Disoriented America loses control in the Middle East – Part III

By Prof. Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis

America’s mistake no 4: idiotic waste of resources and funds

Having accumulated great resources does not necessarily imply an intrinsic need for spending money.

Spending money does not have to take the form of wasting resources.

These simple truths that abide to all, a simple worker and a ship-owner, seem at times difficult to adopt, accept, and apply in America. When it comes to America’s involvement in Iraq, this takes the dimensions of an alarming warning. It does not have necessarily to do with the government itself; it concerns the private sector as well, since a lot hinges on its commitment in the Noble Cause of Iraq.

Before having a clear idea about the down-to-earth realities of Iraq, any decision for money spending is premature, and can effectively lead to serious waste of resources. One could go through a vast examination of various projects that go under this category. However, one strong example would suffice, if the analysis is proper and pertinent. We will concentrate our approach and the present article on a particular case within the sector of Education.

Introducing a new, postcolonial and modern system of Education is crucial for that country’s future. But there are unavoidable priorities.

Certainly no one would disagree with "programs to train teachers in modern pedagogy, award community grants for school rehabilitation, procure needed supplies and equipment, develop sustainable model schools, establish modern education management systems, and promote early childhood learning. The long-term goal of the project is to create a high quality public education system that enhances economic growth and contributes to a more tolerant, open-minded, and democratic society" in America, in Japan, in Europe, in Latin America, in South Africa.

But is it normal, productive and effective to think that, if we add "modern pedagogy" to the murderous Arab nationalism that was diffused in a totalitarian way for decades before and during Saddam Hussein’s tyrannical rule, we will solve the problems of that country that bears already a fake name that means nothing to anybody, and helps to totally de-personify and transfigure Mesopotamia’s past and present to the profit of the colonial powers, France and England, for no less than 86 years (1917 – 2003)?

What does "school rehabilitation" truly mean? That the average educational system in Mesopotamia will emit again the falsehood of Pan - Arabism that mixed with the perverted distortion of Islam, as preached by the bogus-sheikhs, bringing therefore about more suicide bombers, more destruction and more corpses?

What can be in today’s Mesopotamian ordeal "needed supplies"? Infrastructure? School rooms? Professors? Computers? Manuals? But all this existed even in …. Soviet Union! Yet, providing present day ‘Iraq’ with all these devices and commodities is not the guarantee for a real change. If the manuals’ contents present the same version of History as those during the times of the Iraqi kingdom or the Baathist tyranny, the only result will be the deterioration of the present situation.

It is high time for Americans to realize that "modern education management systems" do not eliminate by themselves the Islamic terrorism, the suicide bombers, the Arab nationalistic extremists, and all the problematic parameters the American army has been called to face in Iraq.

The passionately expected "more tolerant, open-minded, and democratic society" will not come before an end is put to the false ideological educational concepts that have long been diffused through the schools and the universities in order to serve colonial interests and the engulfment of the country in underdevelopment, misery and darkness.

One may ask whose this ill-fated program is. The briefly criticized paragraph belongs to an announcement of a position of EMIS Education Specialist by Creative Associates International Inc. (www.caii.com). As it is said in the beginning of the announcement, "the Iraq Basic Education II program (EdII) supports reform and capacity building within the Iraqi Ministry of Education (MOE) at both the national and regional levels. The project assists the MOE in decentralizing the education system and improving education access, quality, and retention rates". As impressive as it sounds so derisory this program becomes in the light of a ‘detail’ stated later on:

"Content for the new Iraqi school curriculum is being developed and managed separately by the Ministry of Education and is not part of the Education II project".

This sentence means that an American organization deploys effort, spends money, hires people, and wastes time and resources to help materialize a vast program that can end up against American soldiers.

If the contents of the Education manuals in Mesopotamia / ‘Iraq’ do not become the focal point of the Creative Associates, any other organization, and the American administration, and if they do not change drastically, then the grave problems, which antedate Saddam Hussein’s rise to power and have generated the fanaticized Arab nationalists and the Islamic extremists, will not cease to exist and will finally contribute to severely damaging the American wishes for a democratic, multicultural country in Mesopotamia.

At the end of this article, we find necessary to specify the seminal and primordial circles on which the future Iraqi education should be mustered.

Pillars of Successful Education for Mesopotamia - Aram Nahrain (Iraq)

Ten major circles of historical evolution and cultural achievements are involved in this regard. Even if only one is missing, the result is an unbalanced or minimized perception of the dimensions of the country’s contribution to the History of the Mankind. Referring to the abominable past of ‘Iraqi’ ‘Education’, several of these pillars were present, but undermined, other pillars were totally absent, and finally one was over-accentuated and misleadingly described. What are the Ten Pillars, and how they should be developed through the 12-year obligatory Education that the current Iraqi government must stipulate?

Every cultural – historical unity must be present at all levels: History, Literature, Language, Art History, History of the Religion, Philosophy, including also Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, and Cosmology.

