Afghan President Says Jihadists Have No Place in Universities

Afghan President Hamed Karzai has called on students to refrain from party politics and stressed that discrimination and prejudice do not have a place in Afghanistan’s universities. Addressing students and lecturers of a number of Kabul universities, he warned against favouritism and government interference in academic institutions. The following are excerpts from Karzai’s speech, broadcast by National Afghanistan television on 26 May 07; subheadings inserted editorially:

[Karzai, in Dari] [Greetings omitted] I have been talking to the minister of higher education for a long time about having the opportunity to sit and talk with the esteemed lecturers and dear students of Kabul universities. I have a lot to say about the value and significance of higher education in Afghanistan. I want to share my thoughts with you, and if time allows, hear your thoughts.

I am glad to see that we have lecturers and students from different higher education institutions here today.

There is a slogan written down there I do not know if those sitting at the back can see it or not which says Knowledge is Power. This is very true.

We have witnessed the opposite in our country. We were not powerful because we did not have higher education and did not have the opportunity for education and growth.

The damage of the thirty years of disaster in Afghanistan, the interferences, the invasions of our soil, and the conspiracies that others tried to implement in our soil, and all the other damage that we suffered as a result of invasions, and open and hidden conspiracies, were all because of our inability, and our inability was because of the lack of academic and higher education in our country. [Passage omitted]

Universities no place for discrimination

Then where do start? First, the university is a place for learning and gaining knowledge. It is not a place for tribal and linguistic discrimination. I specifically address university lecturers throughout the country.

Dear brothers and sisters,

Those sitting in front of you, as the young generation of this country, are like blank sheets of paper. They will learn new things, just as you write something on a blank piece of paper. You should not push them towards linguistic or tribal discrimination. [Applause]

Teach and educate them. Talk to them about what they are sitting in the class for, whether it is Islamic shari’ah, literature, physics, geometry, the arts, or whatever other field of human endeavour.

I am aware, brothers and sisters, that we have such rivalries in our universities. Whoever spreads such rivalries in fact imposes oppression on his own children and on this country.

[Karzai switches to Pasto] You reap what you sow.

[Back to Dari] Secondly, tribal or regional discrimination: no country has developed or progressed until it started thinking beyond these issues.

So, my first wish, and the first condition for success, is establishing a healthy atmosphere for education in this country.

Every human, especially the people of Afghanistan, have the right to enjoy proper higher education. We should not only think as an individual Afghan, but as a member of the bigger community of humanity, and think beyond these issues. We should be better humans, and a good human being is not someone with discriminatory thoughts. A person with higher and lofty thoughts and ethics can never be prejudiced.

A discriminatory person falls and goes towards destruction, not towards higher positions and a brighter future.

I hope the Higher Education Ministry, and our universities, prepare the grounds for a proper academic atmosphere with high ethics, free of the language of tribal discrimination. I will take this promise and commitment to you on this issue to heart at the end of my speech.

Jihadists should leave universities alone

Second, today, Afghanistan, with the grace of God, is a country enjoying democracy with organs and departments that help develop democracy.

The university is not the place for party or political rivalry. There are parties all over the world, and all those parties make efforts, but they make efforts within society. They let their young people to learn and get educated, and start a life. After they complete their education and start their life, they can then vote or join any party or take up any ideology that they like.

I hope Afghan political parties leave universities alone to educate and gain knowledge. They should first let our young people become very good engineers, architects, doctors, economists, poets or painters. After they became doctors and are strong enough to serve themselves and their society, these parties can then come and tell the person about their party and their objectives for Afghanistan, and then they can invite them to join their party. If they accept, very well, but if not, they might go to another party.

I specifically address our jihadi parties here. They should not use the atmosphere of universities for their political rivalries. Every single minute that a student thinks about these [political] issues is in fact a year that the people of Afghanistan miss. Every single minute that a student wastes on these issues in fact wastes one year of the people of Afghanistan.

Politics in the developed world is aimed at improving the condition of life, and not aimed at creating rivalry or gaining power by toppling someone else.

I address the students here: teachers can join parties, even students can do so, but the university is not the place for political disputes. It is a place for knowledge.

