Mohammed Dajani - Palestinian Higher Education under Occupation: The Challenges (2005)

Mohammed Dajani: What I will be talking about is not the academic structure of the higher education in Palestine, but rather to give you a personal experience about the higher education and to paint a picture of what is happening in Palestine. I will start and I will tell you my personal narrative and then from this personal narrative, help you see what is the situation in Palestine, the challenges facing higher education, and how we can see it. And it was to show the uniqueness of the Palestinian situation in Palestine. Initially, I'm Palestinian from Jerusalem. I was born in Jerusalem, and my family actually has been in Jerusalem for a very long time. In 1964, I joined the American University of Beirut. What I want to talk about is more the whole circle that I had to go through. And from there, the role of education that has affected me. When I joined AUB in 1964 to 1967, I was totally pro-American. I was someone who learned at an American school, Quaker school, Friends Boys school. for 12 years and so I came to AEB from a very warm and American background and then the 1967 happened took place and then I became extremely radicalized in the politics of the area and I joined Fatah at the time and became very very active within the Fatah movement at the same time remaining at AUB, but yet not leaving the university and being, I became a student leader at the time. I became the president of the student council at AUB. And at that time, we actually, we were extremely anti-American and we were making demonstrations against the United States because we thought that the United States supports Israel and so we our our hatred of Israel were transformed to an enmity to the United States and so this remained between 1967 to 1975 and so it was these years when AUB was being viewed as a base for radicalism, and it surely was. Then in 1975, I decided that to, like Michel Aflak, he said, as far as I'm concerned, I'm leaving to Brazil. So I said, and there was a helplessness in the idea there. And so not because of the struggle itself, but because of the internal domestic situation that I saw things are heading. So I actually said I will go for education. And then I came to the States on an Algerian passport and stayed here for 10 years, five years in South Carolina and five years in Texas. I finished my first PhD in South Carolina, but because I couldn't go back to any Arab countries at the time, So I stayed here for another five years doing another PhD. So by the time I finished it. But now, what was the power of education here? Actually, it helped me being out of the forest, looking back at how things are. It helped me develop my ideas a great deal. all the radicalism that was there mellowed down. And to give you just an indication about how my situation was in AB is that I was the first and only student actually to once speak in the graduation ceremony and then I turned in my degree saying that I don't want an American degree The Americans are killing people in Vietnam, and I don't want to be associated with such a degree. So that was back in 1972. And so this was the situation. But coming here to the States and studying democracy and studying pluralism and studying the American political system, and getting to know American culture and getting to live here and take time to read and to get educated. I was very privileged in that, in the sense that this education helped me see that there is another way. The way I used to see things before was that either us or them, and so there was no compromise. Coming to the States, living in the States, and actually seeing how democracy works, although I know it is not a perfect democracy, there is nothing perfect. However, it was much more advanced than any other system. that I knew, particularly that I lived in Lebanon. And so basically, the education here helped me be able to see things. Yet, it didn't help me much. It helped me in broadening my scope of seeing things. Yet the Israeli factor remained a problem. I remember in South Carolina I used to teach Arabic while next door to me was someone, an Israeli, who used to teach Hebrew. And although I was an Algerian at the time with an Algerian passport, and he viewed me as an Algerian and not even a Palestinian. Still, he couldn't handle me, and I couldn't handle him. We couldn't stomach each other, and so we remained there teaching for five years, yet we never talked to each other. And my first Israeli whom I've seen is that I went back to Jordan in 1985 once I finished, and then I founded the political science department at Applied Science University. which is a private university. That was in 1990. And then I was chair for that department for five years, between 1990 to 1995. At that time, actually, the first time my first Israeli I saw was in 1993 when my father, because he had cancer, he was able to have a family reunion place. to allow me to go back and actually the Israelis before letting me in wanted to make sure that I'm no more a threat to the state of Israel so they made me sign a piece of paper that says that I do not anymore believe in the eradication of Israel and I will not do anything while I'm in Palestine to actually to that goal which at the time Anyway, I have come to a compromise that this is the way it is. And so I didn't sign that paper because I had to, but rather because it is at the time I have come to the realization that my motto of us and them should change to us or them should change to us and them. And so by that time, I was able to reconcile that we should live together, we should be as two people, as two nations. And so in 1995, I went to Jerusalem and I was working with UNDP as chief technical advisor for the Palestinian Authority to build up public administration within the Palestinian