The First Pillar is the Circle of the Ancient Mesopotamia. This is the world of the Sumerians, the Akkadians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Amurru – Amorrites, the Hurrians and the Elamites. From here emanate readings like the sense of Justice in the Laws of Hammurapi, the combined concept of military expedition and scientific exploration thanks to the 8th Campaign of Sargon of Assyria, the Creation Epic Enuma Elish, the Flood and the postdiluvian world of Gilgamesh, the Saviour Etana Legend, the protection of the Widow and the Orphan as stipulated by Urukagina, the glories of Assurbanipal and the Sargonids as described in their Annals, the Assyrian trade practices in Cappadocia, the dramatic world of the Descent of Ishtar to the Nether World, and the far fetched achievements of the Mesopotamian world who leads the Mankind in Democracy (the elected Sukkalmahhu of Elam were ruling … 1400 years before Pericles!), in Economics (5000 years before the Chicago Derivatives Exchange was inaugurated the Sumerians were practicing similar techniques!), and in Science.

The Second Pillar is the World of the Aramaeans. Here the average student will learn the historical details and the great past of the main ethnic group to which apparently present day Iraqis belong, i.e. the Aramaeans. From their appearance in the 12th c. BCE to their settlement and intermingling with Babylonians, Jews, and other peoples, their early and late kingdoms, from Aram – Dimashq to Zenobia’s Palmyra, from Edessa/Urfa to Hatra and to Rekem/Petra, and from their role in the Persian Achaemenidian court that adopted their writing to the rise of Aramaic as the Lingua Franca par excellence of the Land Routes of Trade from the Mediterranean to China.

The Third Pillar is Iran and Iranian Civilization. This is due to the fact that the Iranians ruled Mesopotamia for more than 1000 years already in what is the Pre-Islamic History and left deep traces in terms of Culture, Behaviour, Tradition, Art, Concept of Life. Here we have to do with the world of the Achaemenids, the Arsacids, and the Sassanids with their various religious beliefs, Zoroasteriansim, Mithraism, Zendism, Mazdeism, etc. The world of Iran is an excellent link to both, the world of Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent.

The World of the Late Antiquity Religious Syncretism, Gnosticisms and Manicheism is the Fourth Pillar. Not only large Aramaic masses were involved in various religious philosophical systems that are known under the collective name of Gnosis, but modern Mandaeans in Iraq are the only surviving group of this Late Antiquity amalgamating realm. Equally influenced by this ‘world’ are present day Yezidi Kurds and Ahl-e Haq Kurds, who are mostly centered in Iraq. Using Aramaic extensively the disciples of Mani, the Manichaeists, expanded from Tesifun (Ctesiphon) in Central Mesopotamia to North Western Africa and to China, being the first religion to cover the space between the Atlantic and the Pacific.

The Fifth Pillar is that of the Oriental Christianisms, the Monophysitism and the Nestorianism. This not only is particular to the Assyrians’ and the ‘Chaldeans’ of today, who represent more than 5 or 6 million people in Iraq and in Iran, but it is also necessary for the Muslims to understand the vicinity of the beliefs and the teachings between Nestorius and the Prophet Muhammad. The persecution of the Nestorians in both the Eastern Roman Empire (perceived as heretics) and the Sassanid Empire of Iran (considered as agents of the main rival) is instrumental to understand what preceded Islam in this part of the world, and what was the essential reason for Islam’s successful and tremendous early expansion.

The Sixth Pillar is the World of the Kurds. Here enter cultural and literary, folklore and religious details and characteristics that concern one ethnic group of Iraq that has expanded in neighboring countries, Iran, Armenia, Turkey and Syria.

The Seventh Pillar is the World of Turan, namely the realm of the Turkic peoples, among which are included Turkmens of Iraq, Azeris, Turks, and Central Asiatic peoples.

The Eighth Pillar is Islam, particularly through its Shia interpretation (since the 12th Imam has been mythologized to disappear from the Illustrious Cave of Samarrah, and so many other holy places of the Shia religious and political history are located there). The best re-assessment of the Abbasid greatness of Baghdad of the times of Harun al Rashid and of the Persian Barmakid family, i.e. the days when Islam meant Search, Exploration, Knowledge, Wisdom, Art, Inquisitive and Innovative Mind, and not backward fanaticism and hatred, hysteria and anti-Semitism.

The Ninth Pillar is the Ottoman Empire (to which the entire area belonged) and the Safevid Iran (with which this land was bordering) that both represent the top of the Islamic World before 400 years, at a moment when Muslims were leading the West in Mathematics and in Astronomy, with the famous Ulugh Beg’s books translated in Latin, and the observatories of Maragheh still thriving. Particular importance would in this case be given to the collapse of the two great – and Islamic – powers of the 16th c. World, and to the parallel rise of the West, a subject that is well documented and attributed to the gradual rise of a backward and obscurantist version of Islam and of the tenebrous sheikhs (followers of Ibn Taimiya at those days, and properly speaking Wahhabists during the last 200 years), who were accusing the Muslim scholars of … Black Magic, and to exercise pressure over the Sultans and the Shahs they were mobilizing ignorant, semi-barbaric masses.

The Tenth Pillar is the Modern Europe and America as the rise of the Contemporary Democracy, and as the Intellectual Achievements of the Great Humanist Philosophers, who introduced – among others – the Concept of Human Rights. This element will help modern Mesopotamian students come up with combinations of Western and Eastern elements and concepts of Democracy and Representativity, in an effort of constructive buildup of a new approach.

Based on these Ten Pillars the Primary and Secondary Education of today’s Iraq will make sure that the Middle East is not an area for dictators, nepotism, and covered promotion of terrorism.