A Salute to Baghdad College

Flipping through my photo album, I looked at my high school photos and remembered my friends and colleagues whom I miss a lot. Baghdad College, a high school that was founded by the Jesuits in 1932, was one of the most famous schools in Baghdad where appliers had to be subjected to a special IQ exam in order to join it. Graduating from this high school makes me feel so proud and grateful to all those who established it and taught and still teaching in it. My six years (1992-1998) of study in Baghdad College were the best times in my life. I gained knowledge in which not all the young men in my age were able to get. Unlike the other schools in Baghdad, Baghdad College was well-equipped and full of chemistry, biology, and physics laboratories, in addition to the English language practice laboratories, which were my favorite.
I don't have that huge thing to return the favor to this school except to mention how great it was in this blog and salute those who founded it.

In 1931 Jesuits were requested by Pope Pius XI (at the urging of the Chaldean Patriarch of Baghdad) to start schools in Baghdad. This they did, and more. In 1932 four Jesuits went to Baghdad and started a secondary school and then later in 1956 started another school Al Hikma University. Both came to a sudden halt in 1968 when the two schools were taken over by the Baathi Governemnt and the Jesuits expelled from the country. The Christians cherished the work of the Jesuits from the start and the earlier suspicions of Muslims dissolved once they realized that the Jesuits were not covertly trying to convert their sons but were offering them an excellent education. In fact Muslims are listed among the Jesuits' strongest supporters. They saw them as religious men whose only purpose was to take seriously Jesus' admonition to serve others. That service came in the form of education. Muslims and Christians alike came to realize that the Jesuits introduced to the Baghdad community unanticipated intellectual, spiritual and social benefits.

The most interesting part of the Baghdad College and Al-Hikma story does not concern buildings, curricula or huge campuses but concerns rather the people that built and used these creations. It still is the students, their families, the Jesuits and their colleagues that make us remember that "fleeting wisp of glory" with such emotion. This story of the Baghdad Jesuit adventure, which is related in Jesuits by the Tigris , focuses on the interaction between young American Jesuits and youthful Iraqi citizens and their families. Starting in 1932 it grew into a strong bond of affection and respect.

Much more than other Jesuits in their American schools the "Baghdadi" Jesuits entered the family lives of their students frequently and intimately through home visits to celebrate Muslim and Christian feast days as well as a myriad of social events, both happy and sad. There was much more than ordinary student-teacher bonding. On campus the Jesuits participated in games, debates, drama, contests, athletic events almost as much as the students. Jesuits became enthusiastic about their Iraqi charges when they noticed early on that there was a great affinity between these Iraqi students and themselves. Jesuits found the Iraqi students warm, hospitable, humorous, imaginative, receptive, hard-working and appreciative of educational opportunities. This story presents evidence that the Iraqis found the Jesuits happy, fun-loving and dedicated.

As the years went on Iraqis increasingly liked them and were proud of the two schools as part of the Iraqi scene. Each of the many government crises were opportunities for successive governments to force the Jesuits to leave. The fact that they were always allowed to continue is testimony to how widely Jesuits had been accepted. The exception was the Baathi coup in 1968. In spite of the Jesuits' strenuous efforts to remain in Iraq, they joined the long line of Jesuits in various lands at various times who were expelled from their adopted country.

A remarkable phenomenon is the number of biennial reunions of the Jesuits and their graduates. Why do hundreds of middle aged Iraqis spend long weekends every two years with post middle age American Jesuits in order to celebrate two schools from which Jesuits were dismissed 25 years ago? Why have two and a half decades not dimmed memories of activities and routines of everyday school life? Why has the hostility between Iraq and the United States not weakened the bonds of friendship between these Iraqi students and their American teachers - not even frayed them? First time visitors to these reunions find the excitement, the enjoyment and the camaraderie of both parties beyond belief. This book is an attempt to explain this latter phenomenon as well as to respond to an alumni request for a record of the Jesuit Baghdad adventure which they can pass on to their children.

The Jesuits, themselves, were sensitive to the needs of the Iraqi churches and offered a great deal of pastoral assistance outside of their classrooms. Their primary reason for being educators in Iraq was to help rejuvenate the native church. The Jesuits intended to strengthen the Christians in the practice of their faith in a Muslim world; they welcomed Muslim students also - it would have been unthinkable not to. In this educational setting these Christians and Muslims got to know one another intimately. In this context also the Christians developed a patriotism and pride in a society of which they were a part.

*The arrival of the Jesuits in 1932, the start of World War II in 1941, the start of the Republic in 1958 and the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1969.


Note: The source of the background is: http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/jmac/bag/bag.htm

Another thing!! While I was navigating in the web, I found a poem by an Iraqi graduate of the Baghdad College, Dr Sabah Aris. The poem is amazing and so moving to the extent it made feel i am the one speaking.

The Legend of Baghdad College
By Dr Sabah Aris

At Christmas time, I was back Home

Where the past has slept, and memories roam,

Where the Palm Trees stand,

With Graceful pride, That hides the pain,

They have inside,

I remembered when, from the cup of knowledge,

I came to drink,

And of a place we know,

I began to think,

Where the lessons of life,

I once have learned,

So, to Baghdad College, I now returned,

The streets were dark,

Yet I could see,

My withered desk, At Class, One E

As I moved my hand, to touch the walls

I felt the bricks, begin to cry,

As neither of us,

Could say Goodbye…

The years will pass, and the walls will fall,

Yet the BC Legend, will stand up tall,

And always live, in you and I

For legends born,

Will never die …