When Peshwaz Saadulla Faizula arrived on campus last week, he was immediately struck by how different the University was from the schools in Iraq. No walls or barbed wire fences ran through campus, and he said he would call the University a city, not a school, because of its huge size.
Faizula was one of six Iraqi nationals to enroll in the University last week and one of the first Iraqis to come to the United States on a Fulbright Scholarship since former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein ordered the invasion of Kuwait in August 1990.
Christa Hansen, director of the University’s American English Institute, introduced four of the Iraqi scholars at a press conference in the EMU on Friday, explaining that they are all enrolled in her program in order to study English and American culture before continuing their academic studies.
Faizula, who wants to get a master’s degree in journalism before returning to Iraq, said he came to America because Iraq only has two journalism schools.
Ali Muhamad Hama Amin was born in Halabja, the site of Hussein’s 1988 chemical gassing that killed thousands of Kurdish civilians in Iraq. Hama Amin said he wants to study western medicine in order to return and help those suffering in Iraq.
Revan Jajjow Zora Hedo, a native of Baghdad who is away from Iraq for the first time, said he came to perfect his English so he can continue work translating Arabic into English.
But Hedo pointed out that he’s here to do more than learn.
“I think that the exchange of experience will be bilateral, not unilateral,” Hedo said. “I’m going to be given experiences here and of course I will tell the people I meet every day about our traditions, our conventions and the Iraqi people in general, because it’s a good thing.”
Muhammed Othman Muhammed agreed.
“It’s really good for people around the world to know who Iraq is and who Iraqis are, and it’s not like people know Iraq just from media,” Muhammed said. “We, as Iraqis, should tell them who we are and how we think.”
Faizula said many Americans think Iraq is uncivilized, adding that many Americans he meets are surprised to find out he has a DVD player at home in northern Iraq. He said many U.S. troops in Iraq were “totally ignorant” about Iraq, resulting in friendly fire incidents.
“‘We Kurds take you as our best friends,’ this is what everybody says back home,” Faizula said. “… And for the rest of Iraq there might be a different perspective. Some think the Americans are liberators, some think the Americans are invaders.”
Hama Amin said Hussein’s regime taught Iraqis to hate America for the last three and a half decades and that “these ideas need some time to be corrected.”
Hedo, who is from Baghdad, said Iraqis realized after “the liberation of Iraq” how deprived they were under Hussein’s regime.
“We used to be misled by the previous regime,” he said. “Especially about the United States and the western world in general.”
The men had different views on the future of Iraq.
Faizula said he’s not optimistic about the future because both Turkey and many of the Shiites oppose a federal system for the Kurds.
Muhammed said Iraq in five years will be heaven for him. He said Iraqis are thinking about business, raising children and developing their country instead of killing or destroying.
Two of the men said they want U.S. troops to remain in Iraq until the country is stable.
Faizula said pulling out is not practical and that the only thing holding the country together is the presence of an international force.
Hama Amin agreed, pointing out that Iraq has become the front line in America’s war on terror and that pulling out may bring the front line back to New York City or other American cities.
“I think Iraq can do it,” he said. “But, for the time being, they need help from others.”