity and to be compensated accordingly and adequately;
* offering all Iraqis who were party to the events or cases mentioned in the records a true chance to rehabilitate themselves under rule of law;
* contributing to the ongoing efforts to unearth the fate or the whereabouts of missing and deceased persons;
* facilitating the efforts to bring to justice all those who committed crimes against Iraqi people, particularly those who were involved in the genocide against the Kurdish people;
* facilitating the process of a genuine national reconciliation among the Iraqis in order to overcome deep internal divisions, to create social stability and to promote tolerance and peaceful coexistence;
* establishing an as objective and as comprehensive picture as possible of what happened, how it happened, and why it happened, in the hope that it will assist with the formation of a genuine national memory;
* making the Iraqi people aware of the truth regarding all the gross violations of human rights and horrific crimes committed against certain communities so that they can prevent their reoccurrence in the future;
* rebuilding a modern administration structure;
* attaining genuine national sovereignty; and
* consolidating national security.
Concluding Notes
The Iraq National Library and Archives (INLA) has been demanding the repatriation of all the seized Iraqi records. Its staff is aware that no archival legislation can be enacted without first studying the content of these records. The INLA has been working on several fronts, notably the amendment of current archival legislation so that they can deal extensively with the highly sensitive records of the former regime, the adoption of legal methods to recover all the looted records, and inhibition of the misuse of these records by Iraqis and non-Iraqis, inside and outside the country. The proposed legislation will differentiate sensitive records from non-sensitive ones in terms of access and use. The INLA has already obtained a large portion of the archival collections of the Ministry of Interior of the former regime.
The INLA favors the idea of setting up a special entity for the records of the former regime within its existing structure. It is the only institution that has credibility among the public and scholars alike. Moreover, it can guarantee neutrality and objectivity as well as adherence to an enlightened code of ethics, when dealing with highly sensitive records.
Unlike during the pre-2003 period, the INLA is no longer the ideological tool of a repressive regime. It has transformed beyond recognition so that it can function as the archive of all Iraq and for all Iraqis, regardless of their ethnic and religious backgrounds or political orientations. The INLA is a secular, liberal, and democratic institution. The policy of decision-making, and the way in which the targets and strategies are being set, are democratized. There is no longer any restriction on accessing records or acquiring new publications. The INLA has been busy declassifying hundreds of historical records, access to which the former regime prohibited.
Public records are the inalienable property of people, especially those who are their subjects. Constructing Iraq’s documentary heritage and ensuring the legitimate use of sensitive records, are the duties of all genuine archivists, true scholars, and honest human right activists, regardless of their nationality, race and religion. The Iraqis hope that the Americans will follow their own example in 2003, when they returned thousands of sensitive records of the agents of the former East German secret service to the German authorities. These records have been used for legitimate purposes ever since their return to Germany
[1] http://www.arl.army.mil/www/DownloadedInternetPages/CurrentPages/DoingBusinesswithARL/research/08-R-0007.pdf
[2] Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), established as a transitional government following the invasion of Iraq by the United States and the other members of the coalition.
What has prompted me to write this paper is the continuing refusal of the U.S. to pay serious attention to Iraqi calls for the repatriation of the Iraqi records illegally seized by its military and intelligence agencies. Most recently, the Pentagon has issued an announcement, calling upon U.S. universities, research centers and scholars to submit research proposals to its Minerva Research Initiative[1] (MRI).
Under the Iraqi Perspectives Project, one of the five topic areas under the Minerva Research Initiative, the Pentagon will allow access to its collections of seized Iraqi records for the lucky ones who are interested in exploring “the political, social, and cultural workings and changes within Iraq during the years Saddam Hussein was in power”. The collection of seized records “offers a unique opportunity for multidisciplinary scholarship combined with research in methods and technologies for assisting scholarship in automated analysis, organization, retrieval, translation, and collaboration”.
This latest Pentagon initiative is not only a continuation of its previous negative attitudes, but it also constitutes an escalation in its violation of international conventions on the safeguarding of cultural heritage of occupied territories, and goes against the principles of rule of law, self-determination, and human rights that are supposed to govern the so-called Free World.
This essay approaches the issue of the use and abuse of the seized Iraqi records from legal, academic, moral, and social-political perspectives. It will be argued that the seized Iraqi records are of academic and practical significance for the Iraqis in dealing with the issue of the Saddam regime’s destructive legacy and in implementing the project of constructing a democratic Iraq, founded on the rule of law and freedom of information.
Opening Remarks
Records are fundamental for the construction of any nation’s collective historical memory. This is why the protection of documentary heritage has been enshrined in international legislation, notably the 1954 Hague Convention.
For modern societies, the accumulation, preservation, and provision of access to records are of great importance for social stability and political progress. The issue of safeguarding records is vital, particularly for the development of newly-emerged democracies, such as Iraq. Transitional regimes can sustain their political legitimacy, consolidate national unity, and create general consensus by facilitating unimpeded access to all types of information in a responsible way.
Rational and well-considered access to the records of the Saddam regime’s repressive organizations is vital for the future of the Iraqi people, as they currently suffer from severe ethnic, religious and regional divisions. From a political, legal and human rights points of view, the declassification of these records will not only help with the identification of the perpetrators of crimes and the rehabilitation of the victims, but also with the implementation of a true national reconciliation.
Those who closely follow news about Iraq will be aware that the ‘New Iraq’ needs urgently to put an immediate end to the current abuses of the seized records for political and financial gains. Without recovering the missing and the seized records, this noble goal can not be attained.
US civilian and military officials in Washington and in Baghdad are fully aware of the fact that the archives of the Saddam Regime’s repressive organizations and other civilian institutions were extensively looted during and immediately after the 2003 invasion. The Americans were themselves involved in the lootings. We all know that tens of millions of the seized Iraq records were shipped to the U.S., while the remnants are kept inside Iraq under tight American control. The seized materials include government records, non-governmental records, the Ba’ath party records and personal papers of high-ranking officials of the former regime.
During the CPA[2]’s reign and the subsequent period of Iraq’s sovereignty, U.S. military and U.S. State Department officials encouraged and even helped others to loot and then to ship abroad Iraqi records, notably the Iraqi Memory Foundation (IMF). The latter is essentially a private American initiative, whose activities unequivocally violate current Iraqi archival legislations (No. 111 of 1969 and No. 70 of 1983). The IMF does not recognize Iraq’s national government or its sovereignty. And this is ironic, given the fact that the ‘New Iraq’ is considered to be a close ally of America!
Legal Argument
The U.S. has been the hungriest scavenger of other nation’s records in the world; a position that reflects the numerous conflicts in which the U.S. has been involved, since the Second World War. U.S. seizures include records from: Germany, Russia, Poland, North Korea, North Vietnam, Grenada and Afghanistan.
While itself seizing tens of millions of current records of the former Iraqi state, during and immediately after the 2003 invasion, U.S. military and intelligence agencies tolerated the looting of what remained of Iraqi records by local political parties, organizations, citizens and even foreign reporters. In some cases, the U.S. government purchased records from a few well-known Iraqi looters of records, notably the president of the Political Prisoners Association, who fled the country after a warrant was issued for his arrest by the Iraqi authorities. He now lives in America!
The American seizures of current Iraqi records were not of an indiscriminate nature, in contrast to some other examples in Germany, Korea and Vietnam. If one divides the looted and destroyed Iraqi records into different categories – e.g. political, military-security, administrative, and cultural - one will find that the Americans were not interested in cultural records whatsoever. (By cultural records I mean the ones that are stored in national archives or libraries). The Americans were however extremely interested in seizing current records of a political and security-military nature. And they paid special attention to the files of the Ministry of Oil. The archive of the ruling Ba’ath party, which the Americans considered to be of lesser value, was handed over to Kanan Makiya’s IMF.
Moreover, the Americans allowed and tolerated the lootings and even the destruction of non-current historical records and rare books in Iraq. The lootings and the destruction of the Iraq National Library and Archive and other cultural institutions are notable examples. Foreign and local eyewitnesses are in agreement that American soldiers and their field commanders took an indifferent stance when most of the destruction and the lootings were taking place in Baghdad and elsewhere.
Interestingly, the Americans have adopted discriminate attitudes towards the non-current historical records of Iraq. Whilst allowing the destruction and the lootings of these records, they showed considerable concern about the Iraqi Jewish records. The latter were rescued as soon as the War ended and were shipped immediately to America where they have been receiving restoration treatment from LARA experts!
There is no doubt in my mind that the Americans violated the international law of war in tolerating the destruction and the looting of non-current records and other records they considered to be of no importance to them. However their indifferent attitudes to the lootings and the destructions went against the U.S.’s own interests in many respects. First, they damaged enormously the U.S.’s international reputation and credibility. Second, they created a very negative impression among Iraqi citizens and particularly the educated classes. The latter viewed the Americans as mere ruthless imperialists, soon after the invasion. Third, the Americans needed information contained in the looted and destroyed records for the purposes of the day-to-day administration and reconstruction of Iraq.
American military and intelligence authorities have continued to make more serious mistakes. By introducing the Minerva Research Initiative, the Pentagon is practically and overtly usurping our duty of collecting, preserving and facilitating access to Iraqi records for all people, who may and should use them for research and other legitimate purposes.
Providing access to sanctioned US universities, US research centers and US scholars is gross discrimination against the undeniable owners of the seized records, the Iraqi People, who are the main subject of the records. By taking this ill-conceived action, the Pentagon and the U.S. intelligence agencies have disregarded important considerations, including the right to privacy, the appreciation of cultural distinctions, respect for the social sensitivities of another nation, and respect for the rights of the victims.
The international conventions provide for the use of seized records for the purpose of administering the occupied territory. But, they certainly do not provide for the shipment of the seized records to the occupiers’ Capital or for making all or parts of these records accessible for propaganda and politically-motivated research purposes.
What the Iraqis want is that the U.S. Government should follow previous precedent, when for example it returned the records of other countries, such as Korea, German, Vietnam and Grenada. After signing the 1954 Hague Convention recently, the U.S. now has clear obligations to protect and to return all current and non-current records of the occupied Iraq, including the archive of the Ba’ath party seized by the IMF.
Academic Argument
The decision of the Pentagon to make the seized Iraqi records accessible for research purposes comes after the failure of the so-called Iraqi Survey Group to find evidence of weapons of mass destruction or concrete links between the Saddam regime and Bin-Laden among the seized Iraqi records. The question is why now the Pentagon is allowing the seized Iraqi records to be used for seemingly academic purposes. Is this shift of emphasis from political to academic genuine? Is the ultimate aim of the Pentagon to know nothing but the truth?
If the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies are sincere, why do not they allow us, the true owners of the records, too to use the seized records for ‘academic’ purposes? Why do not they deliberate with the Iraqis about their ‘academic’ project? Why do they keep the original Iraq records in their storage rooms, after they digitalized them?
We will argue that the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies will likely not let scholars study all the records they seized, especially those which contradict the views and policies of the U.S. administration or the alleged national interests of the U.S. What surely will be available for scholars to study are those records which, at least, do not harm the reputation or the interests of the influential political, military and intelligence establishments.
In terms of expertise, specialism, commitment and impartiality, there is a huge difference between a foreign organization whose function is primarily of a military and intelligence nature and an independent national archive that collects, preserved and facilitates access to records of a nation for academic uses and for other legitimate, non-military and non-intelligence purposes. We do not know what code of ethics or criteria the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies might have been using in treating, processing or selecting the seized records. We do not know to what extent the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies might have changed, manipulated or destroyed data or records to distort evidence or to hide undesirable facts.
There is also the issue of the gaps in the records seized by the Americans. We are all (including U.S. military and intelligence agencies) aware that tens of millions of important records are still missing or under the control of several Iraqi and non-Iraqi groups. How can one draw a complete and objective picture while there are considerable gaps in the records seized by the Americans?
We all, Iraqis and Americans, should be really concerned about the prospect that the U.S. and other powers may use the manner in which Iraqi records were seized, shipped and declassified as an example to be followed in future conflicts.
We hope that our American colleagues will not follow the example of the Hoover Institute in avoiding its academic responsibility. A true academic institute will not give shelter to the illegitimately-seized and illegally-shipped records of the Ba’ath party.
American universities, research centers and independent scholars should reflect on what has happened in Iraq, since the 2003 Invasion, before applying to the Pentagon’s Minerva Research Initiative. We believe that they should be interested in supporting our efforts to make all the records of the former regime accessible to all of us in a responsible manner, without violating the sovereignty of Iraq and the dignity of its people.
The Moral Argument
The issue of seized records of other nations has a clear ethical dimension for both sides: the occupier and the occupied. There is hope that U.S. universities, research centers and independent scholars will acknowledge the moral dimension of the issue of seized Iraqi records, and react to it accordingly in a positive and a constructive manner. From an Iraqi point of view, moral values are especially relevant to those who are thinking of using such records in their researches.
There is a shortage of studies on the ethical issues surrounding the use of records of conquered nations by the institutions and the people of the conquering nations. But one can distinguish two general types of ethics in this respect: first, pragmatic and second, academic. U.S. political, military and intelligence institutions resort to pragmatic morality to justify their monopolized use of seized records of other nations. For the Iraqis, this is an undeniable cultural imperialism, which is not really different from the colonists’ looting and smuggling of ancient artifacts of colonized peoples during the last two centuries.
Moreover, there is no real difference between the actions of the arsonists loyal to Saddam Hussein, who destroyed millions of records, including those of Iraq National Archive, and the actions of the U.S. army and intelligence agencies that seized, shipped and abused tens of millions of other Iraqi records. The actions of the arsonists and those in the U.S. army and intelligence agencies are identical insofar as they impinge considerably upon the true interests of Iraq’s citizens.
The monopolized use of the records of the conquered nations by the conquerors for questionable research purposes should not be interpreted as mere misconduct. By their very nature, such researches will involve premeditated abuses. They will definitely benefit the political and military establishments of the conquerors, and will be detriment to the newly-established political regime and especially to the people of the conquered territories.
The main concern of the Iraqis is not that their seized records have been used to assist the Americans with conducting their military campaigns against al-Qaeda and the Ba’athists or with the implementation of their policies in the occupied Iraq. Such actions are allowed or at least tolerated by the international laws of war. The real concern is that the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies have hid or even destroyed certain undesirable Iraqi records. Are not these awful actions morally wrong? The Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies have been abusing the information contained in the seized records for tightly controlling the life and the destiny of Iraqi people. So far, evidence shows that the records have been used to blackmail or recruit many of those who were part of, or cooperated with, the former regime. By keeping anonymous the identity of all those who are the opponents of the new regime, the Americans have been intentionally obstructing the course of justice and undermining the construction process of a new Iraq. The Iraqis do not know the names of many politically dangerous and often corrupt elements that have occupied, or continue to occupy, sensitive positions in the state and in the government.
If one deeply examines the post-WWII experiences, one will discover that there is an urgent need to replace the prevailing pragmatic morality with a new academic one; one that gives priority to the interests of the conquered nations, and respects unconditionally the principles of national self-determination and the rule of law at international level.
It is a matter of urgency that, in the foreseeable future, international experts on archives and related archival problems will be able to set definite rules for the use of and accessibility to seized records of conquered nations.
Social and Political Argument
During his 35 years in power, Saddam built several oppressive organizations and enlarged the military for the purpose of waging wars of aggression and suppressing internal opposition. These agencies and the Ba’ath party made hundreds of millions of records that well-documented the daily lives, the deaths, the reactions, and the activities of millions of Iraqis.
In the post-Saddam era, these records have continued, and will continue, to have far-reaching effects on Iraqis’ lives and destinies, due to the fact that the Saddam regime bequeathed a massive legacy, especially in the fields of inter-communal relations, politics and culture. For this very reason, the Iraqis, not the Americans or any other foreign people, should first deal with or come to terms with their bitter past through responsible and legitimate use of the records. Iraqi people have every right to discover the truth by themselves about the forces and the events that left terrible effects on them for many years, especially those who suffered enormously during Saddam’s brutal dictatorship. This is common sense.
