Barefoot,
uneducated and trapped
Commentary
by JoELLEN COLLINS
Imagine
yourself a 12-year-old girl. You have never set foot inside this dusty
building, a simple structure made of dried mud and consisting of two small
rooms. It is barren by any standards, yet its forbidden treasures beckon
more surely than the treasures of King Tut. On a table at the front of the
rooms are a couple of books ¾ books you have never been allowed to open.
There is a young woman standing at the door to welcome you and your
sisters to this hallowed cubicle. You are swept with a new set of
feelings: anticipation, some slight trepidation, even a tingle of joy,
and, yes, something really alien, a burst of an emotion that only can be
labeled a scent of freedom. You are in Afghanistan and this is a school.
It is your first day, March 24, 2002.
I do not
intend to wallow publicly in the sentiment that engulfed me when I heard
that Afghani children ¾ girls included ¾ were beginning the first day of
the first semester of school in most of their lives. I have to restrain my
tendency to read beauty into everything, to be optimistic in the face of
devastation. One must not forget the hideous price paid for the tiny
triumphs resulting from war or other disasters. Better to try to eliminate
the need for these small victories: better to have never had war first.
David Remnik, in the Oct. 15 edition of The New Yorker, said it best:
"It is indecent to look for the good in an act of mass murder."
However, as
a teacher and lover of children and all things positive in this world, I
can at least exult in the resurgence of a right for Afghani girls that we
may just take for granted in this country. In the midst of brutality and
death and the kind of deprivation that most Americans, even post Sept. 11,
can never comprehend, a ray of light is peeping though the debris.
A cartoon
published shortly after Sept. 11 and sent to me on the Internet showed a
cowering Osama bin Laden. He was being told that women formerly under
Taliban rule would now be educated, a concept which, in the context of the
illustration, he knew would be his downfall. More surely than weapons,
more surely than brutality, this reality promised the death of repression
and his twisted ideals. Women? Educated? What a frightening concept!
When
Cambodia's Pol Pot systematically executed teachers and those who wore
glasses or spoke French (signs of education), he was acting out of a kind
of mad insecurity. Like most dictators, he feared the reality that
educated people pose a threat to the stability of a repressive regime. In
the extreme, his paranoia led to genocide. It is true that before long,
most people who have been exposed to learning want more. They want, for
example, to speak freely, to express their objections to the practices of
their leaders. In George Orwell's "Animal Farm," the pigs have
taken over the farm issue edicts which they know will be considered gospel
truth because the other animals are so uneducated. Thus, when they find
sleeping in the farmhouse delightful, they change the commandment
"Thou shall not sleep on a bed" to "Thou shall not sleep
upon a bed without sheets," and no one complains.
Our
country's founders foresaw the value of education and established public
schools. It is a tribute to the strength of our democracy that we have
survived massive protests and criticism, may, indeed have grown stronger
with a more educated citizenry. It may well be that the more freedom we
have, the more we have protected our democracy. Thank god we don't execute
dissenters.
So, as an
American and a teacher, I am proud of our often flawed but always
available system of public education. There were times when I was a high
school teacher that I bewailed my ever reaching the minds of my captive
audiences. There were also times I felt burdened by my overwhelming
responsibility to be energetic and fresh and patient in the face of huge
classes, hundreds of compositions to correct, and students who were less
than eager to be required to sit in my classroom. But I never, ever
thought my charges didn't deserve the best I could give. This is the
responsibility of educators in a free society.
I am
reminded of the time I returned to the ashes of my home in the hillsides
of Malibu many years ago, after it and more than 200 other homes were
destroyed by a brush fire. As I approached the charred half acre, which
had held all of my family records and history, I was nonetheless struck by
something across the street. In its rush to consume the materials upon
which it fed, the fire had skipped a small item, or perhaps a pocket of
wind had created a bubble in which an object remained. There, on the edge
of my neighbor's former front steps, was a pot of geraniums, still a mix
of vivid terra cotta, green leaves and red petals against the backdrop of
blackened earth.
May those
young minds in Afghanistan bloom as well, small signs of hope in the midst
of terror.