The Guardian of Liberty - Nemzetőr, 1984 (7. évfolyam, 1-6. szám)

1984-01-01 / 1. szám

AFGHANISTAN When Party Activists Become Professors... P olitical orthodoxy, as understood by the Soviet invaders of Afghanistan and the Russian-imposed Afghan regime led by Babrak Karmai, has replaced academic ability as the main qualification for appointments at Kabul University, according to two former professors who fled the country recently. Teaching staff who refuse to toe the Soviet line are intimidated and eventually forced out by the regime’s Marxist party, the People Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA). Professor Fazl-e-Rahman Rahimi and Profes­sor Mohammed Qassem Yousufi, who were members of the Faculty of Agriculture, decid­ed to leave Afghanistan when political pres­sures became intolerable. Professor Rahimi said in Peshawar, Pakistan, recently that 35 out of his faculty's 47 teaching staff had taken refuge in other countries. Their posts had been filled by unqualified young members of PDPA. „First-class graduat­es are now wandering the streets of Pesha­war as refugees," he said, „while third-class students are teachers and professors." The changes in Afghanistan’s most important centre of higher education are part of the Soviet drive to indoctrinate and Sovietise the younger generation of Afghans from which future government and Party officials will be drawn. Party secretaries in each faculty of the uni­versity decide all teaching staff appointments and direct the running of departments, to the serious detriment of academic standards. To ensure that Soviet-aligned Pa.ty members are available for appointment, students are al­lowed to retake their examinations four or five times until they pass. If a Party member re­peatedly fails, he threatens to denounce his professor to the authorities for „anti-revolu­tionary" activity, for which the penalty is imprisonment or death. Altogether about 70 per cent of Kabul Uni­versity’s teaching staff are reported to have left the country. Many have been replaced by Soviet personnel, who are often poorly qualified in their supposed specialist sub­jects. In the Law Faculty, where only four of the original 30 qualified Afghan teachers are left, the main concern of the seven Soviet advisers, headed by a Professor Sandorski, has been to introduce courses in Marxism- Leninism. Professor Yousufi said that the eight Soviet advisers and lecturers in the Faculty of Aari­­culture gave lectures which were ostensibly on economics and sociology but in practice expounded the principles of communism, Marxist theory and the promotion of atheism. They presented the USSR as the only country in te world to have achieved material, social and cultural progress. Political lectures were unpopular with most students. Professor Yousufi said. A class which assembled to hear a faculty lecturer speak on their degree subject often found the authorities replaced him at the last moment with a Party propagandist. Young Afghans are also sent to study in the Soviet Uinon, where all courses include much political indoctrination. The Kabul news­paper, Haywad, said last November that more than 6,000 students were receiving higher education in the USSR and 200 officials were being trained there. The Soviétisation process is being extended to all areas of Afghan life. In a speech last November, the Secretary of the PDPA Central Committee, Saleh Mohammed Zerai, reported that Soviet educationists were helping to prepare new textbooks and transform Af­ghanistan's educational system. Soviet spe­cialists were also helping in a „review" of Afghan literature and art. Zerai also referred to the Soviet physicians who are serving in Kabul hospitals. He added, significantly, that „every institution in which they are employed has become an educa­tional centre where lectures and seminars take place." T he intensity of the pressure to Sovietise Afghan institutions provokes frequent resentment, even among Party members. A senior official in Kabul complained recently of the programmes of instruction he and his colleagues are obliged to follow day and night, including two hours daily of compulsory study of the Russian language and hours of political education, which comprise mainly the history of the Soviet Communist Party. Many subsidiary Party organisations are employed to promote the Soviétisation process. The „Pioneers" organisation was formed in 1980 soon after the Soviet invasion, and the régime claims that more than 60,000 children between the ages of 10 and 16 re now mem­bers. Its officially declred purpose is to in­­culvate loyalty to the PDPA. Pioneers attend regular tarinlng sessions as well as summer camps at which Marxist ideology is taught. Every year several hun­dreds are sent for a month’s „recreation" at camps in Soviet Central Asia run by the Soviet youth organisation, the Komsomol. In 1983 1,300 youngsters were sent. In a message to the Pioneers organisation on its third anniversary in October, 1983, Babrak Karmai said that the life they observed in the Soviet Union was „an example to follow". Responsibility for recasting Afghan cultural life In Moscow's mould has been given to Soviet Uzbekistan, and a representative of the Uzbek Academy of Sciences visits Kabul twice a month to supervise the correspond­ing Afghan Academy. The Uzbek department (Continued on page 3) How Communists Cheer and Boo The ’’Arms Race“ This is our second article examining the communist misuse of words and phrases for political purposes. The first article, on page six of our November—December, 1983, issue, dealt with „peaceful co-existence,** „internationalism,** „cosmopolitan­ism," „patriotism," „nationalism" and „chauvinism." „Arms race" is a natural term to describe colloquially the result of an antagonism be­tween two Powers which makes them build up their military strength so that neither can achieve a decisive superiority. Such an antagonism has existed between the Soviet Union and the Western Allies almost since the day the Second World War ended, because the USSR, in pursuit of Lenin’s doctrine of world revolution, keot its armed forces of more than four million men on a war footing while the W°st reduced Its forces from five million to under one million in a vear. The Soviet Union h»s used its military strength to impose Leninist reoimes bv force on other countries, first In Extern Europe, arelnst the wishes of the peoples of the countries concerned. Soviet pressures on F's’ern Europe wo»e the oHnfnal reason for the foundation of NATO in 1949. The USSR has taken direct ml'ltary action aoainst a snnnosed „allv" twice, against Hunaerv in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. in addition to threatening another „ally," Poland, in 19R0 and 1981. It also invaded non-alioned Afghanistan in 1979. All these actions have had as their object to instal or keeD in power a Leninist regime congenial to the Soviet Union. They are represented as defensive, and are described by Soviet spokesmen as „defending the gains of socialism" — an obvious cheer­­phrase — or rather, obvious until the question is asked: How were the gains made? An arms race is an unpleasant thing, so „stoking the arms-race" or any similar phrase is in effect a boo. That is why the Soviet Union never uses it of its own military measures; Soviet sookes­­men do not even say that the USSR has to keep its end up in the arms race. This involves ignoring the fact that it takes two to make an arms race or indeed any kind of race. The ultimate absurdity here was the statement by Soviet Finance Minister Vasily Garbuzov in his report to he Supreme Soviet on December 28, 1983: „Imperialist circles in the USA and the NATO bloc are carrying out an unprecedently big arms race." Examples of the cheer-phrases which Soviet spokesmen use to describe the USSR’s mili­tary build-up are provided by two major statements of late President Andropov on International affairs. On September 28, 1983, he said: „We shall be able to safeguard the security of our country and the security of our friends and allies under any conditions." Those „friends and allies" are »he countries on which the Soviet Union originally imposed leninist regimes and is prepared to use military force to keep them in power. On November 24 Andropov said: „The Soviet Union declares most definitely and firmly that It continues to adhere to a principled course towards ending the arms race." Certainly the Soviet Union would prefer an arms walk-over to an arms race. JANUARY — FEBRUARY, 1984

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