In the post-Saddam era, the Iraqis have been encountering many and enormous challenges from every direction. True scholars, who are experts on Iraqi’s modern history and politics, recognize that overcoming internal divisions, defeating terrorism, and containing blind religious fanaticism will require a deep understanding and an objective representation of the recent past.
The Iraqi side has made its position as clear as possible. The access to, and the use of, the Iraqi records must be governed by special Iraqi legislation that will be enacted by an elected Iraqi legislative body. The legislation must objectively take into consideration the priorities and the reality of the situation in the post-Saddam Iraq, which are as follow:
* granting the victims a genuine opportunity to rehabilitate and restore their human dignity and to be compensated accordingly and adequately;
* offering all Iraqis who were party to the events or cases mentioned in the records a true chance to rehabilitate themselves under rule of law;
* contributing to the ongoing efforts to unearth the fate or the whereabouts of missing and deceased persons;
* facilitating the efforts to bring to justice all those who committed crimes against Iraqi people, particularly those who were involved in the genocide against the Kurdish people;
* facilitating the process of a genuine national reconciliation among the Iraqis in order to overcome deep internal divisions, to create social stability and to promote tolerance and peaceful coexistence;
* establishing an as objective and as comprehensive picture as possible of what happened, how it happened, and why it happened, in the hope that it will assist with the formation of a genuine national memory;
* making the Iraqi people aware of the truth regarding all the gross violations of human rights and horrific crimes committed against certain communities so that they can prevent their reoccurrence in the future;
* rebuilding a modern administration structure;
* attaining genuine national sovereignty; and
* consolidating national security.
Concluding Notes
The Iraq National Library and Archives (INLA) has been demanding the repatriation of all the seized Iraqi records. Its staff is aware that no archival legislation can be enacted without first studying the content of these records. The INLA has been working on several fronts, notably the amendment of current archival legislation so that they can deal extensively with the highly sensitive records of the former regime, the adoption of legal methods to recover all the looted records, and inhibition of the misuse of these records by Iraqis and non-Iraqis, inside and outside the country. The proposed legislation will differentiate sensitive records from non-sensitive ones in terms of access and use. The INLA has already obtained a large portion of the archival collections of the Ministry of Interior of the former regime.
The INLA favors the idea of setting up a special entity for the records of the former regime within its existing structure. It is the only institution that has credibility among the public and scholars alike. Moreover, it can guarantee neutrality and objectivity as well as adherence to an enlightened code of ethics, when dealing with highly sensitive records.
Unlike during the pre-2003 period, the INLA is no longer the ideological tool of a repressive regime. It has transformed beyond recognition so that it can function as the archive of all Iraq and for all Iraqis, regardless of their ethnic and religious backgrounds or political orientations. The INLA is a secular, liberal, and democratic institution. The policy of decision-making, and the way in which the targets and strategies are being set, are democratized. There is no longer any restriction on accessing records or acquiring new publications. The INLA has been busy declassifying hundreds of historical records, access to which the former regime prohibited.
Public records are the inalienable property of people, especially those who are their subjects. Constructing Iraq’s documentary heritage and ensuring the legitimate use of sensitive records, are the duties of all genuine archivists, true scholars, and honest human right activists, regardless of their nationality, race and religion. The Iraqis hope that the Americans will follow their own example in 2003, when they returned thousands of sensitive records of the agents of the former East German secret service to the German authorities. These records have been used for legitimate purposes ever since their return to Germany
[1] http://www.arl.army.mil/www/DownloadedInternetPages/CurrentPages/DoingBusinesswithARL/research/08-R-0007.pdf
[2] Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), established as a transitional government following the invasion of Iraq by the United States and the other members of the coalition.
Books, tears and blood
Saad Eskander, director of Baghdad's national library, wants to 'help Iraqis understand their past and build their future' through education. The former Kurdish fighter tells Stuart Jeffries why culture is the key, why the US must surrender looted papers - and why he refuses to have a bodyguard
In 2003, Saad Eskander had just finished his PhD at the London School of Economics when he decided to return to Baghdad. Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist regime had been overthrown and the dictator was in hiding. Thirteen years after seeking asylum in Britain, the former teenage Kurdish fighter was going home to help rebuild his country. "In London, I was part of a group of Iraqi painters and writers who decided to visit Baghdad to see what we could do in the sphere of cultural education," he recalls.
It sounds, I suggest, a wildly utopian project to undertake in the middle of a city seething with foreign troops, sectarian militias, gunfire and car bombs. "It is," says Eskander, looking over his glasses at me with a slight smile, "extremely important. Without cultural education, we cannot emerge from Saddam Hussein's dictatorship properly. Without it, we cannot resist the ideas of religious fundamentalism." But still, it is an almost hopeless and insanely dangerous thing to try to attempt. "All my friends went back to London," he concedes. "But I decided to stay."
Five years on, Eskander, who was born in Baghdad, still works in the Iraqi capital, and continues to insist that cultural education is one of the most important means to reconstruct the Iraqi homeland about which he has come to feel patriotic. "One month after I arrived, I was told there was a job and asked if I'd be interested in applying." The job turned out to be director general of the Iraq national library and archives. "Under Saddam Hussein, this was an arm of the dictatorship. The [new] minister of culture wanted to ensure it was not a Ba'athist director. He needed someone who could modernise the library, and he knew of my background - fighting with the Kurdish Resistance Movement in northern Iraq, and studying history in London. I was the right person in the right place."
Why did it appeal to him? "When I went back, I thought I would get a history job at the University of Baghdad. That seemed important. We had a failed state. You have to get back to history to study what went wrong in Iraq. But with this job, I thought I could help Iraqis understand their past and build their future."
When Eskander talks about his library, he makes it sound a combination of a national healing process, a social crucible for establishing a more egalitarian society and a centre of free inquiry that Iraqi intellectuals have been denied for decades.
But what does cultural education even mean? "We want to change people's orientation through our books. Otherwise there is no alternative but mosques. I would always say invest in secular education, because religious extremism is a cultural phenomenon - it is not wholly an armed phenomenon. We need to prove to people that there is an alternative."
This was the vision he brought to his new job. He tells me it was founded, partly, on his sense of the difference between British and American colonial rule in Iraq. It's an unlikely inspiration. He explains: "The British during and after the first world war built secular education system and museums in Iraq. They didn't allow religious institutions to intervene in politics. The Americans in Baghdad now have not invested in higher education and culture. These things were at the bottom of their list of priorities. But they are wrong. That is why in Baghdad the universities are dominated by militias."
Eskander, though, is hardly a flag-waver for Britain. "I am not justifying imperialism. But we must learn from every episode of history.
Westerners weren't the only colonisers. Islam colonised Spain and other countries. I'd be a hypocrite not to say this. I don't believe in that moral interpretation of history where one group of people have always been the good guys." The subject of his PhD thesis was British policy towards the Kurdish Question 1915 to 1923. "The Kurds still blame the British very much for what happened to us. As you know, the first people to use chemical weapons against the Kurds were the RAF. They burned villages, used gas against the Kurds." But not only the Kurds, of course: Winston Churchill, as secretary of state for war and air, called for the systematic gassing and bombing of many peoples Britain sought to subjugate as it carved up a new colony on the dunes of Mesopotamia, the mountains of Kurdistan and elsewhere amid the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. "I am strongly in favour of using poison gas against uncivilised tribes," said Churchill, "[to] spread a lively terror."
Eskander's ancestors were members of those "uncivilised" tribes, and Britain's terror tactics inspired later mass murders on his people. In 1988, in Halabja in Kurdistan, for instance, Saddam Hussein's men killed 5,000 people in a poison gas attack. By then, Eskander had been a member of the Kurdish Resistance Movement for seven years. He lived in the mountains of northern Iraq, and later holed up in Iran and Syria. Only in 1990 did he decide to flee to Britain to seek asylum. "My family, including my mother, brother and father all fought for the Kurdish Resistance Movement. My brother was jailed for life for his work, until Saddam gave him an amnesty. It was in our blood to oppose these dictators. At that time we thought the best solution was to establish a democratic Kurdistan independent of Iraq. Now we believe in a federal solution - of Kurdistan being within Iraq, but autonomous."
This shift in mindset has made this former Kurdish fighter strangely patriotic about Iraq, that odd entity cobbled together from disparate ethnic groups and lands by the British nearly a century ago. He believes in a democratic Iraq and its cultural education which he can help liberate from the mental shackles of dictatorship.
But when he started his work, Eskander's job seemed hopeless. In the chaos after the collapse of Saddam's regime in April 2003, arsonists set fire to the main building and looters carried off equipment. Books, journals, maps, photographs, were burned or stolen. It was a tragedy: a quarter of the collections were lost, some in their entirety; 60% of the archives disappeared too. "The library collected all types of local publications, and kept many official files and papers. As a result, it is the principal source of information on Iraqi political, social, economic and cultural life. It had been nearly totally obliterated," says Eskander.
Where did the seized material go? "There were several groups involved in removing or stealing items from the library," says Eskander. "The Americans, who wanted to find a link between Saddam and al-Qaida or prove the existence of weapons of mass destruction or find evidence of genocide. Professional thieves. Iraqi civilians seeking information about the fate of relatives who suffered under Saddam. Saddam loyalists who want to burn documents that would implicate them." He also names and shames Kanan Makiya, a US-based Iraqi professor of Middle East studies at Brandeis University and founder of an organisation called the Iraq Memory Foundation which has links to Bush's neocons and rightwing think tanks. Eskander is angry that Makiya holds sensitive Iraqi documents in the US that he believes should be returned to Baghdad and housed in his library. It is estimated that between 43,000 to 55,000 boxes, amounting to more than 100m pages, were seized from Baghdad by foreign troops in April 2003. They included memos, training guides, reports, transcripts of conversations, audio- and videotapes. Most are still held by the CIA, the Pentagon and Makiya's foundation at the Hoover Institution in Stanford University. Eskander says Iraq must get them back. "They are national Iraqi documents stolen from us. They should be here. They are essential for us to understand our recent history. Many of them are about the crimes of Saddam Hussein and they should be the property of the Iraqi people." So far he hasn't succeeded.
But then Eskander's job has always been extraordinarily difficult. From his office he often sees plumes of smoke rising from car bombs; his windows regularly shudder, sometimes shatter. Today, he keeps shards of mortar bombs on his desk as souvenirs. He peppers his conversation with remarks beyond the remit of most librarians. "I've lost count of the bombs," he says at one point. "They still shoot at us sometimes," he says at another. He cuts a remarkably serene figure in his tan suit and brown shoes as I interview him in the British Library in London, where he is visiting partly to arrange the transfer of some old Iraqi maps, some dating back to the 16th century, that had been held by the India Office (the British government department that administered Iraq after the end of the first world war).
Eskander might dream of having the problems that beset the British Library, a building where there has been a recent furore about readers having to wait 20 minutes to deposit their coats and about a so-called " frappuccino" culture of undergraduates that is besmirching the institution's scholarly reputation. Does he worry for his own safety? After all, some armed groups in Iraq must hate what he's doing at the library. "I never have a bodyguard," he replies, "because that attracts attention. This idea of having bodyguards, changing cars two or three times, is very stupid. If they want to kill you, they will do it. If you are lucky you will stay, if not, you will be killed." That is not to say he hasn't taken precautions: the 46-year-old has moved house four times with his wife and year-old son since taking up the job.
Does he not sometimes wish that he and his family were living in London? "No. I have important work to do. I have to stay strong. Even when my staff are killed, I have to remain optimistic." But he believes that the way he behaves professionally makes him less of a target. "In my institution I treat everybody equally. Nobody hates me."
Until the summer of last year, Eskander wrote a blog that told the world of the grisly circumstances in which he and his staff had to work. His entry for March 5 2007, for instance, told how a huge explosion shook the library's building; an 11.35am car bomb exploded less than 500 metres away in al-Mutanabi Street. Eskander wrote with an intellectual's sorrow at a culture being destroyed: "The street is one of the well-known areas of Baghdad and where many publishing houses, printing companies and bookstores have their main offices and storages. Its old cafes are the most favourite place for the impoverished intellectuals, who get their inspirations and ideas from this very old quarter of Baghdad. The street is also famous for its Friday's book market, where secondhand, new and rear books are sold and purchased."
After the blast he wrote: "Tens of thousands of papers were flying high, as if the sky was raining books, tears and blood. The view was surreal. Some of the papers were burning in the sky. Many burning pieces of papers fell on the [library] building ... Immediately after the explosion, I ordered the guards to prevent all my staff from leaving the building, as there was a possibility of another bomb attack. My staff and I were watching the movement of a number of civilian and military ambulances, carrying killed and injured people. It was a heartbreaking view."
Eskander's blog, published on the British Library's website (bl.uk/iraqdiary.html), became such an incessant chronicle of heartbreak that, in the summer of 2007, he decided to stop writing it - even though it had elicited messages of support from all over the world. "It became too emotional," he says, "and I worried it exploited people's suffering."
Recently, Eskander listed the "sad notes" that have happened since he stopped writing his blog: 95 library windows smashed by a car bomb; a receptionist's son kidnapped and murdered for "sectarian reasons"; an archivist's son missing for five months; a library worker's husband missing for six months.
Even in this climate, he carries on. "I want to make the library a democratic model of how Iraq should be. From the start I hired Sunnis, Kurds, Shias, women, men. The national library must be a place - perhaps even the most important place - where Iraqis from many different groups come together." He claims to have paid special attention to women's rights.
He takes heart from small achievements. The US embassy funded a generator. He has secured funding from Italian NGOs. Best of all, reader numbers are up from 240 a month to 900. "There is a great hunger in the Iraqi people, especially young people, for knowledge. After years when it went unsatisfied, we can satisfy it. When they come to the reading room, we study their requests, and we go to the market outside Iraq and ask for books they want." Indeed, at Eskander's instigation, the British Library recently made an appeal to UK universities for books on subjects in demand, especially volumes dealing with history, economics and social welfare.
But his library is not just there to help such scholars. Eskander wants to preserve the fragments of Iraq's ancient and modern heritage in a building he calls "the historical memory of the country". Especially the more grisly aspects of its recent heritage. "We are filming security documents from the ministry of the interior, which Iraqi people will be interested in."
He argues, though, that the historic role of the library as a repository for government and historical documents from many periods and the central location for research into the history of the Iraqi people is being thwarted by institutions in the US. He claims that documents seized by the US military from the Ba'athist ministry of the interior, which were subsequently used to blackmail Saddam's former secret police operatives to work for the occupation, ultimately have been transferred to the US. "These secret police archives belong in Baghdad, where Saddam Hussein's victims and their families can study them. Even if they won't return the original documents I know many of them have been digitised, so I am suggesting a compromise: that they give us the computer files so they can be seen in Iraq. Under international law, though, the documents should be ours, not the US government's."
Eskander is also campaigning against Makiya's Iraq Memory Foundation. This private, non-profit group of rightwing Iraqi scholars earlier this year signed a deal with conservative think tank the Hoover Institution whereby seven million pages of records and other artefacts from Saddam's tenure as Iraqi president - taken from the Ba'ath party offices and dungeons by Makiya in the aftermath of the US-led invasion in 2003 - will house the collection for the next five years at buildings in Stanford University. Makiya said recently that the documents will ultimately be returned to Iraq. "But," he added, "Baghdad is just not ready for it."
"The suggestion is that Baghdad is not safe," says Eskander. "But I can assure you there are secret, secure buildings in Baghdad where these documents can be stored. It is absurd that they are in California and not in Iraq. Once the documents are returned, our policy is there will be no censorship - the Iraqi people will be able to come to my library, see all of these documents and learn. Only through complete transparency can there be true democracy in Iraq. This has to be the way forward for my country," says Eskander, rising to his feet. He has an appointment with representatives of the British Museum and British army, and doesn't want to be late. He's going to advise British troops on how to help archaeological specialists from the UK who will visit major sites in southern Iraq and determine the extent of damage caused by looters. They include the museum in Basra and sites at Kut, Amara and Wasit.