I was a student in India for five years. It was not a big university then, but now it has become a very big one. I did not hear anything about political parties in the five years that I was studying at my university. India is a country with the most developed political parties in the world. They have political parties which were founded in the 19th century and were working for the independence of India. There is the Congress Party, the Muslim League, and others. I did not see the flag of any party even for one day at our university. I did not see any demonstration for or against any political party there.

In contrast, the level of education was very low where we were refugees in Pakistan because of the political rivalries in universities.

America, which is the strongest country of the world today, has two famous political parties, the Republicans and Democrats. You can never see a sign of activities of these parties at any university in America. Have you ever heard that someday the American Republican Party goes to a university to hold a party meeting? Never. They work inside society.

According to the constitution, you of course have the right to carry out political activities, but please avoid party rivalries in universities. It is better for your own future.

If I say something now, those who were members of political parties in our times will get angry.

When we were in Habibia High School, I swear to God, intelligent and good students did not join parties. Only lazy students joined political parties. Tell me if I am wrong. Khalq and Parcham [two factions of the Communist Party] were very active then. Intelligent students would stick to their lessons, but those who failed their exams turned to parties. [Passage omitted]

Lecturers should be honoured

Now, our university lecturers enjoy higher salaries even than the lecturers of some neighbouring countries. Am I right, minister of higher education? Their salaries are higher, but owing to high prices, this has not been very useful. But their salaries have increased compared with the past. Salaries should be high. Lecturers of Afghanistan’s universities should enjoy the highest position and should be held in high esteem.

University lecturers enjoyed a very high position and honour in Afghanistan in the past. Their position was considered even higher than ministers or MPs. All the people wanted to marry their daughters to university lecturers when they first started working as a lecturer. [Laughter]

It was because lecturers enjoyed a very honourable life. I hope this happens again, and we have more young and educated lecturers. Another important issue, our very dear and elder lecturers are sitting here. Afghanistan also needs to respect elders, something it has failed to do for whatever reason in the past. [Passage omitted: Karzai handing out awards; then a lecturer saying the minister of higher education and even the head of a university faculty should all be appointed through elections]

Government interference in academic affairs “destroys knowledge”

The former minister of higher education, Mr Fayez is sitting here. He is one of my close friends and I am glad I can see him here. He had started the process of elections in the academic cadres of universities, but I do not know what happened with it. I do not know if I should interfere in your affairs or not. I had noted down a point here, but forgot to mention it. Let me briefly speak about it and then you can speak.

Government interference in academic affairs destroys knowledge. Kabul University was once one of the best universities of the region because no-one could be admitted to the university because of to personal relations or fake documents during the university entrance exams. Even the president could not help someone get into the university or get admission at a faculty. The president could not give a recommendation letter to a student to be shifted from one faculty to another.

We have discussed this with the minister of higher education issue at cabinet level several times.

In front of students and lecturers, I would like to tell you not to accept recommendations in academic affairs from any source, even if it is the president or anyone else. If you accepted it, Afghanistan will not have higher education and our young people will not be properly educated.

The only way is exams and the talent of the student. [Applause]

I have told the minister of higher education in cabinet meetings that he would never see any recommendation from my side about anyone because I consider it as repressing the future of Afghanistan. We should therefore try to be very fair in university entrance exams. This is the only way through which we can save higher education in Afghanistan.

The issue of elections among university lecturers is your own decision. Mr Fayez had previously decided this and it happened. But the condition is that the elections should be based on academic and management talents, not based on political inclinations. This is very important.

It should not be in a way that the head of a university is elected from, say, the Hezb-e Eslami party because members of that party voted in higher numbers. It should not be in a case that the head of your faculty is elected from Jamiat-e Eslami party, because that party has a higher number of followers, which they do by the grace of God. The same thing applies to the Khalq or Parcham parties, as they have resumed their activities.

This is the condition. There should be no tribal inclinations. There should not be a case that if you have around 50 university lecturers from Kandahar Province, the dean of the university would also be elected from Kandahar. Elections should be academic. The best lecturer with the best management skills would be the right option and he could help improve the condition of the universities. [Passage omitted: Karzai answers students concerns about lack of equipment, etc.]

(c) 2007 BBC Monitoring South Asia. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.