When Violence Comes To Campus

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The biggest danger is that in the process, the radicals will succeed in igniting simmering ethnic and religious tensions—and mirror the divisions already apparent outside the university walls. Sectarian groups were barred from running for student-union elections earlier this year, but many simply set up parallel "committees" that carry greater clout than the elected unions. At Mustansiriya University, there are two "committees" representing Shi'ites—radical cleric al-Sadr is particularly popular—and a third is backed by Sunni students. All three routinely celebrate religious events on campus, plaster walls with posters depicting their respective religious leaders and conduct campaigns urging students to adopt "Islamic" clothing and behavior. "It's a grave problem," says Sami Mudaffar, Iraq's Minister for Higher Education. "And it's going to need unusual solutions." He's proposing, for instance, to allow a limited number of religious ceremonies on campus—provided that they include all sects. But many teachers feel the universities should be strictly secular. Geology professor Ihsan al-Rawi, president of the Association of University Teachers, warns that "the religion that is being brought into the campus by these groups is the religion of hate."

Some students have had enough. At Basra University, there have been several huge demonstrations calling for the expulsion of religious and political groups from campus. In Baghdad, friends of Masar Sarhan al-Rubaiyi are worried that the sectarian riots sparked by his death will overshadow a more positive legacy: in April 2003, as looters ransacked government offices and universities across the city, al-Rubaiyi and a few friends grabbed some weapons and headed for his college, determined to save it from the pillagers. They arrived late but fought their way through the mobs and managed to save most of the library by piling the books onto a dump truck and taking them to a nearby mosque for safekeeping. "Masar turned into a hero that day," says Salam Waheed, a teaching assistant at the college. "There was no student anywhere in Baghdad who did not know his name." Iraq needs his classmates to remember it for the right reasons. -With reporting by Yousif M. Basil/Baghdad