It's just the sort of initiative that Eskander loves. In it, he sees the possibility of understanding the past, valuing an ancient heritage. "This is all part of the process of coming to terms with our terrible pasts, of understanding what we have done wrong, and appreciating the glories of our history too." At last, I think, I understand what Saad Eskander means by cultural education and why he thinks it is so important.
In 2003, Saad Eskander had just finished his PhD at the London School of Economics when he decided to return to Baghdad. Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist regime had been overthrown and the dictator was in hiding. Thirteen years after seeking asylum in Britain, the former teenage Kurdish fighter was going home to help rebuild his country. "In London, I was part of a group of Iraqi painters and writers who decided to visit Baghdad to see what we could do in the sphere of cultural education," he recalls.
It sounds, I suggest, a wildly utopian project to undertake in the middle of a city seething with foreign troops, sectarian militias, gunfire and car bombs. "It is," says Eskander, looking over his glasses at me with a slight smile, "extremely important. Without cultural education, we cannot emerge from Saddam Hussein's dictatorship properly. Without it, we cannot resist the ideas of religious fundamentalism." But still, it is an almost hopeless and insanely dangerous thing to try to attempt. "All my friends went back to London," he concedes. "But I decided to stay."
Five years on, Eskander, who was born in Baghdad, still works in the Iraqi capital, and continues to insist that cultural education is one of the most important means to reconstruct the Iraqi homeland about which he has come to feel patriotic. "One month after I arrived, I was told there was a job and asked if I'd be interested in applying." The job turned out to be director general of the Iraq national library and archives. "Under Saddam Hussein, this was an arm of the dictatorship. The [new] minister of culture wanted to ensure it was not a Ba'athist director. He needed someone who could modernise the library, and he knew of my background - fighting with the Kurdish Resistance Movement in northern Iraq, and studying history in London. I was the right person in the right place."
Why did it appeal to him? "When I went back, I thought I would get a history job at the University of Baghdad. That seemed important. We had a failed state. You have to get back to history to study what went wrong in Iraq. But with this job, I thought I could help Iraqis understand their past and build their future."
When Eskander talks about his library, he makes it sound a combination of a national healing process, a social crucible for establishing a more egalitarian society and a centre of free inquiry that Iraqi intellectuals have been denied for decades.
But what does cultural education even mean? "We want to change people's orientation through our books. Otherwise there is no alternative but mosques. I would always say invest in secular education, because religious extremism is a cultural phenomenon - it is not wholly an armed phenomenon. We need to prove to people that there is an alternative."
This was the vision he brought to his new job. He tells me it was founded, partly, on his sense of the difference between British and American colonial rule in Iraq. It's an unlikely inspiration. He explains: "The British during and after the first world war built secular education system and museums in Iraq. They didn't allow religious institutions to intervene in politics. The Americans in Baghdad now have not invested in higher education and culture. These things were at the bottom of their list of priorities. But they are wrong. That is why in Baghdad the universities are dominated by militias."
Eskander, though, is hardly a flag-waver for Britain. "I am not justifying imperialism. But we must learn from every episode of history.
Westerners weren't the only colonisers. Islam colonised Spain and other countries. I'd be a hypocrite not to say this. I don't believe in that moral interpretation of history where one group of people have always been the good guys." The subject of his PhD thesis was British policy towards the Kurdish Question 1915 to 1923. "The Kurds still blame the British very much for what happened to us. As you know, the first people to use chemical weapons against the Kurds were the RAF. They burned villages, used gas against the Kurds." But not only the Kurds, of course: Winston Churchill, as secretary of state for war and air, called for the systematic gassing and bombing of many peoples Britain sought to subjugate as it carved up a new colony on the dunes of Mesopotamia, the mountains of Kurdistan and elsewhere amid the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. "I am strongly in favour of using poison gas against uncivilised tribes," said Churchill, "[to] spread a lively terror."
Eskander's ancestors were members of those "uncivilised" tribes, and Britain's terror tactics inspired later mass murders on his people. In 1988, in Halabja in Kurdistan, for instance, Saddam Hussein's men killed 5,000 people in a poison gas attack. By then, Eskander had been a member of the Kurdish Resistance Movement for seven years. He lived in the mountains of northern Iraq, and later holed up in Iran and Syria. Only in 1990 did he decide to flee to Britain to seek asylum. "My family, including my mother, brother and father all fought for the Kurdish Resistance Movement. My brother was jailed for life for his work, until Saddam gave him an amnesty. It was in our blood to oppose these dictators. At that time we thought the best solution was to establish a democratic Kurdistan independent of Iraq. Now we believe in a federal solution - of Kurdistan being within Iraq, but autonomous."
This shift in mindset has made this former Kurdish fighter strangely patriotic about Iraq, that odd entity cobbled together from disparate ethnic groups and lands by the British nearly a century ago. He believes in a democratic Iraq and its cultural education which he can help liberate from the mental shackles of dictatorship.
But when he started his work, Eskander's job seemed hopeless. In the chaos after the collapse of Saddam's regime in April 2003, arsonists set fire to the main building and looters carried off equipment. Books, journals, maps, photographs, were burned or stolen. It was a tragedy: a quarter of the collections were lost, some in their entirety; 60% of the archives disappeared too. "The library collected all types of local publications, and kept many official files and papers. As a result, it is the principal source of information on Iraqi political, social, economic and cultural life. It had been nearly totally obliterated," says Eskander.
Where did the seized material go? "There were several groups involved in removing or stealing items from the library," says Eskander. "The Americans, who wanted to find a link between Saddam and al-Qaida or prove the existence of weapons of mass destruction or find evidence of genocide. Professional thieves. Iraqi civilians seeking information about the fate of relatives who suffered under Saddam. Saddam loyalists who want to burn documents that would implicate them." He also names and shames Kanan Makiya, a US-based Iraqi professor of Middle East studies at Brandeis University and founder of an organisation called the Iraq Memory Foundation which has links to Bush's neocons and rightwing think tanks. Eskander is angry that Makiya holds sensitive Iraqi documents in the US that he believes should be returned to Baghdad and housed in his library. It is estimated that between 43,000 to 55,000 boxes, amounting to more than 100m pages, were seized from Baghdad by foreign troops in April 2003. They included memos, training guides, reports, transcripts of conversations, audio- and videotapes. Most are still held by the CIA, the Pentagon and Makiya's foundation at the Hoover Institution in Stanford University. Eskander says Iraq must get them back. "They are national Iraqi documents stolen from us. They should be here. They are essential for us to understand our recent history. Many of them are about the crimes of Saddam Hussein and they should be the property of the Iraqi people." So far he hasn't succeeded.
But then Eskander's job has always been extraordinarily difficult. From his office he often sees plumes of smoke rising from car bombs; his windows regularly shudder, sometimes shatter. Today, he keeps shards of mortar bombs on his desk as souvenirs. He peppers his conversation with remarks beyond the remit of most librarians. "I've lost count of the bombs," he says at one point. "They still shoot at us sometimes," he says at another. He cuts a remarkably serene figure in his tan suit and brown shoes as I interview him in the British Library in London, where he is visiting partly to arrange the transfer of some old Iraqi maps, some dating back to the 16th century, that had been held by the India Office (the British government department that administered Iraq after the end of the first world war).
Eskander might dream of having the problems that beset the British Library, a building where there has been a recent furore about readers having to wait 20 minutes to deposit their coats and about a so-called " frappuccino" culture of undergraduates that is besmirching the institution's scholarly reputation. Does he worry for his own safety? After all, some armed groups in Iraq must hate what he's doing at the library. "I never have a bodyguard," he replies, "because that attracts attention. This idea of having bodyguards, changing cars two or three times, is very stupid. If they want to kill you, they will do it. If you are lucky you will stay, if not, you will be killed." That is not to say he hasn't taken precautions: the 46-year-old has moved house four times with his wife and year-old son since taking up the job.
Does he not sometimes wish that he and his family were living in London? "No. I have important work to do. I have to stay strong. Even when my staff are killed, I have to remain optimistic." But he believes that the way he behaves professionally makes him less of a target. "In my institution I treat everybody equally. Nobody hates me."
Until the summer of last year, Eskander wrote a blog that told the world of the grisly circumstances in which he and his staff had to work. His entry for March 5 2007, for instance, told how a huge explosion shook the library's building; an 11.35am car bomb exploded less than 500 metres away in al-Mutanabi Street. Eskander wrote with an intellectual's sorrow at a culture being destroyed: "The street is one of the well-known areas of Baghdad and where many publishing houses, printing companies and bookstores have their main offices and storages. Its old cafes are the most favourite place for the impoverished intellectuals, who get their inspirations and ideas from this very old quarter of Baghdad. The street is also famous for its Friday's book market, where secondhand, new and rear books are sold and purchased."
After the blast he wrote: "Tens of thousands of papers were flying high, as if the sky was raining books, tears and blood. The view was surreal. Some of the papers were burning in the sky. Many burning pieces of papers fell on the [library] building ... Immediately after the explosion, I ordered the guards to prevent all my staff from leaving the building, as there was a possibility of another bomb attack. My staff and I were watching the movement of a number of civilian and military ambulances, carrying killed and injured people. It was a heartbreaking view."
Eskander's blog, published on the British Library's website (bl.uk/iraqdiary.html), became such an incessant chronicle of heartbreak that, in the summer of 2007, he decided to stop writing it - even though it had elicited messages of support from all over the world. "It became too emotional," he says, "and I worried it exploited people's suffering."
Recently, Eskander listed the "sad notes" that have happened since he stopped writing his blog: 95 library windows smashed by a car bomb; a receptionist's son kidnapped and murdered for "sectarian reasons"; an archivist's son missing for five months; a library worker's husband missing for six months.
Even in this climate, he carries on. "I want to make the library a democratic model of how Iraq should be. From the start I hired Sunnis, Kurds, Shias, women, men. The national library must be a place - perhaps even the most important place - where Iraqis from many different groups come together." He claims to have paid special attention to women's rights.
He takes heart from small achievements. The US embassy funded a generator. He has secured funding from Italian NGOs. Best of all, reader numbers are up from 240 a month to 900. "There is a great hunger in the Iraqi people, especially young people, for knowledge. After years when it went unsatisfied, we can satisfy it. When they come to the reading room, we study their requests, and we go to the market outside Iraq and ask for books they want." Indeed, at Eskander's instigation, the British Library recently made an appeal to UK universities for books on subjects in demand, especially volumes dealing with history, economics and social welfare.
But his library is not just there to help such scholars. Eskander wants to preserve the fragments of Iraq's ancient and modern heritage in a building he calls "the historical memory of the country". Especially the more grisly aspects of its recent heritage. "We are filming security documents from the ministry of the interior, which Iraqi people will be interested in."
He argues, though, that the historic role of the library as a repository for government and historical documents from many periods and the central location for research into the history of the Iraqi people is being thwarted by institutions in the US. He claims that documents seized by the US military from the Ba'athist ministry of the interior, which were subsequently used to blackmail Saddam's former secret police operatives to work for the occupation, ultimately have been transferred to the US. "These secret police archives belong in Baghdad, where Saddam Hussein's victims and their families can study them. Even if they won't return the original documents I know many of them have been digitised, so I am suggesting a compromise: that they give us the computer files so they can be seen in Iraq. Under international law, though, the documents should be ours, not the US government's."
Eskander is also campaigning against Makiya's Iraq Memory Foundation. This private, non-profit group of rightwing Iraqi scholars earlier this year signed a deal with conservative think tank the Hoover Institution whereby seven million pages of records and other artefacts from Saddam's tenure as Iraqi president - taken from the Ba'ath party offices and dungeons by Makiya in the aftermath of the US-led invasion in 2003 - will house the collection for the next five years at buildings in Stanford University. Makiya said recently that the documents will ultimately be returned to Iraq. "But," he added, "Baghdad is just not ready for it."
"The suggestion is that Baghdad is not safe," says Eskander. "But I can assure you there are secret, secure buildings in Baghdad where these documents can be stored. It is absurd that they are in California and not in Iraq. Once the documents are returned, our policy is there will be no censorship - the Iraqi people will be able to come to my library, see all of these documents and learn. Only through complete transparency can there be true democracy in Iraq. This has to be the way forward for my country," says Eskander, rising to his feet. He has an appointment with representatives of the British Museum and British army, and doesn't want to be late. He's going to advise British troops on how to help archaeological specialists from the UK who will visit major sites in southern Iraq and determine the extent of damage caused by looters. They include the museum in Basra and sites at Kut, Amara and Wasit.
It's just the sort of initiative that Eskander loves. In it, he sees the possibility of understanding the past, valuing an ancient heritage. "This is all part of the process of coming to terms with our terrible pasts, of understanding what we have done wrong, and appreciating the glories of our history too." At last, I think, I understand what Saad Eskander means by cultural education and why he thinks it is so important.
Wednesday, 24 September 2008
Reading Rubbish: The less you know, the more money you make
I stepped into a Borders Bookstore a few weeks back. I was very early for an appointment and I thought I'd kill time. I shouldn't have gone to the Islam section, but of course I did, thinking perhaps I'd spot a new title that had escaped my obsessive radar. Maybe a good work of history or a nice travelogue; recently, my interests have shifted to contemporary Lebanon. Instead, on the top shelf, occupying the most space, was copy after copy of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's Infidel, a work in which the self-proclaimed non-Muslim exaggerates her personal experiences, generalizes from them and applies the death sentence to all of Islam, its cultures, arts, values, peoples and achievements. Everything except the Islam section, of course, which has to thrive for her to sell many copies of her book.
It occurred to me that it was rather absurd for a bookstore to feature most prominently, in a religion section, a book by a person no longer of that faith and interested only in the demonization of that faith. Should the Christianity section highlight Nietzsche's Anti-Christ? How benignly offensive it was. Borders' intention is to sell books, and Ms. Ali sells. So it's not that the bookstore's policy is to insult Islam out of malice. It's just to turn a profit. I suppose that's more offensive, as a shallow sin is worse than a deep one. It is also a very common one: CBS and MSNBC had no problem with Don Imus until their advertisers did. We encourage simplicity, superficial analysis and endless rudeness, and then are shocked with the results, locally and globally. Imagine. In an era of government hegemony and misrepresentation, in a time of a so-called global war that might last generations and cost hundreds of billions of dollars. An American bookstore, a supposed repository of knowledge, guides you to the Islam section and then sells you a book on why Islam is evil. Why do they hate us? Why not, why do we so profit hate? Why are we so good at producing it?
All this propagandizing reminds me of recently high-profile atheists and their projects, men such as Sam Harris (author of The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation), or Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion). They make their arguments for atheism, and that is all well and good: freedom of speech and conscience gives them every right to their opinion. But then they pursue their agenda further, arguing that humanity would be better off without religion. What they never seem to understand are firstly the hubris and arrogance implicit in such a preference - we know what's good for you, whereas you don't - and the menacing nature of their presumed superiority. How exactly should we go about removing religion from human life? Should we have tribunals? Should we force-feed students in public schools a scientistic diet? Should we denounce religious persons as backward, fanatic and stupid? We would, in other words, treat the religious as Ayaan Hirsi Ali treats Islam. But how long can she go on doing the things she does?
Persons like Ms. Ali have nowhere good to go next. What comes after Infidel? Whatever's worse than Infidel. (Maybe Abu Jahl, by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, bending truth and gender!) Such pamphleteers are puppets of a kind: because they trash Islam, and because that is acceptable these days - Don Imus called for the Palestinians, as a people, to be nuked, although he was fired for a comment directed toward a basketball team - they are published, read, promoted, encouraged. For a time. They find themselves nice slots, at Kremlins like the American Enterprise Institute, and there they continue bashing Islam. But like any good puppet (say a certain Reza Shah of 1941), sooner or later they find themselves on the intellectual equivalent of Mauritius. Because if your only job is to profit off an uninformed and blanket disgust for human beings, there's only so far you can take that. You have two choices: either continue writing inaccurate nonsense, in which case your audience will become bored and move on to the next zealot, or write something more nuanced, learned and beneficial, in which case your audience will become offended and snap at you. Or maybe the world will wise up.