Authority and I worked there for two years and then I moved to the Ministry of Planning where I also worked as consultant for public administration and And then I was in charge of a $23 million fund that was a trust fund by the World Bank to build up a Palestinian authority in various sectors. So I worked there for five years. And then I started to teach at Al-Quds University. And that was back in 1998, was my first class. When I walked into the classroom to teach the students, I was very shocked. And then I stood there, looked, the classroom was a big class, but it was more like a storehouse. In one section there was the library did not need journals, so they dumped it in the class. And I looked at the chairs. Most of them are broken. I looked at the walls. It is half torn. And so I stood there, looked at this pathetic, and I said, this is, told the students, this is not an environment for education. And so I'm very sorry that I will not be able to teach you. This is the last time. This is the first time and last time I enter this university. And so their attitude was pleading, you know, please don't go and I said, but I cannot teach in this environment. This is not an educational environment for graduate students or for university students. And they said, OK, we are ready to do whatever it takes for us. I said, OK, I will donate the paint. And first, you take all the storage house, give it back, throw it away, whatever. And then take all the broken chairs out, try to fix them, do something, bring new chairs, whatever. Paint the walls. They said, OK, on this weekend, we'll do that. So they came on the weekend. I donated the paint. painted the whole thing. Then I donated pictures to be put in the classroom. And then it was a small heaven within the whole building. And then other professors started wanting to teach in that class. But the idea was not that they wanted to do other classes like this class, but rather to come and teach in this class. But it was one room in a whole building that was totally different. And that's how we started. And then once I started teaching, I taught in South Carolina and I taught in West Texas at Austin and then I taught even in Jordan. And then I found out how much different in the mentality among students. Basically, because they come from what we inherited from the British system, the ,, which is the certification of secondary school certification. All this exam does is teach you to memorize. So these people came into the classroom accustomed for me to come and stand there and give them a class, read to them what I have on my notes. They will write them in their notes without passing through either my mind or their mind. I will just give them that and they will write it. Then they will memorize it and then they come to the exam and do well in the exam. And so that's how it was with other courses. And I said, no, I teach the American way. I don't give lectures. We have discussions. You read the material. You come to class. You ask questions. I ask questions. And so it is the Socratic way of asking questions. They were not accustomed to that. But eventually it helped them develop and it helped them develop their intellectual capacity to think. And that was very, very important for me because basically I didn't want them to have the memory. The thing is that in high school, we do not, the quality of teachers and the quality of education is very poor. And so they come to university with a poor background. But they are hardworking. This is the very important thing. They want to learn. They want to know. And so this is very important. In the university, they try to get away with it. They come to memorize. By the end, they graduate. When they graduate, they do not graduate with an analytical mind, but with information that they just gathered throughout the study without even knowing the comparative analysis there. So basically, I tried to use some of the events that was taking place And for instance, in 1990, when I was at the University of Jordan, it was a summer that I was giving a course in international economic relations at the University of Jordan. And I had 90 students in my class. And then in that class, the Iraqi war started. And so the Americans, the Iraqis invaded Jordan. and they would not use the word invade. They used to use the word entered in Jordan. And so the Iraqi forces entered Kuwait. And so in the classroom, there came a time when President Bush were giving the ultimatum that within two weeks, if you don't withdraw from Iraq, then we will invade. So I came to the classroom. There are 90 students up there. And I said, OK, let me ask you the scenario. Let's build a scenario. Suppose that the United States tomorrow invades, attacks Iraq and Kuwait to have them removed from Kuwait. Who will win, the United States or Iraq? And I would like you to analyze this situation before you answer. And I said, OK, I will cheat. I will give you an information that this is cheating, I consider it, but to help you, guide you to think where we are heading. I said I was at AUB in 1967 when the war started. And we as students went on campus, occupied the campus and put boards there on the campus and then opened all these radios and all in order to listen to what's happening. And then we put on the board Israel, Iraq, Jordan, Syria. And then every time Syria says we down 20 planes, we'll put planes down 20. We destroyed 50 tanks. Syria destroyed 50 tanks. Egypt destroyed 100 tanks. And Jordan destroyed 30 tanks. And eventually, at the end of the day, we had a huge list of thousands of tanks destroyed or planes downed. And then we were competing to see who has more destroyed things, whether it's Syria or Egypt or Jordan. Sorry. By the end of the day, by the end of the day, we got so enthusiastic that we took buses and then drove to Syria because we want to go be part