BAGHDAD — The post-Saddam era has brought both new opportunities and heightened insecurity to Iraqi youths — refurbished schools and freedom of expression mixed with violence in the streets, energy shortages and suddenly unemployed parents.
On a recent day at a girls high school in Baghdad, 16-year-old Assil Hazem was brooding over violence and death instead of grumbling about homework or giggling with friends.
“In class, I can’t concentrate at all,” she said, draped in the black veil of mourning for a cousin killed in a recent roadside bombing directed at American soldiers.
“At night, I can’t sleep very well because of the explosions nearby,” she said. “I’m scared all the time. Even though I’m around people, I feel always alone.”
Educators, confronting a dilapidated public school system corrupted by more than two decades of Saddam Hussein’s ultranationalist ideology, say they are too overwhelmed with revising the tainted curriculum and ripping pictures of the deposed dictator out of textbooks to focus resources on troubled children.
They also must upgrade neglected infrastructure, reform the bureaucracy and train teachers.
“There are many difficulties that face the education system,” said A’la Alwan, the new minister of education. “This is one of them,” he said when asked about the troubles of the youths.
Naseer Kamel Chaderji, a member of the U.S.-backed Iraqi Governing Council, likened the spiritual crisis among the young to a postdictatorship hangover that will lift with time.
He said the students who had been “taught that everything was about Saddam” now feel emptiness inside. “We must bring new things to fill this emptiness, like democracy, love of country, love of others, peace and pacifism,” he said.
For Assil and her classmates at the Fatmeh Zahra Secondary School for Girls in the al-Dora section of Baghdad, the troubles began three months ago with the abduction of a neighborhood boy for ransom. The kidnappers demanded $40,000 from the boy’s family, threatening to grab his sister as well.
The terrified family paid the ransom and prohibited their daughter from going to school. The incident set off a wave of panic among parents, teachers and students. Now, a guard with an assault rifle is posted at the school’s entrance.
Winter’s chill — with temperatures dipping to as low as 40 degrees in Baghdad — has brought a whole new set of problems for Iraqi students and children. Because of smuggling and sabotage, supplies of kerosene and heating oil have dwindled while prices have skyrocketed.
The U.S.-backed coalition, which has begun a project to repaint and rebuild many of Iraq’s schools, supplied electric heaters to many. But Iraq’s overtaxed electrical grid has only deteriorated since school began in the fall — bringing power for only a few hours a day — and students and teachers often sit in class bundled in overcoats and hats.
“All the girls suffer because there is no electricity,” said Principal Hoda Wahid Abdul-Kareem al-Ani. “There is no fuel or oil, and the weather is very cold in Iraq these days. Many girls become sick.”
School psychologist Samira Wahar said there have been marked increases in absenteeism, tardiness and lack of concentration among her students, especially since a U.S. bombing operation called Iron Grip was resumed just before Christmas.
On some nights the skies over al-Dora erupt with supersonic airplanes, artillery shells and antitank fire.
“Because of the bombardment, they either don’t come to class or they show up and start crying that they can’t go to class,” she said.
The death of Hussein Fa’ez, Assil’s cousin, further traumatized the students. The cabdriver was waiting in his car in one of the city’s long gas-station lines when a roadside bomb aimed at a U.S. Army convoy exploded. A piece of shrapnel from the bomb punctured Mr. Fa’ez’s neck, and he bled to death. He was 22.
Students say school doesn’t offer them much sanctuary from life’s troubles. “The teachers have bigger problems than we do,” said Sara Abed, 14. “Among our friends, all we talk about in school is bad news from this friend or that friend.”
While students and teachers say the Dec. 13 capture of Saddam brought joy, wonder and laughter to the school, they add that for children, at least, life was better under the former president.
“We used to go on school field trips, out for food, out on the streets,” Sara said. “Now, we can’t go to cinemas, we can’t go to restaurants. We never go out at all. I feel like all my days are disappearing.”
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