There are those who commit violence and those who create environments that encourage violence. Don Imus got fired for less than that; Muslims should expect the same respect. Ms. Ali would not be an "infidel" if there were no Islam left. She would have nothing left to say and nothing left to write if Islam receded, except perhaps - would that it were so! - she might comment on her contribution to a general environment of disdain or disgust, parallel to the way radical Sunnis treat Shi'a Muslims, or some politicians deny certain genocides. What else can you really do, except feel sorry for such persons? They have trapped themselves inside their own boxes, the size of hardcover books or pulpits or broadcasting booths. They do not speak with any credible knowledge or familiarity with a topic; in fact they celebrate their ignorance and seek to make money from it, and so preclude the possibility of their own or our enlightenment. Then, when it comes to their next book, they know not what to say. They have said it all. They have condemned us all. They have taken a personal experience and made it a global truth. The world would be better off without that kind of religion.
HAROON MOGUL is a freelance writer specializing in language and culture. His novel, The Order of Light, was published in paperback by Penguin India
It occurred to me that it was rather absurd for a bookstore to feature most prominently, in a religion section, a book by a person no longer of that faith and interested only in the demonization of that faith. Should the Christianity section highlight Nietzsche's Anti-Christ? How benignly offensive it was. Borders' intention is to sell books, and Ms. Ali sells. So it's not that the bookstore's policy is to insult Islam out of malice. It's just to turn a profit. I suppose that's more offensive, as a shallow sin is worse than a deep one. It is also a very common one: CBS and MSNBC had no problem with Don Imus until their advertisers did. We encourage simplicity, superficial analysis and endless rudeness, and then are shocked with the results, locally and globally. Imagine. In an era of government hegemony and misrepresentation, in a time of a so-called global war that might last generations and cost hundreds of billions of dollars. An American bookstore, a supposed repository of knowledge, guides you to the Islam section and then sells you a book on why Islam is evil. Why do they hate us? Why not, why do we so profit hate? Why are we so good at producing it?
All this propagandizing reminds me of recently high-profile atheists and their projects, men such as Sam Harris (author of The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation), or Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion). They make their arguments for atheism, and that is all well and good: freedom of speech and conscience gives them every right to their opinion. But then they pursue their agenda further, arguing that humanity would be better off without religion. What they never seem to understand are firstly the hubris and arrogance implicit in such a preference - we know what's good for you, whereas you don't - and the menacing nature of their presumed superiority. How exactly should we go about removing religion from human life? Should we have tribunals? Should we force-feed students in public schools a scientistic diet? Should we denounce religious persons as backward, fanatic and stupid? We would, in other words, treat the religious as Ayaan Hirsi Ali treats Islam. But how long can she go on doing the things she does?
Persons like Ms. Ali have nowhere good to go next. What comes after Infidel? Whatever's worse than Infidel. (Maybe Abu Jahl, by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, bending truth and gender!) Such pamphleteers are puppets of a kind: because they trash Islam, and because that is acceptable these days - Don Imus called for the Palestinians, as a people, to be nuked, although he was fired for a comment directed toward a basketball team - they are published, read, promoted, encouraged. For a time. They find themselves nice slots, at Kremlins like the American Enterprise Institute, and there they continue bashing Islam. But like any good puppet (say a certain Reza Shah of 1941), sooner or later they find themselves on the intellectual equivalent of Mauritius. Because if your only job is to profit off an uninformed and blanket disgust for human beings, there's only so far you can take that. You have two choices: either continue writing inaccurate nonsense, in which case your audience will become bored and move on to the next zealot, or write something more nuanced, learned and beneficial, in which case your audience will become offended and snap at you. Or maybe the world will wise up.
There are those who commit violence and those who create environments that encourage violence. Don Imus got fired for less than that; Muslims should expect the same respect. Ms. Ali would not be an "infidel" if there were no Islam left. She would have nothing left to say and nothing left to write if Islam receded, except perhaps - would that it were so! - she might comment on her contribution to a general environment of disdain or disgust, parallel to the way radical Sunnis treat Shi'a Muslims, or some politicians deny certain genocides. What else can you really do, except feel sorry for such persons? They have trapped themselves inside their own boxes, the size of hardcover books or pulpits or broadcasting booths. They do not speak with any credible knowledge or familiarity with a topic; in fact they celebrate their ignorance and seek to make money from it, and so preclude the possibility of their own or our enlightenment. Then, when it comes to their next book, they know not what to say. They have said it all. They have condemned us all. They have taken a personal experience and made it a global truth. The world would be better off without that kind of religion.
HAROON MOGUL is a freelance writer specializing in language and culture. His novel, The Order of Light, was published in paperback by Penguin India
Librarianship in Lebanon in the Post–Civil War Period
Abstract:
This paper describes how Lebanese librarian coped with the impact of the civil war (1975–1991), and their post–war efforts to rebuild the library infrastructure. Despite damage from bombing, triple–digit inflation, and staff shortages, many libraries functioned throughout the conflict. The American University of Beirut opened for business every day, although badly damaged, and is now moving vigorously to rebuild and renew services. Some new staff have been hired, and an archives department has been established. Automation is underway. Beirut University College, not severely damaged in the war, has taken up new projects, such as indexing of special collections and continuing education for librarians. At the Lebanese University, open only intermittently during the war, there is now a systematic approach to collection processing in the education faculty library. New initiatives are being taken also in the national archives, and by the Lebanese Library Association. Despite the serious impact of the war, the library community in Lebanon is focused on regeneration and progress.
Nineteen–seventy–five was a year of promise for librarianship in Lebanon. The Lebanese University was in the process of building a central library on its new integrated campus; a program in library science was created at the Faculty of Information and Documentation of the Lebanese University, which was upgraded from the Institute of Information and Journalism; and the Lebanese Libraries Association (LLA) began publishing its Newsletter. It was also the year of the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War. The tragic events of the decade and a half that followed severely disrupted the country’s institutional life, and libraries were not spared. Bombardments damaged and destroyed library buildings and collections; triple–digit inflation effectively cut library budgets; widespread emigration led to a shortage of trained librarians. Despite these many difficulties, the Lebanese library community managed to sustain itself through the years of war, and now that peace has come to Lebanon, it is looking not only to rebuild what was lost, but also to move forward with new initiatives.
While the general conditions of the war were shared, each institution lived the war in its own way. It is instructive to see how they coped with war conditions, and what their plans are now in the postwar period. As an example of a university library one may look to the American University of Beirut (AUB). AUB was established in 1866. Its primary language of instruction is English, and it has a student body of approximately 5,000. It has four libraries: main (Jafet Library), medical (Saab Library), Science and Agriculture, and Engineering and Architecture. With approximately half a million volumes, AUB is the largest library collection in the country.
According to Nawal Naamani, chief of circulation, the highest priority throughout the war was to keep all library functions operating at some level, even if at times very much reduced. The AUB libraries opened every day, regardless of conditions. Ms. Naamani recalls at times entering the stacks with a flashlight in order to retrieve books for students when the electricity did not work. She said also that in order to support the educational program of the University (both coursework and research), maintaining acquisitions was a particularly high priority, especially in the sciences where it is vital for materials to be up to date. With mail service to Lebanon often cut for long periods, this was at times very difficult, but she feels that they were successful in their acquisitions program and that there are now no serious gaps in the collections. Nevertheless, Ms. Naamani commented that it was often advantageous to receive offers of books or serials on exchange from foreign libraries making orders for microfilms of AUB theses or serials, as this enabled them to obtain books that they might have been unable to obtain in the past and which went out of print. Further complicating matters, the AUB libraries lost much of their staff during the war. According to Helen Bikhazi, university librarian, the staff of the AUB libraries now numbers 10 professional librarians and 52 support staff (excluding the medical school library), less than 60 percent of pre–1975 staffing levels.
In addition to serving its student body and faculty, the AUB libraries have also taken on a wider responsibility to the community at large. Already before the war AUB libraries were open to all those affiliated with an academic institution, whether Lebanese or foreign. This policy was maintained throughout the war, although it was necessary to discontinue borrowing privileges for non–AUB affiliates. (It was, however, sometimes difficult for non–AUB affiliates to gain entry to the AUB campus due to tight security.) This open–door library policy was particularly important in light of the fact that the bulk of the collections of the National Library were stolen in 1975.
This policy of maintaining full library services received a difficult test with the November 8, 1991, bomb that destroyed College Hall and seriously damaged Jafet Library, which was located directly behind it. Though none of the collections in the stacks were harmed, the reading room and other public services areas were destroyed, as well as many offices. Today the library operates in the middle of reconstruction, the noise a constant surrounding refrain. Reading rooms were set up in two nearby buildings, with a small reading room set up in Jafet Library for periodicals and non–circulating monographs. Circulation records had to be retrieved from the rubble and reconstructed, a time–consuming process. It is anticipated that the building will be completely finished within a year.
The characteristics of these collections make preservation a high priority. The manuscript collection is being microfilmed in its entirety, to avoid unnecessary handling by researchers, and to avoid any possibility of loss of these unique items. The microfilm lab at AUB is the only one in a library in Lebanon at the present, although commercial microfilming facilities exist. AUB has for that reason at times microfilmed materials for other libraries, in exchange for a copy of the microfilm. This practice has had to be curtailed, as some of the microfilming equipment was damaged in the 1991 bombing, making it necessary to concentrate on AUB needs. Beyond these microfilming projects, efforts are being made to see that materials are housed and stored under the proper conditions to ensure their long life.
Another AUB project in the planning stages is automation; an automation librarian has been hired for the purpose. The AUB libraries were planning for automation in 1988, but had to drop it from consideration due to the resumption of fighting during the constitutional crisis. Only the medical library underwent automation, as this was necessary for the AUB medical school to keep its accreditation. A major consideration in automation planning is the fact that the AUB libraries have considerable holdings in non–Roman script languages, with Arabic naturally being a particular priority.
Beirut University College (BUC) provides an example of a college library. BUC, formerly known as Beirut College for Women, was founded in 1924. Its language of instruction is English and it has a student body of approximately 4,000. BUC is primarily an undergraduate institution, but it does have several master’s programs. The programs in education, business, and arts are particular areas of strength for BUC. BUC also has a library science program administered by library staff. BUC is served by the Stoltzfus Library, whose collections are primarily in English. Stoltzfus Library contains two special collections of note: its Documentation Center of the Institute for Women’s Studies in the Arab World, and its Children’s Library. The former contains books and serials in women’s studies, as well as clippings files. The Children’s Library serves both as a forum for projects of BUC’s education students and as a public library for children. During the summer, the library is used in conjunction with a summer camp program for children sponsored by BUC.
While the Stoltzfus Library did suffer a hit in 1983, there was only minor damage to the building and collections. BUC’s major problem during the war was budget freezes. There was therefore a very careful attempt to work with faculty to assure that the book budget was allocated as wisely as possible. Department chairs give approval to book selections, while the library director, Aida Naaman, stays abreast of the literature in order to advise the faculty of available titles. Gifts have unfortunately not been a very important component in the library’s collection building. While gifts of books relevant to the BUC academic program and published in the past decade are very much welcomed, gifts have tended to be of older books. Gifts not retained are passed to the BUC branch in Saida, as its library is still in the early stages of collection building. Aida Hajjar, the acquisitions assistant, pointed out that computer books, to support BUC’s new master's program in computer science, are particularly costly and must be acquired by purchase. Art books represent another expensive acquisitions area.
With a small staff of seven, of which two are professional librarians, allocating staff resources is also an important consideration. The UC library has made judicious use of student talent to provide additional services. Student projects in the library science program, for example, are oriented to be not only instructive, but also of benefit to the library, and thereby the BUC community. For example, library students have created comprehensive catalogs of the library’s periodicals and audiovisual materials. A library student prepared an index to the collection’s theatre periodicals, of use to BUC’s active theater program. Non–library students have enriched the library as well, for example by creating clippings files for the Women’s Studies Documentation Center.
Despite the constraints on their time, the staff of the BUC library have devoted efforts to the promotion of librarianship in Lebanon. Aida Naaman explained that BUC has a strong tradition of service to the community, and that the library has a commitment to contributing to these activities. For example, library staff periodically conduct short courses in library education. This past summer, they conducted a cataloging workshop for children’s librarians under the auspices of the Red Cross. The previous summer, two workshops were held with open admission, one on general library services, and one on record–keeping for archives.
The case of the library of the School of Education of the Lebanese University is an example of a university faculty library. The Lebanese University was founded in 1953 by the Lebanese government; its language of instruction is Arabic. The University has no central library; each faculty (department) has its own facility. The library of the School of Education was formerly the largest of these faculty libraries, with approximately 40,000 volumes. In 1982, during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the library was destroyed by fire and its entire collection was lost. As soon as was possible, two professors were sent to Egypt and France to buy books for a core collection, and in 1984 the Library was re–established in another building. The library now occupies two rooms, one for monographs and one for periodicals. There are two more rooms available for the library when there is a need to expand. The librarian, Maha Shehade, explained that the library unfortunately was only able to open intermittently during the war, making it difficult to proceed with collection processing. Now that the library is open on a regular basis, it is possible to approach collection processing in a systematic manner. The library’s collections now number approximately 10,000 volumes. These books are supplied to the library by the administration of the Faculty of Education, either purchased by the administration on the request of faculty or received as gifts; library staff are not involved in acquisitions activities. It is hoped that now that the faculty has resumed its publications program, the library will receive more publications on exchange.Books are registered by staff on arrival, and are shelved by accession number. There are subject listings, but as these are out of date, students require the assistance of library staff to locate the books they need. A cataloging and automation project is now underway, using a personal computer supplied by the faculty and CDS/ISIS software provided by the Arab League. Descriptive cataloging is done in Arabic or Roman script, depending on the language of the work, with subject access provided via keyword descriptors in French taken from UNESCO’s Education Thesaurus and the French index of the Arab League’s trilingual thesaurus, JAMIA. Hala Zein El–Abidin, the library’s cataloger, explained that initially it had been intended to classify according to the Dewey system. It was later decided to retain the accessions number as the call number, at least for the time being, as she was the only staff member trained in classification and that doing classification would slow down the work flow. As the collection was completely uncataloged, it was felt that it was more important to proceed with cataloging as quickly as possible. It is anticipated that the cataloging project will be completed in two to three years. As the cataloging project proceeds, paper indexes will periodically be generated from the database. Eventually it is hoped that it will be possible to provide online access to the database by students.
Libraries in educational institutions are not the only ones where new initiatives are being taken. A case in point is the Lebanese National Archives Center. The archives were created in 1978 to serve as a repository for the documents of all Lebanese government institutions. According to Riad Tabbarah, head of the archives’ board of directors (and dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at AUB), the collection of government documents was systematic until 1982. At that time, the war conditions brought a halt to all regular operations. What began then was the second stage of the center’s life, with the salvage by archives staff of materials from government buildings. This included 40 paintings of the 19th–century formerly hung in the National Library, as well as the remaining manuscripts from the National Library’s collections. The archives also received gifts, such as the 5,000 slides of the historic Lebanese postcard collection compiled by Fouad Debbas, deposited as insurance against the possible destruction of the collection of postcards. The archives now house such items as a collection of 16mm Pathe–Gaumont newsreels of Lebanon, and a collection of first issues of the world Arabic press, among other materials.
The archives are now entering into a third stage of their existence. Early in 1993, a board of directors was created to oversee the future of the archives. Their focus has been on the preservation of the collections. The first step, now underway, is to catalog and rehouse the materials. Some restoration work was done right away; for example, a Lebanese artist undertook the repairs of paintings that had been slashed. In the main, however, the work so far has been to assure the short–term security of the collections. As that is well in hand, the next step is to address the long–term preservation issues. Of particular concern are the audiovisual materials, which pose special long–term preservation problems. The regular government documents collections of the archives also need attention. Segments of the collection have already been microfilmed, but some of this microfilm is not legible and needs to be redone.
