Abstract
Before the 2003 invasion, free speech was constantly under threat. But, says
It is hard to appreciate freedom until you experience losing it. It may be difficult for someone born in a democracy to understand, but it’s somewhat like comparing what a wild bird feels when locked in a cage, as opposed to a bird born in captivity that regards a cage as its natural environment. When I am asked about academic freedom in Iraq, it is this parallel that leaps to mind. As a former lecturer at the University of Baghdad who has recently completed a PhD in the UK, I have felt the difference acutely.
Elder members of my family have always commented that we Iraqis are as extreme as our weather, which is bitterly cold in the winter and burning hot in summer. In a country like Iraq, where all aspects of life are interrelated, there are no clear boundaries separating the social and the personal from the professional. Friendships, personal contacts and family relationships are greatly influential when it comes to careers and professional and academic progress. Differences in opinion or criticism of a particular topic of research or a professional practice (even if objective) can be easily misinterpreted as personal criticism and may result in long-term animosity. In most cases it is either black or white, and colleagues in academia, like colleagues in other sectors, are either friends to be supported and encouraged or enemies to be fought or removed. Although some Iraqis may not agree, I speak from my experience and question the existence of real freedom, whether academic or otherwise.
Unfortunately, the term freedom, more often than not, is mistakenly associated with the Arabic concept of immorality. This misinterpretation, in my view, is a major obstacle, hindering the development of the very concept of freedom in Iraq. When freedom becomes a risk, threatening every aspect of human survival, people resort to performance, putting on a show to prove that they are doing what’s expected of them, forgetting what they really want or believe in. They practise a form of self-censorship to protect themselves.
Thinking back to 2000, when I had to choose a topic for my MA dissertation at the University of Baghdad, I see a clear example of how individual academics can become accomplices in not only the mechanisms of state censorship, but also in social and religious censorship. Fascinated by Tennyson’s encapsulation of the past and the present in his Idylls of the King, I wanted to explore the concept of sin through the image of Guinevere across the ages, beginning with Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur in the 15th century.
Before attempting to write the outline for my dissertation, I consulted one of my professors, a distinguished female scholar whose excellent knowledge of the Victorian age had triggered my interest in that era. She advised me against the project and warned me that it would be regarded as outrageous, obscene and might even get me into trouble. Though very disappointed, I knew she was right and if I were to insist it would be regarded as a breach of our culture’s assumed moral code. Sin is a taboo subject and, as a respectable married woman, the concept should ‘never cross my mind’. I turned my thoughts to Samuel Beckett and modern drama but the problem this time was different: if I were to choose this topic, my supervisor would be a man. It would be difficult to contact him at all times or discuss issues freely and it might even trigger social disapproval because my husband was working abroad. I preferred to avoid creating these sorts of problems for myself. I was not interested in literary criticism or in the Restoration poets like Pope and Dryden, but the professor who lectured us on the Restoration period was German and I sought her advice because I felt she would be more open-minded towards sensitive topics and might even suggest more interesting ideas than the ones I had in mind. The professor was interested in Chaucer, whom I had never heard of before, as his work was taught only to PhD-level students. She suggested I read The Canterbury Tales and also Dickens’s Our Mutual Friend and other books during the summer holidays and to choose a topic for my research before her return to Baghdad in September. The Canterbury Tales captured my interest and soon the idea of researching the theme of love in the Tales took hold. The professor did not object and I submitted my outline for research on ‘The Theme of Love in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales’. I avoided going into details about physical love in The Canterbury Tales and focused on the less problematic types of love, such as gluttony, parental love, divine love and the love of worldly things.
At that time in Iraq, just before the invasion in 2003, the use of the internet was limited to a few privileged people and important offices and departments in the various ministries. Under the UN-imposed sanctions on Iraq, the most recent books available in our libraries were publications Iraq had looted from Kuwaiti libraries during Iraq’s 1990 invasion, but I needed updated material. A former colleague and friend who worked at the internet department in one of the ministries offered to help. I could not believe my luck, but I soon saw how useless this resource was. Every time I typed the word ‘love’ into the search engine I was denied access, and so I had to make do with the texts and the books from Kuwait.
