The Canadian International School Kurdistan Erbil and Anne Frank: Anti-Semitism and International Schools
(Picture of the Canadian International School of Erbil, Iraq)
Kurdistan24 News once claimed religious pluralism “is a cornerstone for a new Kurdistan state.”
( https://www.kurdistan24.net/en/story/24908-The-roots-of-coexistence-and-religious-tolerance-in-Kurdistan
https://www.kurdistan24.net/en/story/25993-Kurdistan-Parliament%E2%80%99s-religious-affairs-delegation-visited-Italy-for-talks-on-diversity,-coexistence )
I want to believe this, despite no synagogues or community of Jews in Kurdistan. Despite witnessing swastika chains sold at the Citadel’s Bazar and Nazi Swastikas drawn next to mosques. And despite my personal experience with the Diary of Anne Frank at the Canadian International School (CIS) of Erbil in Kurdistan. https://www.facebook.com/CanadianISErbil/
(Nazi Swastika near mosque)
(Nazi Swastika near mosque)
I’ve decided to expound upon my experience at the Canadian International School because it penetrates the fragile veneer of fake and superficial image so prevalent in Middle Eastern schools, it mentions Western businesses that provide legitimacy for anti-Semitism and Shia-Sunni Muslim animosity at schools, and it highlights how the innocent youth are unknowingly positioned upon the educational pillars of anti-Semitism here in the Middle East.
Background
I worked at the Canadian International School of Erbil in Kurdistan (Northern Iraq), for approximately 6 months. As usual, in my over ten years experience of teaching in the Middle East, the students are wonderful.
And as always, not the administration.
Regularly, I find school administrators in the Middle East incompetent, unqualified, exploitive, religious bigots, abusive, and corrupt. Disgusting may be a euphemism.
To respect accuracy and honesty, the CIS is not too corrupt.
I Think They Hate Jews Here
On August 1, 2018, the principal, sent me an English literature syllabus for September. The Diary of Anne Frank was listed on it.
My first augury came as the following September session commenced, I witnessed a Social Studies instructor saluting like Adolf Hitler, while shouting Seig Heil, as a couple of cult students chimed in with “Children of the Corn” fashion. I sternly voiced my disapproval. This educator retorted with a laugh and smiling exasperation, “Don’t worry. It’s okay here.” He ceased this behavior for a while.
Nonetheless, as the session progressed further, I oddly discovered that the 8th grade Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Collections English Literature books had the Diary of Anne Frank ripped out of the teachers’ and students’ textbooks. My queries to the administration were met by prevarication.
An Australian colleague, Vanessa Powell, brought to my attention that it wasn’t solely Anne Frank censored, it was above a hundred pages on the Holocaust. This disclosure shocked me like reading history’s pages on the nefarious 1933 book burnings in Nazi Germany. I also quickly recollected the well-deserved criminal prosecution for the same act which occurred in Japan in 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/22/world/asia/diary-of-anne-frank-vandalized-at-japanese-libraries.html
Therefore, I sent a complaint to Cambridge Assessment International Education which boasts the Canadian International School (CIS) as one if its Cambridge Schools, which consequently gives access to CIS students to “the world’s best universities,” in Western nations.
Cambridge also claims, “We develop Cambridge learners who are confident, responsible, reflective, innovative and engaged – equipped for success in the modern world.” https://www.cambridgeinternational.org/why-choose-us/find-a-cambridge-school/?Country=Iraq
Cambridge International Assessment advised that I handle this situation within the administration.
So, I did.
I’m On The Wrong Team
There is an annual competition in Cumbria, England called The World’s Biggest Liar. The following narrative was too pathetically gossamer to contemplate candidacy in the preceding event.
The principal of the CIS, blamed the Ministry of Education for the books. The Ministry of Education denied this.
Other international schools and universities in Kurdistan responded to my phone inquiries that they would “never” do this. The International School of Chouefat stated they would only do this, if the Ministry of Education demanded.
I caught wind though that the exception was Ronaki School, a Fethulleh Gulen Movement school which is located near the Canadian International School https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Fethullah-G%C3%BClen-and-the-Jews-A-different-angle-459953. Ronaki, oddly, was administering their students the same Jewish censored Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Collections textbooks as the CIS.
Ronaki claimed it was the fault of a Lebanese book distributor, yet would not divulge the name. After confronting the CIS with the Ministry’s and schools’ replies, the principal blamed a Jordanian book distributor, but also wouldn’t reveal who that distributor was.