of the war. And actually, we took us to Ali first, where Shukiri had a house there, and then a villa, where we were something like 100 people. And they trained us in one night to fight Israelis and to put bombs and all that. Then they took us to Syria. And in Syria, actually, the Syrians gave us these Chinese rifles, with each one two boxes of bullets. And then people on the bus to go to Jordan were trying to work on them, and then you would have one bullet like that, one bullet like that. But then the bus, it's good that we arrived safely in Jordan. By the time we got to Jordan, we realized that the war is over, and the Jordanian soldiers were coming back, and then they told us, It is lost. We did not believe that. And then we only, the realization was on the 9th of June, Nasser said, we lost the war. So that was the moment of truth, and we were awakened. So I told them the story. I said, this is, I'm cheating. I'm giving you hints. of what is happening so that you don't have expectations. So I said, OK, let us vote. Who thinks that the Americans will, who thinks that the Iraqis will win in this battle if it takes place? And around something like 82 people raised their hand that the Iraqis will win. And then I said, OK, who thinks that the Americans will win in this war? And so around 6, 7 raised their hand that the Americans will win. Later on, it turned out that these were students who were in Kuwait. And so it was out of their wishful thinking that they wanted the Americans to win. And so I said, why? And how did you come to this conclusion that the Americans will lose, the Iraqis will win? And they said, well, we read in the paper that Iraq is the fourth power in the world. The CIA has issued a report in which it said that Iraq is the fourth power in the world. I said, fine, but suppose we have the fourth power, and suppose we have the first power. If the fourth power is fighting with the first power, and the first power has the second and the third and the sixth and the seventh and the eighth, and the nine supporting it. And you have the fourth power. Who will win? They said the fourth power. Okay, why? Because here we have people who have faith. Here we have people without faith. And this is people who are right. These are people who are wrong. So their analysis was more the wishful thinking rather than the rational thinking. So basically, I said, OK, maybe in the coming few days, we will find out who wins or loses. And then when Saddam went back and lost, I went back to the class and asked them about what did they think about the results. And they all said it was a conspiracy against Saddam. They were trying to rationalize why Saddam lost. So in Afghanistan, the same thing happened when I was teaching at Al-Quds University. I worked in the class, and then actually the United States was going to launch the war against Afghanistan. And I was teaching a political science class. And in this class, there were around 60 students. And I said, OK, I'll tell you two stories. I told them the story about Beirut in 1967. I told them the story about what happened in the Gulf War. And then I said, OK, now I want to ask you a question. Tomorrow, who is going to win when the Americans attack Afghanistan? And there is Taliban and bin Laden and all those people against them. Who is going to win? And out of 58, maybe around 54, said Taliban will win. Okay, I thought I gave you some hints about who will win, but no, you are not getting the hints. Okay, why is it that the Americans will lose and the Taliban? The same answers that I received in Jordan, I received here. the same mentality, the same culture, the same, you know, the faith thing, and this will be Vietnam, and now they are becoming more sophisticated, the terrain, and, you know, other ways of looking at it. when the Americans huffed and puffed and Taliban disappeared. So I went back to class and said, what happened? And they said, no, no, this war is just starting, and the Taliban just hid, and tomorrow you will see what will happen. Tomorrow you will see this is only in the news. You know, this same mentality is actually what made me think that there is something wrong with higher education. There is something wrong that we are not raising people who are thinking analytically, rationally, objectively. but we are raising people who are within the system, within the political system, and they will never be of good value to our society if we remain like that, because to be able to live in an environment where you will think your wishful thinking is what is happening, and so you start using rationalization in order to excuse yourself from actually performing, then this is a serious problem. And then part of the, I thought that part of my education was not only, it's not enough to teach students in classroom and undergraduate, but perhaps to have a program where I can focus on students and focus on bringing what I call a new elite within the Palestinian society. And in that, I was also shocked about Camp David, what happened at Camp David, because I thought that Palestinians are in a world different from the present world. And so they look like today, they dress like today, but their mentality is 10 centuries before Islam even. And the jahiliyyah, they live in the mentality and the thing that they do. It is more, it is action-reaction rather than to sit there and think and plan and strategically look ahead and try to be who they are. And that's why at the university, I came here on a Fulbright in the year 2001. It was in July, actually, before the September 11 events. And worked with Southern Illinois University to develop a program at American Studies. And then I made the program and then tried to get it through the university, approved. I don't want you to... I don't want to tell you about the problems we had to have that approved, because