Bleak Picture of Iraqi Academic Future

Martyn Rush reports

The Council for Assisting Refugee Academics (CARA) yesterday hosted what it labelled an act of solidarity with Iraqs embattled academia and launched an emergency appeal fund.

During the meeting, at University College London, it was astonishing to learn exactly the extent to which academics in Iraq are being targeted, intimidated and murdered by the insurgents.

Academics and teachers get a bullet in the mail with a personal "Leave or Die" note, those who can, obviously do the former, whilst 472 have had to face the latter (of which 300 were definitely terrorist assassinations) - either option though, is obviously bad for the future of Iraq. 20 Universities and 84% of other Higher Education institutions were either "burnt, looted or destroyed" in the aftermath of the intervention. 80% of Iraqi schools need 'rehabilitation'. The 3,000 most gifted students of Iraq, have been turned away following the closure of the renowned Baghdad College.

10-15,000 objects are still missing from the Iraqi National Museum, and priceless archaeological sites in the south are being looted daily. Against this bleak backdrop, CARA admitted that there was very little it could do. It will donate £100,000 to the cause, offer scholarships to as many Iraqi students as possible to bring them to the UK (even though it is loath to do this on a mass scale fearing for the future of the country) - but other than that it seemed kind of paralysed. Members of the audience offered practical solutions such as housing University Lecturers inside Universities to stop them being murdered on the way to work.

Iraqi union representative Abdullah Muhsin eloquently suggested that Cara work closely with the Iraqi Teachers’ Union, which is, he said, one of the larger unions in Iraq.

Please support the fund and the work of the Iraqi Teachers’ Union.