Possible cooperation with institutions outside of Lebanon to preserve the archives collection is being explored. Dr. Tabbarah pointed out that cooperation is being sought both in the area of technical assistance and of funding. At the same time, an effort is being made to raise public awareness in Lebanon of these collections; an exhibition containing a selection of the archives’ collections was therefore planned for November 1993 to bring attention to the archives’ materials.
The Lebanese Library Association (LLA), which had been dormant for a long period during the war, is also undergoing a revival. Its main project at present is a survey of Lebanese libraries, documentation centers, and archives, which will be published. According to Linda Sadaka, secretary of the LLA and head of the gifts and exchange section of AUB’s Jafet Library, the goal is to get a picture of the state of Lebanese libraries, as a base for planning. The original impetus for the survey was a request by UNESCO to LLA for information on the Lebanese library situation in order to evaluate requests for grants by certain libraries in Lebanon. The data collection has been carried out largely by students of the Faculty of Information and Documentation of the Lebanese University, and the project has been financed by UNESCO.
While clearly the war has had a serious negative impact on librarianship in Lebanon, the focus in the library community is on regeneration and progress. It is to be hoped that the situation in Lebanon will remain stable to allow long–term planning to be done.
About the Author
Elizabeth Vernon is a technical services librarian in the Judaica Division, Area Studies Department, Harvard College Library. She has an M.A. in Middle Eastern studies from Harvard University, and an M.L.S. from Simmons College. She is author of Jewish Studies Courses at American and Canadian Universities, and several articles related to Judaica and Middle Eastern librarianship. Ms. Vernon has lectured on preservation issues before the Lebanese Librarians’ Association and at the Tunisian Institute for Documentation.
© 1994, Elizabeth Vernon.
This paper describes how Lebanese librarian coped with the impact of the civil war (1975–1991), and their post–war efforts to rebuild the library infrastructure. Despite damage from bombing, triple–digit inflation, and staff shortages, many libraries functioned throughout the conflict. The American University of Beirut opened for business every day, although badly damaged, and is now moving vigorously to rebuild and renew services. Some new staff have been hired, and an archives department has been established. Automation is underway. Beirut University College, not severely damaged in the war, has taken up new projects, such as indexing of special collections and continuing education for librarians. At the Lebanese University, open only intermittently during the war, there is now a systematic approach to collection processing in the education faculty library. New initiatives are being taken also in the national archives, and by the Lebanese Library Association. Despite the serious impact of the war, the library community in Lebanon is focused on regeneration and progress.
Nineteen–seventy–five was a year of promise for librarianship in Lebanon. The Lebanese University was in the process of building a central library on its new integrated campus; a program in library science was created at the Faculty of Information and Documentation of the Lebanese University, which was upgraded from the Institute of Information and Journalism; and the Lebanese Libraries Association (LLA) began publishing its Newsletter. It was also the year of the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War. The tragic events of the decade and a half that followed severely disrupted the country’s institutional life, and libraries were not spared. Bombardments damaged and destroyed library buildings and collections; triple–digit inflation effectively cut library budgets; widespread emigration led to a shortage of trained librarians. Despite these many difficulties, the Lebanese library community managed to sustain itself through the years of war, and now that peace has come to Lebanon, it is looking not only to rebuild what was lost, but also to move forward with new initiatives.
While the general conditions of the war were shared, each institution lived the war in its own way. It is instructive to see how they coped with war conditions, and what their plans are now in the postwar period. As an example of a university library one may look to the American University of Beirut (AUB). AUB was established in 1866. Its primary language of instruction is English, and it has a student body of approximately 5,000. It has four libraries: main (Jafet Library), medical (Saab Library), Science and Agriculture, and Engineering and Architecture. With approximately half a million volumes, AUB is the largest library collection in the country.
According to Nawal Naamani, chief of circulation, the highest priority throughout the war was to keep all library functions operating at some level, even if at times very much reduced. The AUB libraries opened every day, regardless of conditions. Ms. Naamani recalls at times entering the stacks with a flashlight in order to retrieve books for students when the electricity did not work. She said also that in order to support the educational program of the University (both coursework and research), maintaining acquisitions was a particularly high priority, especially in the sciences where it is vital for materials to be up to date. With mail service to Lebanon often cut for long periods, this was at times very difficult, but she feels that they were successful in their acquisitions program and that there are now no serious gaps in the collections. Nevertheless, Ms. Naamani commented that it was often advantageous to receive offers of books or serials on exchange from foreign libraries making orders for microfilms of AUB theses or serials, as this enabled them to obtain books that they might have been unable to obtain in the past and which went out of print. Further complicating matters, the AUB libraries lost much of their staff during the war. According to Helen Bikhazi, university librarian, the staff of the AUB libraries now numbers 10 professional librarians and 52 support staff (excluding the medical school library), less than 60 percent of pre–1975 staffing levels.
In addition to serving its student body and faculty, the AUB libraries have also taken on a wider responsibility to the community at large. Already before the war AUB libraries were open to all those affiliated with an academic institution, whether Lebanese or foreign. This policy was maintained throughout the war, although it was necessary to discontinue borrowing privileges for non–AUB affiliates. (It was, however, sometimes difficult for non–AUB affiliates to gain entry to the AUB campus due to tight security.) This open–door library policy was particularly important in light of the fact that the bulk of the collections of the National Library were stolen in 1975.
This policy of maintaining full library services received a difficult test with the November 8, 1991, bomb that destroyed College Hall and seriously damaged Jafet Library, which was located directly behind it. Though none of the collections in the stacks were harmed, the reading room and other public services areas were destroyed, as well as many offices. Today the library operates in the middle of reconstruction, the noise a constant surrounding refrain. Reading rooms were set up in two nearby buildings, with a small reading room set up in Jafet Library for periodicals and non–circulating monographs. Circulation records had to be retrieved from the rubble and reconstructed, a time–consuming process. It is anticipated that the building will be completely finished within a year.
The characteristics of these collections make preservation a high priority. The manuscript collection is being microfilmed in its entirety, to avoid unnecessary handling by researchers, and to avoid any possibility of loss of these unique items. The microfilm lab at AUB is the only one in a library in Lebanon at the present, although commercial microfilming facilities exist. AUB has for that reason at times microfilmed materials for other libraries, in exchange for a copy of the microfilm. This practice has had to be curtailed, as some of the microfilming equipment was damaged in the 1991 bombing, making it necessary to concentrate on AUB needs. Beyond these microfilming projects, efforts are being made to see that materials are housed and stored under the proper conditions to ensure their long life.
Another AUB project in the planning stages is automation; an automation librarian has been hired for the purpose. The AUB libraries were planning for automation in 1988, but had to drop it from consideration due to the resumption of fighting during the constitutional crisis. Only the medical library underwent automation, as this was necessary for the AUB medical school to keep its accreditation. A major consideration in automation planning is the fact that the AUB libraries have considerable holdings in non–Roman script languages, with Arabic naturally being a particular priority.
Beirut University College (BUC) provides an example of a college library. BUC, formerly known as Beirut College for Women, was founded in 1924. Its language of instruction is English and it has a student body of approximately 4,000. BUC is primarily an undergraduate institution, but it does have several master’s programs. The programs in education, business, and arts are particular areas of strength for BUC. BUC also has a library science program administered by library staff. BUC is served by the Stoltzfus Library, whose collections are primarily in English. Stoltzfus Library contains two special collections of note: its Documentation Center of the Institute for Women’s Studies in the Arab World, and its Children’s Library. The former contains books and serials in women’s studies, as well as clippings files. The Children’s Library serves both as a forum for projects of BUC’s education students and as a public library for children. During the summer, the library is used in conjunction with a summer camp program for children sponsored by BUC.
While the Stoltzfus Library did suffer a hit in 1983, there was only minor damage to the building and collections. BUC’s major problem during the war was budget freezes. There was therefore a very careful attempt to work with faculty to assure that the book budget was allocated as wisely as possible. Department chairs give approval to book selections, while the library director, Aida Naaman, stays abreast of the literature in order to advise the faculty of available titles. Gifts have unfortunately not been a very important component in the library’s collection building. While gifts of books relevant to the BUC academic program and published in the past decade are very much welcomed, gifts have tended to be of older books. Gifts not retained are passed to the BUC branch in Saida, as its library is still in the early stages of collection building. Aida Hajjar, the acquisitions assistant, pointed out that computer books, to support BUC’s new master's program in computer science, are particularly costly and must be acquired by purchase. Art books represent another expensive acquisitions area.
With a small staff of seven, of which two are professional librarians, allocating staff resources is also an important consideration. The UC library has made judicious use of student talent to provide additional services. Student projects in the library science program, for example, are oriented to be not only instructive, but also of benefit to the library, and thereby the BUC community. For example, library students have created comprehensive catalogs of the library’s periodicals and audiovisual materials. A library student prepared an index to the collection’s theatre periodicals, of use to BUC’s active theater program. Non–library students have enriched the library as well, for example by creating clippings files for the Women’s Studies Documentation Center.
Despite the constraints on their time, the staff of the BUC library have devoted efforts to the promotion of librarianship in Lebanon. Aida Naaman explained that BUC has a strong tradition of service to the community, and that the library has a commitment to contributing to these activities. For example, library staff periodically conduct short courses in library education. This past summer, they conducted a cataloging workshop for children’s librarians under the auspices of the Red Cross. The previous summer, two workshops were held with open admission, one on general library services, and one on record–keeping for archives.
The case of the library of the School of Education of the Lebanese University is an example of a university faculty library. The Lebanese University was founded in 1953 by the Lebanese government; its language of instruction is Arabic. The University has no central library; each faculty (department) has its own facility. The library of the School of Education was formerly the largest of these faculty libraries, with approximately 40,000 volumes. In 1982, during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the library was destroyed by fire and its entire collection was lost. As soon as was possible, two professors were sent to Egypt and France to buy books for a core collection, and in 1984 the Library was re–established in another building. The library now occupies two rooms, one for monographs and one for periodicals. There are two more rooms available for the library when there is a need to expand. The librarian, Maha Shehade, explained that the library unfortunately was only able to open intermittently during the war, making it difficult to proceed with collection processing. Now that the library is open on a regular basis, it is possible to approach collection processing in a systematic manner. The library’s collections now number approximately 10,000 volumes. These books are supplied to the library by the administration of the Faculty of Education, either purchased by the administration on the request of faculty or received as gifts; library staff are not involved in acquisitions activities. It is hoped that now that the faculty has resumed its publications program, the library will receive more publications on exchange.Books are registered by staff on arrival, and are shelved by accession number. There are subject listings, but as these are out of date, students require the assistance of library staff to locate the books they need. A cataloging and automation project is now underway, using a personal computer supplied by the faculty and CDS/ISIS software provided by the Arab League. Descriptive cataloging is done in Arabic or Roman script, depending on the language of the work, with subject access provided via keyword descriptors in French taken from UNESCO’s Education Thesaurus and the French index of the Arab League’s trilingual thesaurus, JAMIA. Hala Zein El–Abidin, the library’s cataloger, explained that initially it had been intended to classify according to the Dewey system. It was later decided to retain the accessions number as the call number, at least for the time being, as she was the only staff member trained in classification and that doing classification would slow down the work flow. As the collection was completely uncataloged, it was felt that it was more important to proceed with cataloging as quickly as possible. It is anticipated that the cataloging project will be completed in two to three years. As the cataloging project proceeds, paper indexes will periodically be generated from the database. Eventually it is hoped that it will be possible to provide online access to the database by students.
Libraries in educational institutions are not the only ones where new initiatives are being taken. A case in point is the Lebanese National Archives Center. The archives were created in 1978 to serve as a repository for the documents of all Lebanese government institutions. According to Riad Tabbarah, head of the archives’ board of directors (and dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at AUB), the collection of government documents was systematic until 1982. At that time, the war conditions brought a halt to all regular operations. What began then was the second stage of the center’s life, with the salvage by archives staff of materials from government buildings. This included 40 paintings of the 19th–century formerly hung in the National Library, as well as the remaining manuscripts from the National Library’s collections. The archives also received gifts, such as the 5,000 slides of the historic Lebanese postcard collection compiled by Fouad Debbas, deposited as insurance against the possible destruction of the collection of postcards. The archives now house such items as a collection of 16mm Pathe–Gaumont newsreels of Lebanon, and a collection of first issues of the world Arabic press, among other materials.
The archives are now entering into a third stage of their existence. Early in 1993, a board of directors was created to oversee the future of the archives. Their focus has been on the preservation of the collections. The first step, now underway, is to catalog and rehouse the materials. Some restoration work was done right away; for example, a Lebanese artist undertook the repairs of paintings that had been slashed. In the main, however, the work so far has been to assure the short–term security of the collections. As that is well in hand, the next step is to address the long–term preservation issues. Of particular concern are the audiovisual materials, which pose special long–term preservation problems. The regular government documents collections of the archives also need attention. Segments of the collection have already been microfilmed, but some of this microfilm is not legible and needs to be redone.
Possible cooperation with institutions outside of Lebanon to preserve the archives collection is being explored. Dr. Tabbarah pointed out that cooperation is being sought both in the area of technical assistance and of funding. At the same time, an effort is being made to raise public awareness in Lebanon of these collections; an exhibition containing a selection of the archives’ collections was therefore planned for November 1993 to bring attention to the archives’ materials.
The Lebanese Library Association (LLA), which had been dormant for a long period during the war, is also undergoing a revival. Its main project at present is a survey of Lebanese libraries, documentation centers, and archives, which will be published. According to Linda Sadaka, secretary of the LLA and head of the gifts and exchange section of AUB’s Jafet Library, the goal is to get a picture of the state of Lebanese libraries, as a base for planning. The original impetus for the survey was a request by UNESCO to LLA for information on the Lebanese library situation in order to evaluate requests for grants by certain libraries in Lebanon. The data collection has been carried out largely by students of the Faculty of Information and Documentation of the Lebanese University, and the project has been financed by UNESCO.
While clearly the war has had a serious negative impact on librarianship in Lebanon, the focus in the library community is on regeneration and progress. It is to be hoped that the situation in Lebanon will remain stable to allow long–term planning to be done.
About the Author
Elizabeth Vernon is a technical services librarian in the Judaica Division, Area Studies Department, Harvard College Library. She has an M.A. in Middle Eastern studies from Harvard University, and an M.L.S. from Simmons College. She is author of Jewish Studies Courses at American and Canadian Universities, and several articles related to Judaica and Middle Eastern librarianship. Ms. Vernon has lectured on preservation issues before the Lebanese Librarians’ Association and at the Tunisian Institute for Documentation.
© 1994, Elizabeth Vernon.
Tuesday, 23 September 2008
BOOKS MAKETH THE MAN Oscar's Books
Attempting to tell an author's life through the books he read is a risky enterprise. In this remarkable new biography of Oscar Wilde, Thomas Wright makes a convincing start with his claim that books were the greatest single influence on his subject's life. Wilde's first reading of some of his favourites was, says Wright, 'as significant as his first meetings with friends and lovers'. Indeed, he later used gifts of books to seduce young men.
Wilde, born in 1854 and raised in a well-to-do, book-filled house in Dublin's Merrion Square by a literary mother who called herself Speranza and performed public recitations of poetry, devoured the printed word from an early age. At his Enniskillen boarding school, Portora, he ran up a staggering book-bill of £11 5s 9d. The autograph and date (2 September 1865) on his copy of Voltaire's L'Histoire de Charles XII make it the one book known to have been in his possession at the age of eleven, and mark his excellence in French. At Portora he also mastered the King James Bible, won a prize for Scripture and became a fine classical scholar, preferring Greek to Latin.
The most unconventional aspect of Wilde's adolescent taste, in Wright's view, was his love of French fiction. His passion was Balzac. He later said he wept 'tears of blood' when he read of the death in prison of the poet Lucien de Rubempré: 'I was never so affected by any book.'