everybody thought that this is not an education program, but rather as if it is a propaganda, which is we have Israeli studies, we have Arab studies, we have Islamic studies. They didn't see that as propaganda, but they saw American studies as propaganda. But still, we started the program. And we actually, initially, we had 50 students apply to the program initially to show you an interest, a Palestinian interest to know about America. Basically, because they do not have the chance to come here. And they even never met Americans. They don't know anything about America. So they wanted to know. They wanted to know why America hates us, why America supports Israel, why America is the way it is, how come it is this global power. So they wanted to know more about America. But out of the... 50 people, only five people eventually succeeded. Why? Because the people at the university and the community actually told them, why are you taking American? This is a CIA program. And so they were afraid to take it. And some told them, this is not accredited. Don't take it. But five people managed to survive the first year. And actually they were excellent people and there was two young ladies who were teachers at high school and there was two people from the information technology and one from the media. The two young ladies from the education, one of them took one of the class about democracy and started it in her high school to teach them about democracy. What she's learning in the class, she was teaching in the high school. The other person from the media who was an ex-communist and he was in his mid-career, he was writing for Liyam. Actually, he was very pro-intifada, very pro-militarization of the intifada. And then he wrote an article, which I am very proud of. I didn't have anything to do with it before. But once I read it, I felt that we are accomplishing something. The article had a title, We Need a Palestinian Martin Luther King. So actually, I felt that we are offering these students an option about what is happening, and that's why our focus in this American Studies program is the mid-career people, people who are working with the policing authority but know nothing about America, never been to America, yet they are decision makers about things related to America. For instance, I went to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In the ministry, there are something like 30 to 35 people working on the European desk, and there are only four people working on the American desk. And the four people working on the American desk never been to the States, don't know anything about the States. So I was trying to convince the minister to have them take the program, which he was very willing to do. And he even wrote a letter to the U.S. consulate if they would give them scholarships, which the consulate said, we do not have funding for this. It did not happen. But basically, I think that this is part of our problem. Part of our problem is that how do we communicate to the United States? We have a very demonized image among university students about who are the maker and shakers, because they will be the future leaders. And at the same time, at now, they are very influential in Fatah groupings and Hamas groupings. And so the issue is that how can we make these people start to think rationally, objectively, to start to look at things in a distance and not to be emotional about their decisions, about how they make things. And that's why actually I'm here in the States for the next two weeks to try to talk to people about helping higher education, not only in general. I think that if we can focus on certain programs that we can build within the Palestinian community, That will pay in the end. That will help make us become more rational. When Arafat was being taken on the helicopter leaving to Paris, I went into the classroom and asked students, what do we think? Will Arafat come back? What is the scenarios that you put for Arafat? And I don't want you to tell me what your wishful think is, but rather to tell me according to the scenario, what is the conclusion you have? Is he going to come back? What is happening? And out of 14 people, students in the class, 10 students said he will not come back. Only four young women were very active with Fatah. One of them was presidential aide. said he will go have his medication and come back and resume things. And so I had good with them in the classroom. I said, okay, does Israel want him to come back? They said, no. Does the United States want him to come back? They said no. Does the Arab countries, would the Arab countries pressure the United States, pressure Israel to help him come back? They said no. So how is he going to come back? What is the scenario you have in your mind that he's coming back? And the answer was basically that's how it's going to happen without really thinking in terms of So, basically, when I told the story to Professor Sarirun Sebi, he said that I'm very shocked because I'm sure that if you would have asked that question in any other class, the 14 students would have said he's coming back. And so, yeah, and this is where he might, there might one think in terms of, you know, this program is becoming successful in at least having students these influential people within their community who are working with the preventive security or working with the president's office or working in the media, at least to use their mind to start to analyze, start to think in terms of rational actor model in which they could put alternatives and see which is more, which alternative is the best alternative. And I think this is what we need in our higher education system to move that system from the memorization stage to the analytical stage, evaluation stage, in which these people could evaluate, could analyze things rather than accumulate information.