Whatever the truth, veering past the prevarication, I realized religious pluralism was not an ethic among my new team at the CIS.
Let’s Find Out If Hate Is Taught
I’ve witnessed Israel ripped out of students’ textbooks before at the Modern American School of Amman, Jordan, but not the Holocaust or the Diary of Anne Frank. This was too much, a red line. This childish act of censorship was akin to removing the human face from all Jews in my opinion.
No modern nation with a decent education system punishes constituents of any religion by censoring that entire religion’s authors in school textbooks. Even in the United States where Middle East critics condemn the U.S government as pro-Israeli, I first learned about Islam and Palestine from American school textbooks.
And while in the Middle East for ten years, I have persistently used the Diary of Anne Frank, without problems, as a means of teaching religious tolerance and pluralism. I was inspired by Erin Gruwell in the film Freedom Writers.
Therefore, I decided, without textbooks, to teach the Diary of Anne Frank by YouTube videos and lecturing. I also assigned poster boards on Anne Frank for student projects, taping them on classroom walls. It was a bold, perhaps provocative to a few, yet an admirable success! I taught my students humanity and religious pluralism, through the Diary of Anne Frank.
The students understood that no one should be targeted or discriminated against because of politics or religion. These students’ lives have already been detrimentally affected by the former and latter in Kurdistan, so of course, they could relate.
The results were conclusive. Religious pluralism and tolerance and love can be taught.
Indian spiritual guru, Rajneesh, stated a child’s innocence is his or her wisdom. And American author Neale Donald Walsh believes one can change the world with such wisdom.
I learned from my experience at the CIS that we adults are the ones who make monsters of these precious children. As you will see soon, Western accrediting and qualification agencies, also do.
(Pictures of my students with Anne Fran posterboards)
Then, The Administration Responded.
If it is true that God sends children to show he is not discouraged of humans, according to Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore, then schools like the CIS are in existence solely to prove its antithesis.
On November 11, I not only was admonished with a verbal order to cease teaching Anne Frank, but was ordered to immediately tear down students’ poster boards. Later that night, I received the same demand by e-mail from the principal.
Coincidentally, after the e-mail by the principal, I began witnessing the emetic tautology of the Social Studies teacher again, commencing Nazi salutes while screaming Hitler’s name and Seig Heil, in proud tittup, on a daily basis, in front of innocent children as young as KG.
Shortly afterwards, the Indian head teacher, school principal, and Social Studies instructor; in Gestapo manner, interrupted my class one day and demanded I stop teaching the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
A formal e-mail complaint to the Head Teacher, about the Social Studies teacher’s toxic behavior was unanswered. The principal replied to my complaint privately in the hallway between classes, “It was only a joke.”
I am proud of my restraint, that I was able to conceal under my breath, “So was the Jim Crow caricature in the American South.”
In A Circus, Don’t Ask Clowns To Be Serious
I felt inured to speak rationally with my cohorts. While Charles Dickens reigned supreme in Victorian England, Bozo the Clown from Chicago’s 1960s, “The Bozo Show,” would be its perfect equivalent to describe some of the “educators” at the CIS.
While employed at the CIS, I witnessed the Academic Director, also father of the principal, scream at a poor elderly Arabic language teacher in front of students, bringing her to tears, and later eventually firing her.
I also heard students gossip that the Academic Director capriciously padlocked the canteen shop because of Iranian potato chips. Bone broth, beet root, and Chia seeds were more preferable than the normal cafeteria victuals at the CIS, so I was sadly fond of the canteen.
While in the teacher’s break room once, the thin walls of the adjoining classroom disclosed a teacher loudly inculcating into students that Shia Muslims aren’t Muslims. And Iran was a danger to Sunni Muslims.
I accidentally wrote “Shia” into my lesson plans unintentionally in consequence.
And finally, my colleague Vanessa Powell, profited from the gracious tutelage of professionalism at the CIS by the Head teacher. She couldn’t drink tea, eat her lunch in the teacher’s room, change student’s classroom seating, wave hello to strangers during field trips, and print worksheets.
I also proctored the principal’s sagacious authored exam for a two hour period, that only had three multiple choice questions.
And I also in vain complained that a few students were allowed to be out of attendance for over an entire month, yet passed somehow.
The preceding was enough to convince me this “international” school, is a tragic missing episode from an Alfred Hitchcock Series.
Liz Ryan Was Absolutely Right!
