The Chronicle of Higher Education Should Aspire to Remain Platform for Student Advancement Not Terrorism Apologists

 

By its own ‘About us’, The Chronicle of Higher Education is a student news platform established in 1966 to cover American colleges.

With a monthly online viewership of over two million, the publication claims to be a source of “essential tools, career opportunities, and knowledge to succeed in a rapidly changing world”.

However, the paper’s editorial board has either unwillingly allowed to be misled into glorification of terrorism, or the fact that it’s an African situation. Tom Zoellner’s missive published March 29, 2022, is nothing more than blatant indifference to the facts.

First, Zoellner doesn’t tell readers that he is co-author of ‘An Ordinary Man: An Autobiography' about Paul Rusesabagina which fabricates events that never happened.

The “sham” trial of Rusesabagina, as Zoellner describes it, has been conducted with the utmost fairness and openness. Proceedings were carried live on television and online for every well-meaning observer to make own judgement.

Rusesabagina himself admitted to forming and financing a rebel group which conducted deadly attacks in which civilians were killed. One of the witnesses, Dr Michelle Martin, an academic who found murkier version of Rusesabagina while working with as a voluntary policy advisor.

The pain that the parents of thirteen-year-old girl Ornella Sine Atete are going through doesn’t count for Zoellner. For 17-year-old Isaac Niwenshuti, whose body had been completely charred that DNA had to be conducted to identify his remains.

The facts presented were so damning Rusesabagina went for a public relations stunt; refusing to attend sessions. The tactic here was to throw the court proceedings into disarray, so that the evidence isn’t the issue but the trial itself.

Zoellner and Rusesabagina’s other friends have been on a cleaning exercise of all pieces of truth littered all over the internet. A 2018 video in which Rusesabagina affirms “the time has come for us to use any means possible to bring about change in Rwanda, as all political means have been tried and failed” was deleted.

Removing a legitimate government by force of arms in far-flung land as Rwanda may not ring anything to the American reader. Here is the closest it came to your doorsteps. Millions of Americans went to vote on November 20, 2020.

On January 6, 2021, a small group of “white supremacists” stormed the sit of American democracy. Had the established order not taken control, Zoellner and all readers of The Chronicle of Higher Education would be living through the same chaos Rusesabagina had been planning.

Currently, the US Congress is probing the events of January 6.  At least 800 Americans have been arrested and charged with crimes related to events from that day.

How about we start by editorial board at The Chronicle of Higher Education equally explaining to it’s readers that hundreds of suspects are going to jail for expressing their political rights at the US Capitol. That’s not going to happen of course.

The Carnegie Mellon University Africa which is the subject of Zoellner’s unfounded attack, has been credited with opening this region to world class education closer to home. The argument that expected enrollment has not materialised, isn’t factual.

The University’s current student capacity is actually limited by the number of students that can be admitted.

Zoellner’s intention was not to inform, but rather to selectively join up dots to fit the “Rusesabagina is innocent” narrative.

For comparison, other educational publications have overwhelmingly endorsed Carnegie Mellon University Africa campus in Rwanda.  

The "Times Higher Education", for example, saw it as an opportunity to scale down on the number of students that seek for education in American, European and Chinese universities. CMU is a “tremendous opportunity” for the whole continent.

Zoellner defends his dismissal of Carnegie Mellon University Africa with twisted narrations about the Yale-NUS College in Singapore.

If Singapore’s development path is a failed experiment as Zoellner attempts to depict it, then perhaps there is a new reality no one else has seen. International ranking after another have placed Singapore’s education at the top of the global table.

Singapore’s education system is relentlessly forward-looking. From adopting bilingualism with English (in addition to the mother tongue of Mandarin, Malay, or Tamil), to its focus on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), Singapore anticipated many of the key education strategies being adopted by today’s policymakers.

Zoellner and The Chronicle of Higher Education’s editorial board thinks otherwise.

In the world of academic exchange, the dissemination of knowledge has been protected from individual biases. It is the reason there is the process of peer review. In the case of Zoellner’s lies and falsehoods, that spirit of fairness, so that reading students can benefit for their growth, has been set aside.

The Chronicle of Higher Education should aspire to remain platform for student advancement not a place to sanitize terrorism.