After Trinity College, Dublin he went on to Magdalen College, Oxford. There, in 1874, Walter Pater's Studies in the History of the Renaissance struck him with the force of a revelation and he claimed never to travel without this book 'which has had such a strange influence over my life'.
When disaster struck in 1895 and he was tried and found guilty of 'gross indecency', it struck his books too. Auctioneers descended on the house in Tite Street, Chelsea that Wilde shared with his wife Constance and their two sons. His cherished book collection was sold at auction to pay his creditors. According to Wright, who has consulted the 'Tite Street Catalogue', Lot 114 included 'about' 100 unidentified French novels.
Among the humiliations Wilde suffered after being sent to prison were not only compulsory silence - prisoners were forbidden to speak to one another - but deprivation of books. All he had in his cell at Pentonville, apart from his bed (a plank laid across two trestles), were a Bible, a prayer book and a hymnal. When at last his sympathetic MP won him permission to have more books, Wilde nominated Pater's The Renaissance along with the works of Flaubert and some by Cardinal Newman. These were allowed, but only at the rate of one a week. Moved to Reading Gaol, he found himself under a more sympathetic prison governor. His book request lists after July 1896 show him developing an interest in more recently published titles, including novels by George Meredith and Thomas Hardy. Wilde later said that he also read Dante every day in prison and that Dante had saved his reason.
When he was discharged in May 1897, he was not allowed to take his accumulated books with him and faced what he called the horror of 'going out into the world without a single book'. But friends rallied round. Entering the hotel room in Dieppe where he was to begin his exile, he found it full of books furnished by his friends and he broke down and wept. He soon received a copy of Poems by his old lover, Alfred Douglas, and their relationship resumed. Wilde, after being received into the Roman Catholic church, died in a Paris hotel on 30 November 1900.
In a moving Afterword, Wright gives what might have served better as an introduction. Besotted with Wilde, he had read The Portrait of Dorian Gray fifteen or twenty times by the age of fifteen. As a young man he began a literary mission and tried to read every book Wilde ever read. He covered Plato, Keats, Shakespeare, Flaubert, the Greek tragedians, Dante, Pater, Rossetti, Ruskin and others. He went up as a student to Magdalen College, which holds the manuscripts of some of Wilde's witty undergraduate letters.
Wanting to touch every book Wilde had ever touched, he took the £5,000 prize he won from the Royal Society of Literature/Jerwood Foundation for his proposal for a work of non-fiction and blew it all at Sotheby's on Wilde's copy of Swinburne's Essays and Studies. He 'savoured the musty smell of its foxed and yellowed pages' and the inscription 'Oscar Wilde Magdalen College July 1877', and saw it as a talisman to complete his work.
The result is an original and compelling book. Wright completely makes his case: the range of Wilde's reading is staggering. It even included an English edition of the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic.
But Oscar's Books contains a grievous flaw: reliance on conjecture. All biographers have to struggle with what is not known. There are various tactics for skirting the missing fact but 'the writing-desk was probably placed in front of the window' is not the way to do it. Wright's pages are spattered with 'probablys', 'perhapses', and invitations to speculate: 'The exact moment Wilde dedicated himself, with vows, to poetry, is unknown to us, but it is pleasant to imagine it having occurred during one of Speranza's recitations.'
No, it is not pleasant to imagine. It is far more satisfying to read Wright's Appendix II, retrieved from archives, which lists the books requested by Wilde during his imprisonment from 1895 to 1897. Such facts speak for themselves.
"But beauty, real beauty, ends where an intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself a mode of exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face."
"Humanity takes itself too seriously. It is the world's original sin. If the cave-man had known how to laugh, History would have been different."
"The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat."
- Oscar Wilde
Wilde, born in 1854 and raised in a well-to-do, book-filled house in Dublin's Merrion Square by a literary mother who called herself Speranza and performed public recitations of poetry, devoured the printed word from an early age. At his Enniskillen boarding school, Portora, he ran up a staggering book-bill of £11 5s 9d. The autograph and date (2 September 1865) on his copy of Voltaire's L'Histoire de Charles XII make it the one book known to have been in his possession at the age of eleven, and mark his excellence in French. At Portora he also mastered the King James Bible, won a prize for Scripture and became a fine classical scholar, preferring Greek to Latin.
The most unconventional aspect of Wilde's adolescent taste, in Wright's view, was his love of French fiction. His passion was Balzac. He later said he wept 'tears of blood' when he read of the death in prison of the poet Lucien de Rubempré: 'I was never so affected by any book.'
After Trinity College, Dublin he went on to Magdalen College, Oxford. There, in 1874, Walter Pater's Studies in the History of the Renaissance struck him with the force of a revelation and he claimed never to travel without this book 'which has had such a strange influence over my life'.
When disaster struck in 1895 and he was tried and found guilty of 'gross indecency', it struck his books too. Auctioneers descended on the house in Tite Street, Chelsea that Wilde shared with his wife Constance and their two sons. His cherished book collection was sold at auction to pay his creditors. According to Wright, who has consulted the 'Tite Street Catalogue', Lot 114 included 'about' 100 unidentified French novels.
Among the humiliations Wilde suffered after being sent to prison were not only compulsory silence - prisoners were forbidden to speak to one another - but deprivation of books. All he had in his cell at Pentonville, apart from his bed (a plank laid across two trestles), were a Bible, a prayer book and a hymnal. When at last his sympathetic MP won him permission to have more books, Wilde nominated Pater's The Renaissance along with the works of Flaubert and some by Cardinal Newman. These were allowed, but only at the rate of one a week. Moved to Reading Gaol, he found himself under a more sympathetic prison governor. His book request lists after July 1896 show him developing an interest in more recently published titles, including novels by George Meredith and Thomas Hardy. Wilde later said that he also read Dante every day in prison and that Dante had saved his reason.
When he was discharged in May 1897, he was not allowed to take his accumulated books with him and faced what he called the horror of 'going out into the world without a single book'. But friends rallied round. Entering the hotel room in Dieppe where he was to begin his exile, he found it full of books furnished by his friends and he broke down and wept. He soon received a copy of Poems by his old lover, Alfred Douglas, and their relationship resumed. Wilde, after being received into the Roman Catholic church, died in a Paris hotel on 30 November 1900.
In a moving Afterword, Wright gives what might have served better as an introduction. Besotted with Wilde, he had read The Portrait of Dorian Gray fifteen or twenty times by the age of fifteen. As a young man he began a literary mission and tried to read every book Wilde ever read. He covered Plato, Keats, Shakespeare, Flaubert, the Greek tragedians, Dante, Pater, Rossetti, Ruskin and others. He went up as a student to Magdalen College, which holds the manuscripts of some of Wilde's witty undergraduate letters.
Wanting to touch every book Wilde had ever touched, he took the £5,000 prize he won from the Royal Society of Literature/Jerwood Foundation for his proposal for a work of non-fiction and blew it all at Sotheby's on Wilde's copy of Swinburne's Essays and Studies. He 'savoured the musty smell of its foxed and yellowed pages' and the inscription 'Oscar Wilde Magdalen College July 1877', and saw it as a talisman to complete his work.
The result is an original and compelling book. Wright completely makes his case: the range of Wilde's reading is staggering. It even included an English edition of the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic.
But Oscar's Books contains a grievous flaw: reliance on conjecture. All biographers have to struggle with what is not known. There are various tactics for skirting the missing fact but 'the writing-desk was probably placed in front of the window' is not the way to do it. Wright's pages are spattered with 'probablys', 'perhapses', and invitations to speculate: 'The exact moment Wilde dedicated himself, with vows, to poetry, is unknown to us, but it is pleasant to imagine it having occurred during one of Speranza's recitations.'
No, it is not pleasant to imagine. It is far more satisfying to read Wright's Appendix II, retrieved from archives, which lists the books requested by Wilde during his imprisonment from 1895 to 1897. Such facts speak for themselves.
"But beauty, real beauty, ends where an intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself a mode of exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face."
"Humanity takes itself too seriously. It is the world's original sin. If the cave-man had known how to laugh, History would have been different."
"The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat."
- Oscar Wilde
Academic City plans campus facilities
Student facilities similar to those on major university campuses are to be built at Dubai International Academic City.
Social centres, sport facilities and student housing are planned for the education free-zone, which is intended to house 40 institutions and 40,000 students.
The new facilities would transform the site from a collection of academic buildings to a fully-fledged student community.
The addition of housing would help students financially. University officials have said that high housing costs could deter potential students from enrolling for classes. Lecturers also would be provided with housing.
Several branch campuses are based at DIAC, among them the French Fashion University Esmod, Heriot-Watt University and Michigan State University.
There are 10,000 students based at DIAC and Dubai Knowledge Village. Most universities in Knowledge Village plan to move to DIAC in the coming years as other institutions from overseas set up in Knowledge Village.
Dr Warren Fox, chairman of the University Quality Assurance International Board, said the new facilities would make DIAC a more appealing place for students.
“We will have facilities for students so that when they’re studying they will have social and other facilities,” he said.
A food court will open soon, to be followed within a year by the student housing and a social centre. There will also be a sport centre, a library and internet facilities. Housing could be shared by several institutions.
Denis Ravizza, art director and associate dean at Esmod, which opened at DIAC in 2006, said: “It will bring a real student life, with students meeting each other and sharing in the development of the multicultural aspect of the campus, because there are so many nationalities. Student facilities will bring an interesting cultural life to the campus.”
The significant increase in Dubai rents has forced some universities to charge students more. Michigan State University, for example, raised its annual housing charge from Dh22,000 (US$6,000) to Dh31,000 (US$8,400) this year.
Mr Ravizza said the cost of housing “really has an impact” on whether students register.
“That’s the number one issue,” he said.
Dr Fox said DIAC would be the centrepiece of Dubai’s bid to emerge as a regional hub for higher education.
“When you look at the population around the Gulf – from India up to the Arab world – there’s a large area from which you can draw,” he said.
“We do expect, as the institutions develop, they will be drawing from the region.
“People will want to come here because this is where the action is. By tying our programmes to the areas where Dubai has a world reputation, we’ll become a regional hub and students will want to come here and be part of what’s happening.”
Subjects such as tourism, hotel management, shipping and finance are likely to be particularly popular among students, Dr Fox said.
Social centres, sport facilities and student housing are planned for the education free-zone, which is intended to house 40 institutions and 40,000 students.
The new facilities would transform the site from a collection of academic buildings to a fully-fledged student community.
The addition of housing would help students financially. University officials have said that high housing costs could deter potential students from enrolling for classes. Lecturers also would be provided with housing.
Several branch campuses are based at DIAC, among them the French Fashion University Esmod, Heriot-Watt University and Michigan State University.
There are 10,000 students based at DIAC and Dubai Knowledge Village. Most universities in Knowledge Village plan to move to DIAC in the coming years as other institutions from overseas set up in Knowledge Village.
Dr Warren Fox, chairman of the University Quality Assurance International Board, said the new facilities would make DIAC a more appealing place for students.
“We will have facilities for students so that when they’re studying they will have social and other facilities,” he said.
A food court will open soon, to be followed within a year by the student housing and a social centre. There will also be a sport centre, a library and internet facilities. Housing could be shared by several institutions.
Denis Ravizza, art director and associate dean at Esmod, which opened at DIAC in 2006, said: “It will bring a real student life, with students meeting each other and sharing in the development of the multicultural aspect of the campus, because there are so many nationalities. Student facilities will bring an interesting cultural life to the campus.”
The significant increase in Dubai rents has forced some universities to charge students more. Michigan State University, for example, raised its annual housing charge from Dh22,000 (US$6,000) to Dh31,000 (US$8,400) this year.
Mr Ravizza said the cost of housing “really has an impact” on whether students register.
“That’s the number one issue,” he said.
Dr Fox said DIAC would be the centrepiece of Dubai’s bid to emerge as a regional hub for higher education.
“When you look at the population around the Gulf – from India up to the Arab world – there’s a large area from which you can draw,” he said.
“We do expect, as the institutions develop, they will be drawing from the region.
“People will want to come here because this is where the action is. By tying our programmes to the areas where Dubai has a world reputation, we’ll become a regional hub and students will want to come here and be part of what’s happening.”
Subjects such as tourism, hotel management, shipping and finance are likely to be particularly popular among students, Dr Fox said.
Monday, 8 September 2008
America's Most Dangerous Librarians
Meet the radical bookworms who fought the Patriot Act—and won.
By Amy Goodman and David Goodman
September/October 2008 Issue
They looked like they had walked off a film set, the two men standing at the door of the Library Connection in Windsor, Connecticut, as they flashed fbi badges and asked to speak to the boss. Director George Christian courteously shepherded them into the office. By the hum of the Xerox machine, one agent explained to Christian that the bureau was demanding "any and all subscriber information, billing information and access logs of any person or entity" that had used computers between 4 p.m. and 4:45 p.m. on February 15, 2005, in any of the 27 libraries whose computer systems were managed by the Library Connection, a nonprofit co-op of library databases. He handed Christian a document called a national security letter (nsl); it said the information was being sought "to protect against international terrorism."
Like a children's librarian during story hour, the agent used his finger to draw Christian's attention to one line in particular: The recipient of the letter could not disclose "to any person that the fbi has sought or obtained access to information or records." It was a lifetime gag order; break it, and he could be looking at five years in jail. "I believe this is unconstitutional," said Christian politely. In response he got a threatening scowl, a business card, and instructions to have his lawyer call the fbi.
Christian did call his lawyer as soon as the agents were gone—and then he called Peter Chase, another library director and member of the Library Connection's executive committee. "Where is the court order?" Chase asked.
"There is none," replied Christian. "They said they didn't need one." Christian was being ordered to turn over records on library patrons simply because an fbi agent had told him to. He called a huddle with the rest of the Library Connection's executive committee, librarians Janet Nocek and Barbara Bailey. There, they passed around the nsl. Their attorney then announced that by virtue of having read the letter, everyone in the room was now bound by its provisions, and therefore gagged. It was as if they'd been exposed to radioactivity. That was the beginning of a yearlong battle pitting the four librarians, barred from speaking publicly and identified in the media only as "John Doe," against the anti-terrorism enforcers of the Bush administration.
National security letters are a little-known fbi tool originally used in foreign intelligence surveillance to obtain phone, financial, and electronic records without court approval. Rarely employed until 2001, they exploded in number after the Patriot Act drastically eased restrictions on their use, allowing nsls to be served by fbi agents on anyone—whether or not they were the subject of a criminal investigation. In 2000, 8,500 nsls were issued; by contrast, between 2003 and 2005 the fbi issued more than 143,000 nsls, only one of which led to a conviction in a terrorism case.
Abuse has also been rampant. An investigation last year revealed that the fbi had broken regulations governing nsls in more than 1,000 cases. Among the violations: failing to get proper authorization, making improper requests under the law, shoddy record keeping, and unauthorized collection of telephone or email records. Such misuse has cast a long-lasting shadow over countless innocent Americans. Even when an investigation is closed, information gained through an nsl is kept indefinitely in the fbi files.
To protect their patrons, the four librarians engaged the national office of the American Civil Liberties Union in New York. They challenged the constitutionality of nsls; they also wanted their gag order lifted so they could participate in the national debate over renewal of the Patriot Act. "People say very confidential things to our reference librarians," explains Chase. "They have medical issues, personal matters. What people are borrowing at a public library is nobody's business."
The first hearing of the Library Connection case took place in federal court in Bridgeport, Connecticut, in August 2005. Government lawyers had declared that the librarians' presence posed a threat to national security (since people might guess their identity), so they were barred from attending, and were only allowed to watch the proceedings on closed-circuit TV. Similarly, when the "John Doe" librarians went to an appeals court hearing in Manhattan, their aclu attorneys instructed the four not to enter the room together so that no one might guess who they were. John Doe New York—an Internet service provider whose case had been joined with the librarians' on appeal—was also in the room, but the librarians did not know who he was.