The US-led invasion of Iraq did not open doors or offer freedom to Iraqis; instead, it created chaos. The political, social and religious subjugation of the individual remained the same. US soldiers represented the new authority and soon they began to demonstrate their superiority and control. Many people lost their lives because some soldier felt like it. Atrocities silenced Iraqis; there was a climate of fear. Soldiers broke many taboos. For example, during their searches and raids, they entered women’s bedrooms; often women were either still in bed or in their nightwear. Since Arab and Muslim traditions do not permit strangers to see women’s bedrooms or see women in nightwear, this was a real problem. Many of my female students complained that they woke up to find soldiers tampering with the contents of their wardrobes and drawers. This angered the male members of the family very much, but fear of being shot or detained in one of the many military camps on suspicion of terrorism silenced them. Signs reading ‘Deadly force. Keep 100 meters away’ on US military vehicles also frightened people, including myself, because it clearly reflected that these soldiers were authorised to kill. People’s silence encouraged further breaches from the US forces that sometimes led to the confiscation of cash and women’s jewellery (an Iraqi woman’s mobile bank account) during raids.
The restrictions governing academic freedom and freedom of expression remained more or less the same before and after the 2003 invasion. The brief freedom witnessed during the transitional period under the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) and the Iraqi Governing Council was marked by chaos, not least because people had no genuine understanding of how democracy works. Academic institutions were no exception. I still remember how, on our first day back at university after the US-led invasion of Iraq, my students turned their backs to the blackboard and faced the window. Unable to understand their behaviour, I asked why. To my surprise, they happily answered: ‘It is the age of democracy and we are free to do as we like.’ Similar actions occurred in other places, such as petrol stations, where drivers broke the long queue and hailed the new democracy and freedom. During that time, many academics were not as interested in research as they were busy trying to adjust to new problems, such as shortages in electricity, fuel, food and other necessities.
Baghdad University, 26 October 2008
Credit: Hadi Mizban/AP
Because of fear, Iraqis’ supposed new-found freedom of expression was limited to criticism of these new problems, non-sensitive issues that had not existed during the former regime: lack of water, electricity, health services and corruption in general. Academics were also affected. As intellectuals and leaders in their society, they probably had a deeper understanding of the consequences of voicing criticism about effects of the invasion. The cries for a better standard of living and better services went unheard, reminding me of how Iraqis currently describe the different stages they have been through: they say that the former regime sellotaped mouths, the Americans removed the sellotape and the present regime wears earplugs. This, of course, does not quite reflect the truth, as the current regime is also guilty of censorship and of silencing critical voices.
When the 2005 elections gave prominence to the Islamic parties, Iraqis were back to square one. This time more complicated religious and conventional restrictions dominated life, including academia. Ordinary citizens and intellectuals alike advocated new ideas, many of which contradicted the ones they previously held, in order to conform to the new prevailing ideology of the influential political ‘Islamic’ parties. Religious rituals began to take place inside universities, and walls were covered with posters of prominent clerics and other influential individuals, advising women to wear the hijab. Previous conformists were called insurgents and were outlawed; highly qualified professors were dismissed on the pretext of Ba’ath Party membership. Many academics left the country and those unable to do so complied and obeyed, out of opportunism or fear. Within a short period of time the number of women who wore the hijab, including academics, outnumbered uncovered women; prominent male scholars grew beards and wore rings as a sign of their loyalty to a certain faith – evidence that Iraqis continued to lack not only academic freedom but also all kinds of social, intellectual and religious freedoms necessary for independent thinking. The conversion of many academics from one faction to another suggests a survival tactic to achieve personal goals and to maintain professional and social positions.
I left Iraq in late 2008, when it became impossible to continue as an independent-thinking secular female university lecturer. The sheer refusal to conform posed a serious threat to my safety. Although I am no longer part of the academic milieu in Iraq, I continue to follow the developments there through contacts or by reading whatever literature or research papers I can get my hands on. In formal university or ministry of higher education policies and regulations, there is no mention of restrictions on academic research or teaching. Yet an academic or teacher should consider the consequences before attempting to tackle a ‘daring’ topic. Lecturers of English literature in many Iraqi universities, for example, now avoid the mention of physical or sensual topics in English and American novels to avoid being accused of corrupting young minds. Recently, the Minister of Higher Education attempted to strip a female academic from the University of Baghdad of her doctorate in Political Sciences because of a questionnaire she published as part of her dissertation: its results revealed that the al Maliki government was regarded by participants as the worst in Iraq’s history. The minister demanded that the content of the academic’s thesis be changed to favour al Maliki. Although the doctorate was finally approved following an appeal to the University Council, I doubt that many others would be tempted to follow in this academic’s footsteps.
A recent study on female academics in Iraq found that they do not have equal access to training, conference participation or research, though the study did not expand on points affecting academics as compared with the general female population in the country. My next project will examine the decline in the position of women since 2005, looking specifically at the increase of al Muta’a in Iraq. The practice, in which women are exploited under the pretext of a short-term marriage that may last for hours, days or months, has been increasingly encouraged and given legitimacy over the last few years. No longer an academic in Iraq, I feel able to take on this subject. But currently, in Iraq, it would be impossible to carry out research on this topic.