simsim elmasry
17-02-2012, 08:53 AM
http://www.thedailybeast.com/content/newsweek/2012/02/12/can-libya-s-schools-unlearn-gaddafi-s-miseducation/_jcr_content/body/inlineimage.img.jpg/1329251350658.jpg
This school in Misrata shows little evidence of the devastation that has made it the most war-wrecked city in Libya, but the country’s psychic scars are everywhere., Davide Monteleone / VII for Newsweek
The prisoner’s confused gaze flits from one captor to the next as they bellow and shriek at him. He had
red marks on his forehead and a swollen eye. Tufts of feathery gray hair surround his head like a badly drawn halo. He sits on the edge of his chair and attempts a conciliatory smile. It’s no use. The captors break into song, angrily clapping in time. “With our souls, our blood, we sacrifice ourselves for you, our leader,” they snarl. The man’s lips move, almost imperceptibly. It’s a song he wrote, a paean to Muammar Gaddafi (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/12/31/muammar-gaddafi-s-daughter-hires-an-israeli-lawyer-to-push-for-investigation.html). His name is Ahmed Ibrahim; he was the Libyan dictator’s minister of education. “Come on!” one of the men yells in his face. “Join in!” Ahmed Ibrahim lowers his eyes, and the side of his mouth twitches. He is emaciated, weak. His jailers didn’t even bother to tie him up.
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The video ends, and Anwar Suwan slips his cellphone back into his pocket. The marks on Ibrahim’s forehead, the bruised eye—did his captors beat him? “Of course we beat him!” the militia commander exclaims. “Do you know who Ahmed Ibrahim really was? A close relative of Gaddafi—killed people arbitrarily, threw them into prison holes where they would never see the sun again.” He makes a gesture of contempt. “We put him in a cage in the prison yard,” he says, smiling. “Whenever anybody enters, he has to bark.” Suwan laughs. “We beat them all, don’t worry. And we beat Ahmed Ibrahim extra hard. We need to know where he stashed away his money.”
No one can say when or if Libya (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/01/19/u-n-ambassador-susan-rice-s-blunt-style-unusual-but-effective-on-libya.html) will ever recover from Gaddafi’s 42-year reign (http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/galleries/2011/10/23/libya-life-after-gaddafis-death-photos.html) of psychosis. It’s not just a matter of the untold thousands who were imprisoned, tortured, and killed in those four decades, although that in itself remains a staggering social problem. Today the country is full of armed men like Suwan who live to settle those old scores—or worse, those who now see their chance to grab a share of the power that Gaddafi and his men once misused. Militias that once fought together against the regime are now battling each other for control of a road junction, a building, a rural airfield. But there’s another, quieter struggle: if you look around, you see people trying to heal a mangled society. Whether they can do it remains to be seen.
“Our goal is change from the inside out,” says the seminar leader. She’s dressed in skinny jeans, sequined ballerina flats, and a light-colored hijab—no makeup. Women her mother’s age sit in a semicircle around her. “We need to remove everything negative left over from the last regime,” she says, and begins writing a list of class rules on the blackboard: “(1) Respect the new system. (2) Turn off cellphones. (3) Talk directly, not secretively.” She’s been sent here by the Tripoli City Council to help retrain the teachers at one of the city’s most venerable schools, Jalaa Elementary. Not far away is Martyrs’ Square, where the revolution hit the capital a year ago.
Much of what the instructor says may smack of self-help platitudes, but the women listen raptly. “First of all, one needs to know oneself,” she tells them. Schools in Gaddafi’s Libya were all about following instructions, never about thinking for yourself. Now the time has come to loosen the ropes. “If you disagree with anything, you have to speak up,” the instructor says. “Silence is participating in negativity.” She dashes back to the blackboard to write down the basis of democracy: “The right to disagree and solve conflict without fighting.” One by one, the women share their thoughts on the importance of free speech. “In other countries, they show everything on TV, the bad stuff too,” says one in a Gucci-inspired hijab. “We shouldn’t feel shame over such things.”
Another teacher speaks up. She wears a crocheted cellphone purse over her shoulder, in the new Libyan colors: red, black, and green. “This country was hostile to children,” she says. “Asking questions is a child’s nature. Questions were forbidden. Now both they and we have to start asking questions.” She pauses. “The wonderful thing is, for the first time in my life, I can sit in a group and speak my mind freely.” The instructor beams. “See? The course is already bearing fruit,” she says. “Remember! We have freedom now! Do not hesitate! To solve the problems, we need to talk our way through them!”
