Assailing University Professors: Dr. Ayyub Othman

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

The administration of Al-Azhar University in the Gaza Strip has decided to suspend Dr. Ayyub Othman from his work and halt his salary because of articles he published criticizing certain goings-on at the university. I have these articles in my possession and will provide them to the media. This is a repressive, punitive measure that has been repeated at more than one Palestinian university.

Here I set before our Palestinian people, and before people everywhere, the following observations regarding the conduct of most Palestinian university presidents and their boards of trustees:

First: based on my knowledge of most Palestinian universities in the West Bank and the Strip, and my following of the repression and punitive treatment to which university professors are subjected by university administrations, most universities appear to resemble security centers that instill terror and fear in the hearts of teachers and staff generally. A great many university professors do not dare to voice their opinions or express themselves freely, out of fear of university presidents and boards of trustees. The atmosphere in a number of universities resembles the atmosphere of terror that Arab intelligence services manufacture in Arab countries.

Second: most university presidents and heads of boards of trustees behave as though the universities were their own private farms, and the professors were livestock who must offer every possible form of flattery to please the master of the pen. I have known many of them, and have seen the arrogance in their speech and conduct, as though the Emperor of Rome had fallen at their feet — this despite the fact that some of them are academic and scientific failures who obtained their academic promotion through a political decision issued by the board of trustees.

Third: most universities are divided along factional, tribal, and perhaps even sectarian lines. There is no Palestinian university owned by the Palestinian people at home and abroad; rather, there are universities seized by powerful families or political factions, run in a tribal manner serving special interests that override the interests of the people. Even the academic process itself is subject to surveillance, and professors of the humanities and social sciences suffer because of it. A professor does not dare voice his opinion on a political, religious, or social matter, because he knows he will be called to account, whether directly by the university administration or by powerbrokers and security services outside the university. How many professors have been warned, cautioned, and “put through the wringer” because they mistakenly expressed themselves.

… some of them in academic life, forever wary of mistakes he might make.

Fifth: university administrations use salary to bring professors to their knees, to rein them in, and to paralyze their will and their minds. A considerable number of university professors have been dismissed from their jobs, and some have been suspended and had their salaries withheld. Some teachers were dismissed for moral reasons, which is understandable, but what cannot be understood is dismissal because of an opinion or a criticism of university administrations and boards of trustees. In this, most university administrations are no different from the Arab regimes that have long used salary as a means of pressure to turn employees into sheep or rabbits.

Salary is supposed to be sacred, and it is a disgrace to tamper with people’s livelihood and daily bread. When salary turns into a tool of enslavement, the teacher turns into a puppet.

Sixth: there is a clear disregard on the part of most university administrations for their teachers, as though they were begging for their livelihood — even though there are countries that would welcome many of them, at salaries far higher.

Seventh: there is a problem with the university professors themselves, in that the overwhelming majority of them do not try to defend themselves. There is submission and acceptance of repression, humiliation, and insult, and this must not continue. There are unions within the universities, but most of these unions flatter the university administrations rather than defend the dignity of the teachers. Indeed, some unions are complicit in humiliating teachers and staff in general.

I therefore call on those teachers who see in the professor’s freedom a fundamental building block of the homeland, and who see his dignity as part of the homeland’s dignity, to organize and to stand courageously in the face of administrations working to turn universities into something resembling security centers. No university president or head of a board of trustees is above criticism, and whoever among them claims divinity should show us his face. We must all press toward limiting a university president’s term to four years, renewable, with selection made by academics holding the rank of professor rather than by boards of trustees, and we must press for board of trustees membership to be based on merit rather than family or factional affiliation.

Let the professors rise, for this is a nation that has entered the age of revolution and dignity; and Palestine will be liberated by none but free men and women who raise a generation on pride and self-respect.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “التطاول على أساتذة الجامعات: د. أيوب عثمان” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.