The American University of Beirut was founded 155 years ago by the American priest Daniel Bliss, and its name was the Syrian Protestant College before it changed to the current one 100 years ago. Although the name and background of its founder was missionary work, it was always a secular institution. The teaching curriculum in its first year included Arabic, English, and French, Turkish, Latin, mathematics, ancient Arab history and the history of religions, including Judaism.
A year later, pharmacy and medicine became part of its curricula in which many elite graduated, some of whom became enlightened politicians. The university also contributed to making Beirut a publishing center in the region when it transferred its printing press from Malta. The university also followed high educational standards and values and a strict American curriculum, and was the first in the region to rely on the principles of critical thinking and open and diverse discussions without discrimination between students, with the support of its founder, priest Daniel Bliss.
With the collapse of the security, economic, social, political, and even moral situation in Lebanon, and the financial difficulties that the university is facing, its administration decided to close its doors, or move to another country, especially since there was no objection to the intention to close as this institution was not once a source of wealth for any of them as was the case with diesel, garbage collection, and soil plunder. With the spread of news of the intention to close, the name of Kuwait emerged at the top of the countries to move to, so officials were contacted and the idea was welcomed by them.
After exchanging bureaucratic correspondences and communications that lasted for months, the Kuwaiti Ministry of Higher Education set the following conditions for the university’s transfer: Changing its ancient name to become ‘Kuwait National University; segregation of students; allowing men to wear national dress; allowing females to wear the hijab and niqab; allocating specific colleges for cooking and home education for girls; allowing the opening of Islamic places of worship within its campus; preventing the study of critical thinking, and distorted dialectical theories such as the Darwin’s theory.
This is in allowing charities to open branches within the university; allocating 30% of the university’s majors to study religious sciences, Islamic only; restricting teaching to theoretical subjects and refusing to transfer the university hospital with it, because there is a full hospital in the fair ground and the necessity to obtain the approval of the Ministry of Information before holding any concerts and the approval of the Ministry of Interior for any debates as well as the approval of the Ministry of Commerce for any competitions. The university administration met in Beirut and decided, within seconds, to reject the conditions and to consider moving to another country.
Of course, the above statement is not true, but it is very close to reality. If any educational body at the level of the American University thought of transferring its activities to Kuwait, the forces of backwardness and darkness would be on the lookout, with the support of the representatives of ‘Give us money’. I do not know why I remembered Noah, as I finished this article, and the difficulties he would have faced, and how many licenses he had to extract before he hammered a single nail into the project to build his ‘Ark’ in Kuwait, and how the land would sink before the licenses were issued.
❑ ❑ ❑
e-mail:[email protected]
By Ahmad alsarraf