Being the target of a terrorism investigation and forbidden to talk about it became an increasingly surreal experience. One day Chase's 21-year-old son dashed out of the house to greet him, looking ashen. "Dad, you just got a call from the Associated Press saying the fbi is America's Most Dangerous Librariansinvestigating you. Is that true? Why haven't you told us?" Chase was unsure how to respond. He didn't want to lie, but he also didn't want to get his son caught up in the nsl mess. "I'm involved in a case," he said slowly and deliberately. "I can't talk about it. And it would be best if you didn't tell anybody about that phone call."
That was in November 2005. The Patriot Act was reauthorized in March 2006. Six weeks later, the Justice Department informed the aclu that it would no longer contest the Connecticut librarians' demand to lift their gag order. The Supreme Court subsequently ordered the Justice Department to unseal the court documents in the case. Among the evidence the government had tried to keep secret were quotes from previous Supreme Court cases; copies of New York Times articles; and the text of the Connecticut law that guarantees the confidentiality of library records. The Justice Department had also sealed arguments made by the aclu attorneys, including this passage: "Now that John Doe's identity has been widely disseminated, the government's sole basis for the gag has wholly evaporated."
In September 2007, a federal court ruled in the case of John Doe New York that the entire national security letter provision of the Patriot Act was unconstitutional. US District Judge Victor Marrero said that secretive nsls are "the legislative equivalent of breaking and entering, with an ominous free pass to the hijacking of constitutional values." The Bush administration has appealed the decision, and John Doe New York remains gagged. But in San Francisco, another librarian has managed to beat an nsl: In May, the fbi withdrew a letter issued to the Internet Archive, a digital library, after a legal challenge brought by the aclu and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "A miscarriage of justice was prevented here," eff staff attorney Marcia Hofmann said at the time. "The big question is, how many other improper nsls have been issued by the fbi and never challenged?"
Amy Goodman and David Goodman recently cowrote Standing Up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times.
By Amy Goodman and David Goodman
September/October 2008 Issue
They looked like they had walked off a film set, the two men standing at the door of the Library Connection in Windsor, Connecticut, as they flashed fbi badges and asked to speak to the boss. Director George Christian courteously shepherded them into the office. By the hum of the Xerox machine, one agent explained to Christian that the bureau was demanding "any and all subscriber information, billing information and access logs of any person or entity" that had used computers between 4 p.m. and 4:45 p.m. on February 15, 2005, in any of the 27 libraries whose computer systems were managed by the Library Connection, a nonprofit co-op of library databases. He handed Christian a document called a national security letter (nsl); it said the information was being sought "to protect against international terrorism."
Like a children's librarian during story hour, the agent used his finger to draw Christian's attention to one line in particular: The recipient of the letter could not disclose "to any person that the fbi has sought or obtained access to information or records." It was a lifetime gag order; break it, and he could be looking at five years in jail. "I believe this is unconstitutional," said Christian politely. In response he got a threatening scowl, a business card, and instructions to have his lawyer call the fbi.
Christian did call his lawyer as soon as the agents were gone—and then he called Peter Chase, another library director and member of the Library Connection's executive committee. "Where is the court order?" Chase asked.
"There is none," replied Christian. "They said they didn't need one." Christian was being ordered to turn over records on library patrons simply because an fbi agent had told him to. He called a huddle with the rest of the Library Connection's executive committee, librarians Janet Nocek and Barbara Bailey. There, they passed around the nsl. Their attorney then announced that by virtue of having read the letter, everyone in the room was now bound by its provisions, and therefore gagged. It was as if they'd been exposed to radioactivity. That was the beginning of a yearlong battle pitting the four librarians, barred from speaking publicly and identified in the media only as "John Doe," against the anti-terrorism enforcers of the Bush administration.
National security letters are a little-known fbi tool originally used in foreign intelligence surveillance to obtain phone, financial, and electronic records without court approval. Rarely employed until 2001, they exploded in number after the Patriot Act drastically eased restrictions on their use, allowing nsls to be served by fbi agents on anyone—whether or not they were the subject of a criminal investigation. In 2000, 8,500 nsls were issued; by contrast, between 2003 and 2005 the fbi issued more than 143,000 nsls, only one of which led to a conviction in a terrorism case.
Abuse has also been rampant. An investigation last year revealed that the fbi had broken regulations governing nsls in more than 1,000 cases. Among the violations: failing to get proper authorization, making improper requests under the law, shoddy record keeping, and unauthorized collection of telephone or email records. Such misuse has cast a long-lasting shadow over countless innocent Americans. Even when an investigation is closed, information gained through an nsl is kept indefinitely in the fbi files.
To protect their patrons, the four librarians engaged the national office of the American Civil Liberties Union in New York. They challenged the constitutionality of nsls; they also wanted their gag order lifted so they could participate in the national debate over renewal of the Patriot Act. "People say very confidential things to our reference librarians," explains Chase. "They have medical issues, personal matters. What people are borrowing at a public library is nobody's business."
The first hearing of the Library Connection case took place in federal court in Bridgeport, Connecticut, in August 2005. Government lawyers had declared that the librarians' presence posed a threat to national security (since people might guess their identity), so they were barred from attending, and were only allowed to watch the proceedings on closed-circuit TV. Similarly, when the "John Doe" librarians went to an appeals court hearing in Manhattan, their aclu attorneys instructed the four not to enter the room together so that no one might guess who they were. John Doe New York—an Internet service provider whose case had been joined with the librarians' on appeal—was also in the room, but the librarians did not know who he was.
Being the target of a terrorism investigation and forbidden to talk about it became an increasingly surreal experience. One day Chase's 21-year-old son dashed out of the house to greet him, looking ashen. "Dad, you just got a call from the Associated Press saying the fbi is America's Most Dangerous Librariansinvestigating you. Is that true? Why haven't you told us?" Chase was unsure how to respond. He didn't want to lie, but he also didn't want to get his son caught up in the nsl mess. "I'm involved in a case," he said slowly and deliberately. "I can't talk about it. And it would be best if you didn't tell anybody about that phone call."
That was in November 2005. The Patriot Act was reauthorized in March 2006. Six weeks later, the Justice Department informed the aclu that it would no longer contest the Connecticut librarians' demand to lift their gag order. The Supreme Court subsequently ordered the Justice Department to unseal the court documents in the case. Among the evidence the government had tried to keep secret were quotes from previous Supreme Court cases; copies of New York Times articles; and the text of the Connecticut law that guarantees the confidentiality of library records. The Justice Department had also sealed arguments made by the aclu attorneys, including this passage: "Now that John Doe's identity has been widely disseminated, the government's sole basis for the gag has wholly evaporated."
In September 2007, a federal court ruled in the case of John Doe New York that the entire national security letter provision of the Patriot Act was unconstitutional. US District Judge Victor Marrero said that secretive nsls are "the legislative equivalent of breaking and entering, with an ominous free pass to the hijacking of constitutional values." The Bush administration has appealed the decision, and John Doe New York remains gagged. But in San Francisco, another librarian has managed to beat an nsl: In May, the fbi withdrew a letter issued to the Internet Archive, a digital library, after a legal challenge brought by the aclu and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "A miscarriage of justice was prevented here," eff staff attorney Marcia Hofmann said at the time. "The big question is, how many other improper nsls have been issued by the fbi and never challenged?"
Amy Goodman and David Goodman recently cowrote Standing Up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times.
Sunday, 7 September 2008
Cambridge University's Islamic Thesaurus Project
The Sunna Project
The Centre is working with the Thesaurus Islamicus Foundation on the Sunna Project. This project aims to encourage, facilitate and advance work in all the disciplines of hadith study by means of the Hadith Database, and to continually enrich the Database by means of the research it encourages and the interaction of all the members working in the field.
More Information on the Sunna Project
The Islamic Manuscript Association
This is a new project to be run in conjunction with the Thesaurus Islamicus Foundation with the aim of encouraging scholarship related to Islamic manuscripts and supporting the conservation, cataloguing, and digitisation of Islamic manuscripts worldwide.
Cambridge Arab Media Project
The Cambridge Arab Media Project encourages research into the Arab media and provides media professionals and academics with an open and neutral platform for debate.
Golden Web
This innovative internet project is developing a map-based history of the pre-modern trading systems of the old world, enabling scholars to trace the movements of commodities, ideas and people in an entirely new way.
http://www.thesaurus-islamicus.org/index1.htm
The Centre is working with the Thesaurus Islamicus Foundation on the Sunna Project. This project aims to encourage, facilitate and advance work in all the disciplines of hadith study by means of the Hadith Database, and to continually enrich the Database by means of the research it encourages and the interaction of all the members working in the field.
More Information on the Sunna Project
The Islamic Manuscript Association
This is a new project to be run in conjunction with the Thesaurus Islamicus Foundation with the aim of encouraging scholarship related to Islamic manuscripts and supporting the conservation, cataloguing, and digitisation of Islamic manuscripts worldwide.
Cambridge Arab Media Project
The Cambridge Arab Media Project encourages research into the Arab media and provides media professionals and academics with an open and neutral platform for debate.
Golden Web
This innovative internet project is developing a map-based history of the pre-modern trading systems of the old world, enabling scholars to trace the movements of commodities, ideas and people in an entirely new way.
http://www.thesaurus-islamicus.org/index1.htm
Thursday, 21 August 2008
Egypt to host library conference
The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions is holding a conference for the Arabic-speaking region on 'The Role of Libraries in Freedom of Expression, Tolerance, and Access to Information' at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Alexandria, Egypt on 7 to 9 October 2008. The conference, aimed at library and information professionals and students as well as interested media and education professionals, is co-hosted by the Egyptian Library Association, the Arab Federation for Libraries and Information and IFLA's Centre for Arabic Speaking Libraries and Information Institutions at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina.
ARABIC TRANSLATION OF HARRY POTTER AND PINOCCHIO UNWELCOME IN ISRAEL
MEDIA BLAB NEWS BITES
Harry Potter and Pinocchio are apparently not welcome in Israel, at least in their Arabic translations imported from Syria and Lebanon.
Arab-Israeli publisher Salah Abassi told Israeli public radio on Monday that authorities ordered him to stop importing Arabic-language children's books from the two long-time foes of Israel.
The ban includes translations of such books as Pinocchio and Harry Potter as well as Arabic classics.
Abassi, who imported the books through Jordan, said "Ministry and treasury warned me that importing those books is illegal."
The ban is based on a decree from 1939 - when the area was under British mandate - prohibiting the importation of books from countries that are at war with Israel.
Abassi told the Maariv daily newspaper that most of the books can be found only in Lebanon and Syria.
He said, "If they were printed in Jordan or Egypt, which are friendly to Israel, I would lose no time in buying them there. Now the significance is that the Arabic reading public in Israel will not be able to enjoy the best literature."
Harry Potter and Pinocchio are apparently not welcome in Israel, at least in their Arabic translations imported from Syria and Lebanon.
Arab-Israeli publisher Salah Abassi told Israeli public radio on Monday that authorities ordered him to stop importing Arabic-language children's books from the two long-time foes of Israel.
The ban includes translations of such books as Pinocchio and Harry Potter as well as Arabic classics.
Abassi, who imported the books through Jordan, said "Ministry and treasury warned me that importing those books is illegal."
The ban is based on a decree from 1939 - when the area was under British mandate - prohibiting the importation of books from countries that are at war with Israel.
Abassi told the Maariv daily newspaper that most of the books can be found only in Lebanon and Syria.
He said, "If they were printed in Jordan or Egypt, which are friendly to Israel, I would lose no time in buying them there. Now the significance is that the Arabic reading public in Israel will not be able to enjoy the best literature."
Wednesday, 20 August 2008
Fossilised curriculum built on fossil fuels
Raja Kamal
Many of the Arab nations have been blessed with vast reserves of oil and natural gas that became the dominant engines of the economic change that occurred during the past century. That, of course, is the good news.
The bad news is that oil and natural gas still constitute the commercial foundation of much of the Arab world. All attempts to achieve economic diversity have failed.
If oil and natural gas were excluded from the various economies of what we define as the Arab world, with its 300 million inhabitants, their cumulative gross domestic product would amount to less than that of Finland, a country with a population of little over 5 million. With the exception of a few isolated pockets, it has failed miserably at catching up with the economic growth seen in most other corners of the world. If it is to turn this around, reforming the educational system should be one of the starting points.
Arab universities have consistently produced graduates who have difficulty finding a place in the increasingly global economy. A recent study compiled by the International Ranking Experts Group and the Institute for Higher Education Policy in Washington found only one Arab university in the list of 3,000 world universities - and that was at the bottom. In contrast, some Israeli institutions are among the top 200 on the list.
There seems to be a virtual wall between Arab universities and the real world. The college culture does not encourage individuality and fresh ideas. The curriculum structure is rigid and sheltered. There is an urgent need to overhaul the system.
In my visits to many Arab universities, I have found that enrolment is viewed as a right rather than a privilege to be earned. Some Arab governments pay monthly salaries for all students enrolled in tuition-free state universities - regardless of their financial needs, their area of specialisation or their academic performance. Hard sciences and mathematics are weak and rank poorly by international standards. The vast majority of Arab universities teach their students what to think instead of how to think. Unless that mentality changes fast, there is little prospect of progress on the horizon.
In a recent interview, Hisham Ghassib, president of Princess Sumaya University for Technology in Jordan, elaborated the need for change in Arab universities. Society's focus should be on promoting free thinking, Ghassib said, whereas the current system graduates students who are "submissive to all the powers of society".
Additionally, many graduates have very little prospect of using their college training in future careers. For example, each year tens of thousands of students graduate from universities with degrees in sharia (Islamic law) or Arabic literature. The vast majority of them will be unemployed, underemployed or end up working in the swelling government sector - further contributing to already bloated and inefficient governments.
It is worth keeping in mind that an unemployable college graduate is an unhappy and frustrated person - that is, a prime candidate for recruitment to extremist causes.
Institutions of higher education should consider the needs of the private-sector labour market and adjust their curricula accordingly.
Programmes that are not likely to yield net benefits should be downsized or limited.
Fine universities are ultimately a central element to the health of any culture. Lebanon has long benefited from having the American University of Beirut. Founded by missionaries in 1866 as a private non-sectarian liberal arts college, the AUB became a beacon of change in Lebanon and elsewhere in the Middle East. Its commitment to critical thinking and well-rounded liberal arts education was and remains integral to its mission. But sadly, the AUB is one of the few exceptions in the Arab world.
Arab countries currently do not connect higher education with thought for the future. There is virtually no relationship between the anticipated needs of the private sector and the work of educators. If they wish to provide a real service, Arab universities should focus on market-oriented majors. As it is, the large universities in the Arab world tend to be run by governments, so perhaps allowing the private sector to launch private colleges and universities would be a step in the right direction.
Effective Arab universities will train the future business leaders, managers, engineers and scientists who will move the region to diversify its economy and help it catch up economically with the rest of the world.
Thus far, performance has been dismal. An urgent overhaul is needed. The oil will not last indefinitely.
Raja Kamal is associate dean for resource development at the Harris School for Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago in the US. This article originally appeared in Arabic on Misbahalhurriyya.org, a classical liberal website of the Cato Institute in the US.
Many of the Arab nations have been blessed with vast reserves of oil and natural gas that became the dominant engines of the economic change that occurred during the past century. That, of course, is the good news.
The bad news is that oil and natural gas still constitute the commercial foundation of much of the Arab world. All attempts to achieve economic diversity have failed.
If oil and natural gas were excluded from the various economies of what we define as the Arab world, with its 300 million inhabitants, their cumulative gross domestic product would amount to less than that of Finland, a country with a population of little over 5 million. With the exception of a few isolated pockets, it has failed miserably at catching up with the economic growth seen in most other corners of the world. If it is to turn this around, reforming the educational system should be one of the starting points.
Arab universities have consistently produced graduates who have difficulty finding a place in the increasingly global economy. A recent study compiled by the International Ranking Experts Group and the Institute for Higher Education Policy in Washington found only one Arab university in the list of 3,000 world universities - and that was at the bottom. In contrast, some Israeli institutions are among the top 200 on the list.