THIS TOPIC FROM
http://www.neworientnews.com/news/files/news/newsweek_logolo-20111111-114409.gif
This school in Misrata shows little evidence of the devastation that has made it the most war-wrecked city in Libya, but the country’s psychic scars are everywhere., Davide Monteleone / VII for Newsweek
The prisoner’s confused gaze flits from one captor to the next as they bellow and shriek at him. He had
red marks on his forehead and a swollen eye. Tufts of feathery gray hair surround his head like a badly drawn halo. He sits on the edge of his chair and attempts a conciliatory smile. It’s no use. The captors break into song, angrily clapping in time. “With our souls, our blood, we sacrifice ourselves for you, our leader,” they snarl. The man’s lips move, almost imperceptibly. It’s a song he wrote, a paean to Muammar Gaddafi (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/12/31/muammar-gaddafi-s-daughter-hires-an-israeli-lawyer-to-push-for-investigation.html). His name is Ahmed Ibrahim; he was the Libyan dictator’s minister of education. “Come on!” one of the men yells in his face. “Join in!” Ahmed Ibrahim lowers his eyes, and the side of his mouth twitches. He is emaciated, weak. His jailers didn’t even bother to tie him up.
(http://ad.doubleclick.net/click%3Bh%3Dv8/3c1e/3/0/%2a/t%3B252935624%3B0-0%3B1%3B65220184%3B4307-300/250%3B46406000/46422888/1%3B%3B%7Eaopt%3D2/1/3/1%3B%7Esscs%3D%3fhttp://www.vimeo.com/awards?utm_source=dailybeast&utm_medium=banner&utm_content=300x250&utm_campaign=vfa)
The video ends, and Anwar Suwan slips his cellphone back into his pocket. The marks on Ibrahim’s forehead, the bruised eye—did his captors beat him? “Of course we beat him!” the militia commander exclaims. “Do you know who Ahmed Ibrahim really was? A close relative of Gaddafi—killed people arbitrarily, threw them into prison holes where they would never see the sun again.” He makes a gesture of contempt. “We put him in a cage in the prison yard,” he says, smiling. “Whenever anybody enters, he has to bark.” Suwan laughs. “We beat them all, don’t worry. And we beat Ahmed Ibrahim extra hard. We need to know where he stashed away his money.”
No one can say when or if Libya (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/01/19/u-n-ambassador-susan-rice-s-blunt-style-unusual-but-effective-on-libya.html) will ever recover from Gaddafi’s 42-year reign (http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/galleries/2011/10/23/libya-life-after-gaddafis-death-photos.html) of psychosis. It’s not just a matter of the untold thousands who were imprisoned, tortured, and killed in those four decades, although that in itself remains a staggering social problem. Today the country is full of armed men like Suwan who live to settle those old scores—or worse, those who now see their chance to grab a share of the power that Gaddafi and his men once misused. Militias that once fought together against the regime are now battling each other for control of a road junction, a building, a rural airfield. But there’s another, quieter struggle: if you look around, you see people trying to heal a mangled society. Whether they can do it remains to be seen.
“Our goal is change from the inside out,” says the seminar leader. She’s dressed in skinny jeans, sequined ballerina flats, and a light-colored hijab—no makeup. Women her mother’s age sit in a semicircle around her. “We need to remove everything negative left over from the last regime,” she says, and begins writing a list of class rules on the blackboard: “(1) Respect the new system. (2) Turn off cellphones. (3) Talk directly, not secretively.” She’s been sent here by the Tripoli City Council to help retrain the teachers at one of the city’s most venerable schools, Jalaa Elementary. Not far away is Martyrs’ Square, where the revolution hit the capital a year ago.
Much of what the instructor says may smack of self-help platitudes, but the women listen raptly. “First of all, one needs to know oneself,” she tells them. Schools in Gaddafi’s Libya were all about following instructions, never about thinking for yourself. Now the time has come to loosen the ropes. “If you disagree with anything, you have to speak up,” the instructor says. “Silence is participating in negativity.” She dashes back to the blackboard to write down the basis of democracy: “The right to disagree and solve conflict without fighting.” One by one, the women share their thoughts on the importance of free speech. “In other countries, they show everything on TV, the bad stuff too,” says one in a Gucci-inspired hijab. “We shouldn’t feel shame over such things.”
Another teacher speaks up. She wears a crocheted cellphone purse over her shoulder, in the new Libyan colors: red, black, and green. “This country was hostile to children,” she says. “Asking questions is a child’s nature. Questions were forbidden. Now both they and we have to start asking questions.” She pauses. “The wonderful thing is, for the first time in my life, I can sit in a group and speak my mind freely.” The instructor beams. “See? The course is already bearing fruit,” she says. “Remember! We have freedom now! Do not hesitate! To solve the problems, we need to talk our way through them!”
THIS TOPIC FROM
http://www.neworientnews.com/news/files/news/newsweek_logolo-20111111-114409.gif