In March 2004, I sat in the refurbished office of Ms. Juwan Mahmoud, the Chief Librarian of the Iraqi Academy of Sciences (in Arabic, al-majma’ al-ilmi) in the Al-Waziriyya section of Baghdad. The Iraqi Academy had been looted of its first-rate collection of manuscripts in Arabic, Farsi, Turkish and other languages immediately after the war. When I had first met Juwan, it was in the ruins of the library. I remember the rooms piled high with trashed documents and manuscripts haphazardly strewn around the place, and rows upon rows of gutted library shelves. I had gone to Baghdad in June 2003 with three colleagues – Jens Hanssen, Edouard Méténier and Keith Watenpaugh – to investigate the burning and pillaging of university and research libraries. One member of the group, Jens Hanssen, made a short documentary of the wrecked library premises, in which Juwan played a starring role. In the spirit of an Iraqi passionara, she forcefully called upon the conscience of the world to restore the Iraqi Academy’s collections immediately.

In March, 2004, I made a return trip to Baghdad, and the Iraqi Academy. This time, progress was evident. The walls had been painted, new wall-to-wall carpeting had been laid down, and library collections were being augmented by the steady contribution of new books. At the time that I was there, Juwan proudly showed me around fifteen boxes of books donated by the British Council. Superficially at least, the library seemed well on the mend. Gone was the detritus of past depredations; in its place was a spanking new, albeit more secure environment, symbolized by the institution of a new gate to the building (the old one had reportedly been smashed by an American tank).

But all was not well in the confines of Juwan’s office. Rumors of future administrative upheaval made the rounds; the Academy bureaucracy was being reshuffled, with some employees being laid off and others reassigned. Astonishingly, an employee who had been accused outright of stealing hundreds of manuscripts during our June visit was still in her position. She owed her immunity it was said, to the fact that she had become a member of one of the religious parties with powerful mentors in Iraq’s Interim Governing Council. All throughout my trip to Baghdad, I was to hear similar stories. Even if they seemed wildly exaggerated to those who had come from outside, they were evidence enough of a lingering anger with the post-war aftermath, and an uneasy premonition of things to come.

In fact, throughout my trip, the contrast between image and reality was often sobering. At all the universities, libraries and research centers I visited, the daily hum of routine, the hustle and bustle of student activity and the seemingly reordered world of Iraqi academia gave way, upon deeper discussions with professors and students, to a disheartening analysis of what had gone wrong in the aftermath of the war. Very few people were able to muster enthusiasm for all the new changes that had occurred; some were not even sure that changes had occurred at all.

There was confusion over the dual, perhaps tripartite division of power in the higher education sector. University administration affairs came under at least three jurisdictions: that of the US adviser to the Ministry of Higher Education, who was responsible for funding university operations; that of the Minister of Higher Education himself, and possibly that of the member of the Governing Council who had nominated the Minister of Higher Education to his post in the first place. The question of the dismissal in August 2003 of the elected President of Baghdad University, Dr. Sami Muzaffar, was still viewed as a dangerous precedent in university-ministry relations. Dr. Muzaffar, a biochemist, had resigned after an altercation with the new Minister of Higher Education, Dr. Al-Aswad. Although members of the Governing Council intervened to reinstate Dr. Muzaffar, they were unable to affect any change. Meanwhile, the US Adviser to the Ministry of Higher Education, John Agresto, did not seem to have played a role in the affair, or so my correspondents intimated.

In any case, this hydra-headed administration was viewed as unwieldy and cumbersome by many of the professors with whom I spoke. They were particularly worried by the slowness of change, and the fact that not enough money was being pumped into the university system to make it thrive. Painted walls and classroom furniture aside, not enough funds had been distributed to universities for other, equally important features, such as new programs, curricula and staff.

There were complaints that books were being distributed unevenly. The University of Technology seemed to be the main distribution hub but its efficiency was questioned, particularly by librarians at large university libraries such as Al-Mustansiriyya. The latter confirmed that they had not received any new books from the Ministry of Higher Education. On the other hand, they were swamped by donations of religious literature from Iran. Meanwhile, shipments of books from international agencies such as the British Council and the Goethe Institut were being handled in selective fashion, with the latter only sending a one-off shipment to Baghdad University’s German Language department.

The awarding of scholarships and fellowships was being thoroughly politicized.  This was a complaint I heard everywhere. It was said that political parties were handing travel and scholarship grants out to their followers, and that scholars or students with little access to power were being shunted aside for less worthy candidates. I have to take issue with this. While it is true that many exchange programs were being awarded to the wrong people (and my experience with a seminar in Jordan organized for Iraqi Media specialists is proof of that), I believe there were far too few programs established in the first place, and those that were in place were often left begging for the right candidate. The blame must lie in the confusion inherent in the higher education sector itself; in the misplacement of priorities and the mis-identification of suitable sectors of the university that could benefit from such programs. Is the Ministry of Higher Education focusing on centrally-administered placement tests and exams that will identify the best candidates for overseas programs, or is it still dependent on university departments to do their work for them? Is the system being screened for corruption? How can tighter guidelines be enforced so that personal networks don’t take advantage of the randomness of the search for suitable candidates? I have to admit that I don’t know the answer to those questions.

There was little public information available on what language and learning centers had been instituted in the city. For instance, a privately-managed German language center had been established in Baghdad for over two months and nobody knew about it at Baghdad University. Similarly, the reopening of the British Council had been effected with little fanfare, so that my correspondents at Baghdad University hardly knew of its existence. However, the one success story was the French Cultural Center, a dynamic organization in the middle of Abu Nuwwas street. The French had started funding exchange programs from as early as July or August, 2003, much earlier than other European or American initiatives.

Political parties had become the new powers on campus, frequently disrupting classes by walk-outs, and competing with professors for students’ attention. On the day that I went to the Bab al-Muazzam campus, for instance, the students had organized a latmiyya or ritual mourning ceremony for the Imam Hussein in the middle of classes. And a week later, I heard that the Sadrists had organized a massive demonstration outside the university gates.