There seems to be a virtual wall between Arab universities and the real world. The college culture does not encourage individuality and fresh ideas. The curriculum structure is rigid and sheltered. There is an urgent need to overhaul the system.
In my visits to many Arab universities, I have found that enrolment is viewed as a right rather than a privilege to be earned. Some Arab governments pay monthly salaries for all students enrolled in tuition-free state universities - regardless of their financial needs, their area of specialisation or their academic performance. Hard sciences and mathematics are weak and rank poorly by international standards. The vast majority of Arab universities teach their students what to think instead of how to think. Unless that mentality changes fast, there is little prospect of progress on the horizon.
In a recent interview, Hisham Ghassib, president of Princess Sumaya University for Technology in Jordan, elaborated the need for change in Arab universities. Society's focus should be on promoting free thinking, Ghassib said, whereas the current system graduates students who are "submissive to all the powers of society".
Additionally, many graduates have very little prospect of using their college training in future careers. For example, each year tens of thousands of students graduate from universities with degrees in sharia (Islamic law) or Arabic literature. The vast majority of them will be unemployed, underemployed or end up working in the swelling government sector - further contributing to already bloated and inefficient governments.
It is worth keeping in mind that an unemployable college graduate is an unhappy and frustrated person - that is, a prime candidate for recruitment to extremist causes.
Institutions of higher education should consider the needs of the private-sector labour market and adjust their curricula accordingly.
Programmes that are not likely to yield net benefits should be downsized or limited.
Fine universities are ultimately a central element to the health of any culture. Lebanon has long benefited from having the American University of Beirut. Founded by missionaries in 1866 as a private non-sectarian liberal arts college, the AUB became a beacon of change in Lebanon and elsewhere in the Middle East. Its commitment to critical thinking and well-rounded liberal arts education was and remains integral to its mission. But sadly, the AUB is one of the few exceptions in the Arab world.
Arab countries currently do not connect higher education with thought for the future. There is virtually no relationship between the anticipated needs of the private sector and the work of educators. If they wish to provide a real service, Arab universities should focus on market-oriented majors. As it is, the large universities in the Arab world tend to be run by governments, so perhaps allowing the private sector to launch private colleges and universities would be a step in the right direction.
Effective Arab universities will train the future business leaders, managers, engineers and scientists who will move the region to diversify its economy and help it catch up economically with the rest of the world.
Thus far, performance has been dismal. An urgent overhaul is needed. The oil will not last indefinitely.
Raja Kamal is associate dean for resource development at the Harris School for Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago in the US. This article originally appeared in Arabic on Misbahalhurriyya.org, a classical liberal website of the Cato Institute in the US.
Sunday, 17 August 2008
Open Access and Middle East Studies, John Russell
Georgia State University
The simplest definition of open access (OA) is access to scholarship and academic research that is freely available to all. Open access advocates speak of two approaches: the “green” road and the “gold” road. Green OA involves the deposition of pre- or post-print academic literature in online institutional or subject repositories. These repositories become points of access to scholarship without seeking to bypass current publishers and publishing models and thus many publishers allow authors to submit their articles to repositories. Gold OA seeks to change models of scholarly communication by publishing journals the contents of which are freely available to all. Some publishers have recently started experimenting with OA models for their journals, offering authors the option of paying for open access to their article. Another path taken by some publishers is delayed OA, where articles are made freely available after a period of embargo (generally six months to two
years)which provides incentive for subscribers to continue to pay for current content while opening up the archives to anyone.
There are three main arguments in favor of open access. The first is that electronic dissemination of scholarship increases citation and use of scholarship. In general, most scholars want their work to be read; and the more readers, the better. Having one’s articles readily available online increases the likelihood of discovery and more easily facilitates scholarly communication. The second argument, the one favored
by librarians, relates to the increasing costs of serials. Libraries are increasingly faced with subscription costs that annually increase at a rate that far outstrips rates of inflation. Generally, the worst offenders are in science and medicine publishing and, in general, subscription costs from for-profit publishers are significantly higher than subscription costs from society publishers or university presses. As library budgets do not, and usually cannot, keep pace with the rising cost of journals, many libraries are forced to cut subscriptions or are
simply unable to subscribe to new journals. Open access initiatives are a corrective to exorbitant subscription costs and allow for access to scholarship without breaking the budget. The third argument focuses on tax-funded scholarship. If government money is used to produce 10 MELA Notes 79 (2006) scholarship, then why should taxpayers have to pay a second time to access the publications that result? In the United States, Congress has tried to pass legislation mandating open access to federally-funded research in medicine and the sciences (The Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006 – FRPAA). This argument could also be applied to research produced by Middle East Studies faculty who receive funding via Title VI.
Learn More About Open Access
• Association of Research Libraries (ARL) and Scholarly Publishing
and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), “Create Change,”
http://www.createchange.org/
• Peter Suber, “Open Access News,” http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/
fos/fosblog.html
• Peter Suber, “Open Access Overview,” available online at:
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/overview.htm
• John Willinsky, The Access Principle, (MIT Press, 2005); download
a PDF of the entire book: http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/
default.asp?ttype=2&tid=10611
Open Access Middle East Studies Journals
This list includes peer-reviewed, English-language (or primarily English-language), currently active journals that have some aspect of Middle East Studies as their focus. There are a number of other open access journals published in Middle East countries (covering topics ranging from librarianship to medicine to ecology), as well as a number of non-English language Middle East Studies journals, but these will
have to wait for another time.
1. Arab Bank Review
Sponsored by the Arab Bank (it is their funding that provides for open access), the Arab Bank Review is an independent journal that seeks to present theoretical and empirical research covering economics, finance, and bank management. While the focus is on the Arab countries of the Middle East, there are some articles that
stretch beyond those boundaries.
Russell: Open Access 11
2. British Museum Studies in Ancient Egypt and Sudan (BMSAES)
The British Museum created this journal to take advantage of the benefits of electronic publishing and distribution (color images at no extra cost; quicker turnaround for scholarly dissemination; enable use of digital media). Articles that make extensive use of photos are offered at two different file sizes and resolutions: one for screen reading and a higher-quality file for printing. Frequency of publication has not been regular and the journal will publish an issue whenever it has at least one article ready. Website also includes the journal’s
MARC record.
3. Cuneiform Digital Library Journal
The Cuneiform Digital Library Journal (CDLJ) is one of the publications sponsored by the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (a joint project of UCLA and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science). CDLJ cuneiform textual analysis; early writing
systems, languages, and mathematics; and studies of contemporary editorial processes for cuneiform. Articles are chosen both for their scholarship and for their use of digital media. Some articles make use of media (such as 3-D modeling) that are dependent on browser plug-ins; links to such plug-ins are provided in the article.
4 Electronic Journal of Oriental Studies
Covers humanistic scholarship relating to Arabic, Persian and Turkic languages and civilizations. What is unusual about this journal is that it publishes both articles and monographs; additionally, some of its volumes are devoted to publishing the proceedings of conferences (e.g., Vol. VI presents the proceedings of a conference on Central Asian Studies). While many of the articles and monographs are in
English, Turkish and most of the majorWestern European languages are represented.
5. Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies
Published twice a year (in January and July), Hugoye has regularly appeared since 1998 in both electronic and print versions. Issues include articles, reviews, and other miscellaneous offerings (e.g., conference and project reports, announcements, and obituaries).
12 MELA Notes 79 (2006)
6. Jewish Studies, an Internet Journal
Although Jewish Studies seeks to publish articles relating to any aspect of Jewish Studies, the focus of the articles published to this point has been on Judaic theology. The journal is put out by the faculty of Jewish Studies at Bar-Ilan University in Israel and can be read in English or in Hebrew. Published annually.
7. Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies
The Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies is unusual in that itpublishes articles initially online and then publishes a print version(through Edinburgh University Press). Volumes generally come out every two years with, on average, five articles per volume. Topics range across the span of Arabic/Islamic Studies scholarship, though it is dominated by research in language and literature.
8. Journal of Hebrew Scriptures
Articles in the Journal of Hebrew Scriptures (JHS) are indexed in ATLA. JHS is published annually and contains book reviews in addition to articles.
9. MERIA: Middle East Review of International Affairs
MERIA is a quarterly journal covering contemporary Middle East politics and international relations. It is indexed by Index Islamicus, Worldwide Political Science Abstracts, and Wilson’s Social ScienceIndex .
10. Middle East Technical University Journal of the Faculty of Architecture
The Journal of the Faculty of Architecture is published twice a year(in June and December); articles are in either English or Turkish. Issues contain articles, book reviews, and exhibition notes; while there is a lot of Middle East content, articles do range further afield. There are author and subject indexes for each volume, and it is also indexed by the Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals.
Russell: Open Access 13
11. MIT Electronic Journal of Middle East Studies (MIT-EJMES)
MIT-EJMES was launched by graduate students in 2001 as a multidisciplinary
journal focusing on the modern Middle East. The journal features scholarly articles (primarily by faculty), review essays, and book reviews, as well as less-traditional submissions such as photo essays. Recent issues have focused on Israel’s Invasion of Lebanon,Islam and Arabs in East Africa, and Arab/Arab-American Feminist
Perspectives.
12. Women in Judaism: A Multidisciplinary Journal
Women in Judaism is both historical and contemporary, touching particularly (but by no means exclusively) on representations of women in literature and in the Bible. Some of the earlier issues include bibliographies or notes about research collections. Indexed by, among others, ATLA and MLA Bibliography.
The simplest definition of open access (OA) is access to scholarship and academic research that is freely available to all. Open access advocates speak of two approaches: the “green” road and the “gold” road. Green OA involves the deposition of pre- or post-print academic literature in online institutional or subject repositories. These repositories become points of access to scholarship without seeking to bypass current publishers and publishing models and thus many publishers allow authors to submit their articles to repositories. Gold OA seeks to change models of scholarly communication by publishing journals the contents of which are freely available to all. Some publishers have recently started experimenting with OA models for their journals, offering authors the option of paying for open access to their article. Another path taken by some publishers is delayed OA, where articles are made freely available after a period of embargo (generally six months to two
years)which provides incentive for subscribers to continue to pay for current content while opening up the archives to anyone.
There are three main arguments in favor of open access. The first is that electronic dissemination of scholarship increases citation and use of scholarship. In general, most scholars want their work to be read; and the more readers, the better. Having one’s articles readily available online increases the likelihood of discovery and more easily facilitates scholarly communication. The second argument, the one favored
by librarians, relates to the increasing costs of serials. Libraries are increasingly faced with subscription costs that annually increase at a rate that far outstrips rates of inflation. Generally, the worst offenders are in science and medicine publishing and, in general, subscription costs from for-profit publishers are significantly higher than subscription costs from society publishers or university presses. As library budgets do not, and usually cannot, keep pace with the rising cost of journals, many libraries are forced to cut subscriptions or are
simply unable to subscribe to new journals. Open access initiatives are a corrective to exorbitant subscription costs and allow for access to scholarship without breaking the budget. The third argument focuses on tax-funded scholarship. If government money is used to produce 10 MELA Notes 79 (2006) scholarship, then why should taxpayers have to pay a second time to access the publications that result? In the United States, Congress has tried to pass legislation mandating open access to federally-funded research in medicine and the sciences (The Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006 – FRPAA). This argument could also be applied to research produced by Middle East Studies faculty who receive funding via Title VI.
Learn More About Open Access
• Association of Research Libraries (ARL) and Scholarly Publishing
and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), “Create Change,”
http://www.createchange.org/
• Peter Suber, “Open Access News,” http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/
fos/fosblog.html
• Peter Suber, “Open Access Overview,” available online at:
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/overview.htm
• John Willinsky, The Access Principle, (MIT Press, 2005); download
a PDF of the entire book: http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/
default.asp?ttype=2&tid=10611
Open Access Middle East Studies Journals
This list includes peer-reviewed, English-language (or primarily English-language), currently active journals that have some aspect of Middle East Studies as their focus. There are a number of other open access journals published in Middle East countries (covering topics ranging from librarianship to medicine to ecology), as well as a number of non-English language Middle East Studies journals, but these will
have to wait for another time.
1. Arab Bank Review
Sponsored by the Arab Bank (it is their funding that provides for open access), the Arab Bank Review is an independent journal that seeks to present theoretical and empirical research covering economics, finance, and bank management. While the focus is on the Arab countries of the Middle East, there are some articles that
stretch beyond those boundaries.
Russell: Open Access 11
2. British Museum Studies in Ancient Egypt and Sudan (BMSAES)
The British Museum created this journal to take advantage of the benefits of electronic publishing and distribution (color images at no extra cost; quicker turnaround for scholarly dissemination; enable use of digital media). Articles that make extensive use of photos are offered at two different file sizes and resolutions: one for screen reading and a higher-quality file for printing. Frequency of publication has not been regular and the journal will publish an issue whenever it has at least one article ready. Website also includes the journal’s
MARC record.
3. Cuneiform Digital Library Journal
The Cuneiform Digital Library Journal (CDLJ) is one of the publications sponsored by the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (a joint project of UCLA and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science). CDLJ cuneiform textual analysis; early writing
systems, languages, and mathematics; and studies of contemporary editorial processes for cuneiform. Articles are chosen both for their scholarship and for their use of digital media. Some articles make use of media (such as 3-D modeling) that are dependent on browser plug-ins; links to such plug-ins are provided in the article.
4 Electronic Journal of Oriental Studies
Covers humanistic scholarship relating to Arabic, Persian and Turkic languages and civilizations. What is unusual about this journal is that it publishes both articles and monographs; additionally, some of its volumes are devoted to publishing the proceedings of conferences (e.g., Vol. VI presents the proceedings of a conference on Central Asian Studies). While many of the articles and monographs are in
English, Turkish and most of the majorWestern European languages are represented.
5. Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies
Published twice a year (in January and July), Hugoye has regularly appeared since 1998 in both electronic and print versions. Issues include articles, reviews, and other miscellaneous offerings (e.g., conference and project reports, announcements, and obituaries).
12 MELA Notes 79 (2006)
6. Jewish Studies, an Internet Journal
Although Jewish Studies seeks to publish articles relating to any aspect of Jewish Studies, the focus of the articles published to this point has been on Judaic theology. The journal is put out by the faculty of Jewish Studies at Bar-Ilan University in Israel and can be read in English or in Hebrew. Published annually.
7. Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies
The Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies is unusual in that itpublishes articles initially online and then publishes a print version(through Edinburgh University Press). Volumes generally come out every two years with, on average, five articles per volume. Topics range across the span of Arabic/Islamic Studies scholarship, though it is dominated by research in language and literature.
8. Journal of Hebrew Scriptures
Articles in the Journal of Hebrew Scriptures (JHS) are indexed in ATLA. JHS is published annually and contains book reviews in addition to articles.
9. MERIA: Middle East Review of International Affairs
MERIA is a quarterly journal covering contemporary Middle East politics and international relations. It is indexed by Index Islamicus, Worldwide Political Science Abstracts, and Wilson’s Social ScienceIndex .
10. Middle East Technical University Journal of the Faculty of Architecture
The Journal of the Faculty of Architecture is published twice a year(in June and December); articles are in either English or Turkish. Issues contain articles, book reviews, and exhibition notes; while there is a lot of Middle East content, articles do range further afield. There are author and subject indexes for each volume, and it is also indexed by the Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals.
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11. MIT Electronic Journal of Middle East Studies (MIT-EJMES)
MIT-EJMES was launched by graduate students in 2001 as a multidisciplinary
journal focusing on the modern Middle East. The journal features scholarly articles (primarily by faculty), review essays, and book reviews, as well as less-traditional submissions such as photo essays. Recent issues have focused on Israel’s Invasion of Lebanon,Islam and Arabs in East Africa, and Arab/Arab-American Feminist
Perspectives.
12. Women in Judaism: A Multidisciplinary Journal
Women in Judaism is both historical and contemporary, touching particularly (but by no means exclusively) on representations of women in literature and in the Bible. Some of the earlier issues include bibliographies or notes about research collections. Indexed by, among others, ATLA and MLA Bibliography.
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