In the late 20th Century, Iraq’s academics and intelligentsia were renowned throughout the world. Even after the calamitous events of the 1990-1991 Gulf War and the subsequent crippling sanctions regime imposed upon the Iraqi people, Iraqi academics were in demand and readily accepted by international institutions.
This tradition of intellectual excellent stretches far back into the history of the lands associated with modern day Iraq. Trailblazing philosophers, scientists, mathematicians and jurists have long flourished in the Land of the Two Rivers, as Iraqis affectionately call their country.
Who can forget such intellectual giants such as the 9th Century polymath al-Kindi, and the mathematical genius of al-Khwarizmi whose innovations in algorithms modern technology is indebted to. Thank the scholars of Baghdad’s House of Wisdom before you thank Steve Jobs for your iPhone.
Recognising this rich intellectual heritage is arguably crucial for the revitalisation of Iraq following Bush and Blair’s Crusade to destroy the country in 2003. However, the current generation of Iraqi academics and researchers are facing an uphill battle. The invasion burned through what was left of the infrastructure, security and economy that is necessary for an education system to flourish. People should not be fooled by stories of economic growth – that “growth” was pocketed by Iraq’s corrupt political elite, whilst the working and middle classes saw no such benefit. The anti-corruption protests still ongoing in Iraq are a testament to how much the normal Iraqi citizen is being squeezed.
That said, those lucky enough to get scholarships for postgraduate studies were given stipends of £13,200 a year (as a point of comparison, British PhD students normally receive approximately £14,000 a year). This was supplemented with additional annual income if the student was married and had children, with a spouse attracting approximately £9,000 and up to £4,300 for two children (any additional children would be at the student’s own expense). For a small family of four, that would effectively mean an annual income of £26,500 – a tidy sum, as I am certain any student would agree.
However, since the beginning of the Iraqi government’s war against the so-called Islamic State (IS), which was only made possible after former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki brutally suppressed peaceful protests, academic and intellectual advancement is expendable once more. The war is not going well for the Iraqi government and its allied sectarian Shia Popular Mobilisation Units (PMU), and is clearly costing them a lot of money. To save money, the Iraqi government, in a show of absolute sectarianism, have on several occasions failed to pay government-aligned Sunni fighters for months. Further cuts have been made that have specifically hit students since the election of Haidar al-Abadi to the country’s most powerful position, and his appointment of Hussein al-Shahristani to the position of Minister of Higher Education.
In contrast with the previous figures detailed above, since late 2014 all allowances granted for children have been axed along with a third of the allowance granted for spouses. Moreover, Iraqi government rules for postgraduate students have changed, even for current students. Before, students were entitled to study for four years, with an understanding that any time spent on scholarships will have to be “paid back” to the government by serving in an Iraqi university as a lecturer for a period equalling double whatever time spent abroad. As such, four years on a scholarship will therefore equal eight years of service and so forth. However, now the Iraqi government has capped the years spent abroad on a scholarship to three years only, with any additional years being entirely at the student’s expense. As previously stated, this rule has been applied to all students, even current ones.
These actions by the Iraqi government have led to poorly covered student demonstrations outside the Iraqi Embassy in London. The students have protested twice this year alone, first in March and most recently just last month when 200 Iraqis demonstrated for two hours before the Iraqi Educational Attaché agreed to deliver a list of demands to restore the students’ stipends to the Iraqi government. Speaking to me privately, several Iraqi students in Britain have told me of their woes. Ayad (a pseudonym), studying for a PhD in engineering, told me that he had to now rush through his thesis. “The Iraqi government told us that we had to finish our work in three years, irrespective of when we started” adding “How am I supposed to finish over a year’s work in a few months?”. Another, Aziz (yet another pseudonym), told me that the shortage of funds had made his life extremely difficult. “I have a wife, and three kids. I was already paying for one completely on my own, and now my expenses have increased threefold”. Aziz was essentially forced to take a £7,500 pay cut suddenly, with no grace period offered.
Needless to say, the only thing that all this achieves is to discourage Iraq’s best and brightest from even bothering to pursue academic studies that will eventually enrich and strengthen the country, and perhaps go some way in healing the rifts that have surfaced since 2003. Rather than al-Abadi focusing on cleaning the corruption that is rife within the Iraqi state institutions and is pervasive throughout all government ministries (who can forget Iraq’s “ghost soldiers”, after all), al-Abadi is instead trying to scrape together the cash to fill his war chest by targeting those who lack the power to seriously challenge him.
Iraq’s hyper-sectarianism, corruption and deadly insecurity are creating a very hostile environment that precludes the production of any future al-Kindi or al-Khwarizmi, and is inducing a horrific brain drain. Indeed, the future of Iraq is likely to be a brain dead one if the current trends continue.
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