Contributor to Forbes Magazine, Liz Ryan, listed ten indications your employer is itching to terminate you. After I requested the principal to reconsider his demand that I tear down students’ Anne Frank poster boards, all ten occurred to me at the CIS.
Yet, it was the respectful, yet strong way in education to be an August Landmesser who refused to salute like Hitler in Nazi Germany.
Ultimately, I was fired for chewing gum and writing questions in a joking manner on exams which was considered unacceptable by the principal. The first minor complaint, I was guilty. The last was a lie. The head teacher had described my exams in e-mails prior my termination as “great” and “perfecto.” And unexpectedly, the staff had lost their sense of humor, unless it involved Adolf Hitler.
After my termination, I furthered my complaint to the Director of the British Council in Iraq, Victoria Lindsay. The British Council is partnered with the CIS, as you can see their logos on the CIS students’ shirts. https://www.linkedin.com/in/victorialindsay/?originalSubdomain=uk
Days later, though she hasn’t visited the CIS for years, she posed in selfies, gleefully smiling with the cadging staff at the CIS.
I couldn’t comprehend the natural ease and comfort she displayed beside such company. But that’s the power of picturesque artificial imagery for those easily fooled.
After the staged photo-shoot, the British Council Director replied by e-mail that I would need to complain to the Ministry of Education in Kurdistan. I didn’t believe her sincerity. I don’t trust the Ministry.
Politics and Religion Does Not Justify Censorship of Anne Frank
Anne Frank didn’t survive religious hatred in her time, but her story has survived attempted censorship and challenges throughout history in Norway, Sweden, Austria, the United States, the Middle East, etc. Today, the Diary of Anne Frank has sold over 30 million copies worldwide, is listed as one of the twentieth century’s best sellers, is kept in UNESCO’s Library of the World, and material from the text is found on SAT and IGCE exams.
Also, today, those who love and profit from hatred and intolerance, or who are stuck in its cycle after being victimized, employ religion and politics like a Peter the Hermit during the Crusades, to challenge the simple humanity of Anne Frank and her thoughtful diary.
Some, like Hezbollah in 2009 in Lebanon, justify banning her diary declaring it is a Zionist propaganda tool for Israel. I respond, shall we ban the Quran and Bible because of the Islamic State and Klu Klux Klan? And should they expect anyone to sympathize with their own victimization, when they can’t for other victims, like Anne Frank?
I strongly feel the youth in the Middle East deserve better education, the lesson of religious pluralism that the rest of the normal world instills in children they love sincerely. The message from Anne Frank’s Diary is not to repeat the cycle of hatred others victimize you with. The other message is humans are taught hatred, not born with it. It’s a message we desperately need today in Iraq, Kurdistan, and the Middle East.
Western Accrediting Agencies Cooperating With Anti-Semitism and Anti-Shia Schools
Ronaki school which was using the same Jewish censored textbooks as the CIS have replaced them, after I complained to Maurice Dimmock of ASIC who accredits Ronaki. I respect Ronaki and ASIC for doing the right thing, which is rare today.
The Canadian International School (CIS) still hasn’t from what I have heard though. I may be wrong.
Recently, I sent e-mails to the University of Ottawa and York Universities to confirm the degrees of the Director and principal of CIS. Both universities indicated no records of either attending.
In addition to anti-Semitism and anti-Shia sentiment I witnessed, nepotism,and employee abuse; its physical structure is dirty and unsafe. It has no music or art or dance classes.
It is a mystery why the UK Cambridge Assessment International Education boasts that the Canadian International School is a Cambridge school (https://www.cambridgeinternational.org/why-choose-us/find-a-cambridge-school/?Country=Iraq), the New York American International Accreditation Association of Schools and Colleges places it under provisional accreditation status ( https://www.aiaasc.com/iraq) and the British Council has partnered with it.
I can only assume money is more important to them than religious pluralism or preserving the reputation of the UK and the United States.
Conclusion
In the Middle East, we have religious tolerance, not religious pluralism. Kurdistan24 should comprehend the difference. As Chris Beneke pointed out in “Beyond Toleration: the Religious Origins of American Pluralism,” in the 1730s religious tolerance in the American colonies meant alleviating the harsher punishments and discrimination and indignities against religious minorities. It wasn’t religious pluralism because that means equality.
I’m hoping that Kurdistan will become religiously pluralistic. I’m certain the Kurds comprehend how it feels to be targeted for one’s religion or race. Thus, I’m hoping the Kurds will help Anne Frank survive the CIS.
I hope they wish better for their own children too.
(Anne Frank Picture Below)
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