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Scholasticide -

Scholasticide, a term coined by scholar Karma Nabulsi, came about to describe attacks on learning institutions in Gaza. Nabulsi came up with the term in 2009. Pictured is the destroyed Islamic University in Gaza City.

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Historical examples -

Although the term may be contemporary, the tactics are not. From ancient Roman history to the Third Reich and Israel’s recent attacks on Gaza, the destruction of a nation comes hand-in-hand with the cultural erasure of a population.

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Caesar -

The Roman Empire’s literacy rates plummeted due to Caesar’s failures in Alexandria. It was only due to the efforts of monasteries that there was any subsequent improvement.

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Enslaved populations -

European colonists understood this tactic well, ensuring enslaved populations forgot their languages, religions, cultural rituals and practices, and the ability to read.

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Persecution -

Attempts to counter this repression and censorship resulted in violence, persecution, and further elimination of dissenting voices.

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Book burning -

During Nazi assaults in Eastern Europe, the Third Reich engaged in literal book burning, but also in attempting to destroy any cultural memory of its Jewish population.

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Resistance groups -

Jewish and non-Jewish resistance groups understood that education was key and remained the most important element of ensuring the population lived on.

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Examples -

Historian and economist Adam Tooze points to a number of instances where teachers and students were targeted. For example, in 1941, Nazi authorities executed 25 Polish academics and their Ukrainian allies.

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Fundamental aim -

Throughout history, scholasticide has been a key element of annihilation. It’s not a collateral aspect of violence, but a fundamental part of its aims. Pictured are Nazi students holding torches in preparation for a mass book burning at the University of Berlin.

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Holistic tactic -

Tooze notes that scholasticide may look decentralized. It is sometimes organized so that it appears to be collateral, driven by individual soldiers or units, rather than part of a deliberate, holistic tactic. Pictured are destroyed parts of Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute, Ukraine. 

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Symbolic targets -

However, as Tooze rightfully points out, the targeting of cultural institutions, educators, and students is more than just destructive violence, but rather, “symbolic targets.” Pictured is a classroom destroyed during Afghanistan's civil war at Kabul's Polytechnic Institute.

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Universities -

Places like universities have often been the site of political organizing, demonstrations, and other activities that challenge a political social quo. Pictured is a destroyed university in the Ivory Coast, following student protests. 

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Sieged and occupied -

Globally and historically, universities have often been targeted, sieged, and occupied. Sometimes, they are even transformed into military bases. Pictured is the siege of PolyU in Hong Kong, China.

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Sudan -

Tooze highlights the example of Sudan, which is experiencing an ongoing civil war that has caused a great deal of suffering and destruction to its inhabitants. The educational system in particular has suffered immensely.

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Quality education -

Since the early 1990s, Sudanese universities have become a hub for quality education in Sub-Saharan Africa. In fact, nearly a quarter of the continent's medical schools were hosted by the nation. Women made up over 50% of enrolled students. Pictured is the University of Khartoum in 2017.

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Khartoum University -

Since the civil war began in 2023, rebel militia have occupied a number of universities (approximately three-fourths of private universities and 40% of public universities).

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Destruction and occupation -

In addition to the military occupation of these sites, others have been destroyed. Many students left their studies behind, unable to find a way to continue their education in the current context. Pictured are student protestors in 2019. 

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E-learning -

Yet, some Sudanese educators and institutions exploited existing e-learning infrastructure that emerged from the Covid-19 pandemic to offer continuity to their students as best they could. Pictured is a Sudanese family organizing studies during the pandemic. 

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Juba University -

Some institutions created a Memorandum of Understanding with other institutions in safer regions, while others relocated their institutions abroad for students able to leave.

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Grave situations -

Students and their families are in grave situations, displaced, asylum seekers, and refugees abroad, among other situations that make stable education complex.

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Communication -

Over 35% of students who remain enrolled in their universities communicate with their teachers using tools like WhatsApp or Telegram. Only 22% of all students have not been displaced since the civil war began.

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Gaza -

Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on Earth, with 2.1 million people packed into 139 square miles (360 square kilometers) of an urban den. Pictured is the attack on the house of Dr. Akram al-Najjar, a lecturer at the University of Jerusalem, who was killed.

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Densely populated portions -

Since the bombing campaign began in Gaza in October 2023, the Israeli military targeted the most densely populated portions of the Gaza Strip.

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Most concentrated bombardments in military history -

Just two months into the war, the Financial Times had already agreed that Gaza was experiencing “the heaviest and most concentrated bombardments in military history.” By mid-2024, 70,000 tons of explosives had been unleashed on its population (“four and half times the explosive force” of Hiroshima).

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Classrooms into villages -

Well over 50% of all infrastructure in Gaza was completely destroyed; in Gaza City alone, that figure reaches 80%. Of its 12 universities, all were destroyed. Public schools became refugee camps for Gaza’s populations, transforming classrooms into villages.

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Impossible evaluation -

The wars in Gaza and Sudan are comparable in the characteristics of violence, but not in military equipment and concentrated destruction. So much so, that understanding the mass damage enacted on the educational system is impossible for Palestinian educators to empirically evaluate, unlike in the Sudanese context.

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Targeting of intellectuals -

A number of studies pointed to the mass targeting of “academic, scientific, and intellectual figures” in Gaza. By January 2024, nearly 100 academics alone had been killed, in addition to hundreds of teachers. Pictured is the destroyed Al-Aqsa University.

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al-Israa University -

One of Gaza’s largest universities, al-Israa University, was first taken by Israeli forces as a military base. Then, they used 300 mines to destroy it. With that, 3,000 artifacts from pre-Islamic and Roman periods, as well as from Palestinian history, vanished.

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No such thing -

Ahmed Alhussaina, vice president of al-Israa University shared in an interview: “They’re saying the Palestinians had no people, there was no such a thing as Palestine, and this thing defies it, and I think that’s one of the main reason they attack these kind of things.”

Sources: (Financial Times) (Adam Tooze) (Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor)

See also: Trump's controversial solution for Gaza: 'Clean out the whole thing'

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