Students at the American University of Iraq-Sulaimaniya - photo by Chris De Bruyn
Who What Why
Anyone who still wonders why the Bush administration invaded Iraq
would do well to become familiar with an institution whose existence few
Americans are aware of: the American University of Iraq-Sulaimaniya.
Located in Kurdistan, at the nexus of northern Iraq’s border with
Iran and Turkey, AUI-S opened its doors in 2007. At the time, Thomas
Friedman of the New York Times wrote about it with the sort of wide-eyed
enthusiasm that had generally accompanied the invasion itself four
years before. “Imagine for a moment if one outcome of the U.S. invasion
of Iraq had been the creation of an American University of Iraq…Imagine
if we had created an island of decency in Iraq…Well, stop imagining.”
You don’t have to imagine, though, when history provides enough
clues. For more than one hundred years, American business leaders
(usually with the cooperation of local potentates) have funded Christian
missionaries to set up universities in foreign countries with valuable
resources to exploit. This collaboration has served to create a more
friendly environment for establishing a business foothold while
simultaneously fulfilling the missionaries’ desire to spread the Word
around the globe.
In the Middle East—where the business has primarily been oil—the
Rockefellers and others generously funded such institutions as the
American University of Beirut, which was established on the bedrock of
conservative Christian values more than one hundred years ago. It began
modestly, with one class of sixteen students in 1863. Over time, it
became a venerable academic oasis, characterized by values that could be
accurately described as cosmopolitan and liberal.
With AUI-S in contemporary Kurdistan, however, it was back to square
one, ideologically speaking. Oil—or “The Prize” as it is often
called—was once again the business at hand. This time, access to The
Prize was given to George W. Bush’s good friend and contributor, the
Texan Ray Hunt, whose Kurdish oil concession is potentially worth
billions of dollars. And from the beginning, the academic component of
this particular foreign foothold has been plagued by problems far worse
than the usual disarray that attends any new university venture. That’s
because the people setting it up were missionaries of a uniquely
postmodern variety.
No comments:
Post a Comment