NP - Learn Your Syria

[eburns at gmail.com]

You forgot their biggest, foulest crime: inventing Algebra.
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-----Original Message-----
From: Joe Allonby <joeallonby at gmail.com>
Sender: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org
Date: Thu, 12 Sep 2013 14:34:45 
To: Joseph Tracy<brook7 at sover.net>
Cc: P-list List<pynchon-l at waste.org>
Subject: Re: NP - Learn Your Syria

Nope. Can't process that. Arabs live in tents, wear sheets, and ride
camels except when they are driving Mercedes. All Arabs are Muslims
and all Muslims are Arabs including the Sikhs. They all hate America
because they hate our freedom and our Lord. They can not possibly have
universities. If they did, why would they all be going to BU and
double-parking their Mercedes on Comm Ave?


On Thu, Sep 12, 2013 at 1:24 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
> Though it dos not serve as a justification for all Baathist activities, it is important in the often racist implications of Western characterization of  Gulf  peoples, to consider some comparison to former British or French  or other colonial rule in Baathist regions. One area that is stunning is education. One researcher covering Iraq found that the average  yearly graduation from the equivalent of High school under British rule was about 50 Iraqis. Very few went to universities.  The transition in Syria was very similar.
>
>   Under the Baathists and Saddam according to Wikipedia
>
> The Golden Years:1970-1984
> Iraq’s education system was one of the best in the region during this period of time, and highly praised throughout. By 1984, major accomplishments had been achieved, which include but are not limited to:
> • Gross Enrollment Rates rising over 100%
> • Almost complete gender parity in enrollment
> • Illiteracy among 15-45 age group declined to less than 10%
> • Dropout/Repetition rates were the lowest in the Middle East and North Africa [MENA] region
> • Spending in Education reached 6% of Gross National Product [GNP] and 20% of Iraq’s total government budget
> • The average government spending per student for education was ~$620
> The Decline Years: 1984-1989
> The 1980s brought about the war with Iran, which in turn led to a diversion of public resources towards military spending. Naturally, this resulted in a steep decline in overall social spending. With this, the education budget suffered from a deficit, which continued to grow as the years passed. There was also no strategic plan in place to address these issues at the time.
> The Crisis Years: 1990-2003
> Moreover, the 1990s brought about the first Gulf War and economic sanctions, which caused Iraq’s educational institutions to debilitate further. Some of the outcomes of the weakening system included but are not limited to:
> • The share of education in the Gross National Product [GNP] dropped to almost half, resting at 3.3% in 2003
>
>
> Education was provided by the government through a centrally organized school system. In the early 1980s, the system included a six-year primary (or elementary) level known as the first level. The second level, also of six years, consisted of an intermediate-secondary and an intermediate-preparatory, each of three years. Graduates of these schools could enroll in a vocational school, one of the teacher training schools or institutes, or one of the various colleges, universities, or technical institutes.
> The number of students enrolled in primary and secondary schools was highest in the central region and lowest in the north, although the enrollment of the northern schools was only slightly lower than that of the south. Before the war, the government had made considerable gains in lessening the extreme concentration of primary and secondary educational facilities in the main cities, notably Baghdad. Vocational education, which had been notoriously inadequate in Iraq, received considerable official attention in the 1980s. The number of students in technical fields had increased threefold since 1977, to over 120,090 in 1986.
>
> The decline of Saddam and the Baathists in establishing an educated middle class society began when they went to war with Iran with great support from the US.
>
>
> On Sep 12, 2013, at 9:31 AM, Joe Allonby wrote:
>
>> Little mention of Baathism until the last paragraph. Western media and
>> the general population seem so hung up on the various scary religious
>> factions in the Middle East that they ignore the pan-Arabic
>> nationalist and nominally socialist movement that has dominated much
>> of Arab politics for the last eighty years or so.
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Sep 12, 2013 at 9:01 AM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> http://www.juancole.com/2013/09/americans-theyre-threaten.html
>>>
>>> Ambrose Bierce is said to be the author of the saying “War is God’s way of
>>> teaching Americans geography.” Despite the vigorous national debate about
>>> intervening in Syria, there is some reason to think that most Americans
>>> could not find it on a map. Here are some key points about Syria that this
>>> blog has been trying to underline.
>