I just want to draw a little attention to this obituary of a remarkably talented Iraqi geophysicist called Wissam al-Hashimi, who was abducted and murdered in Baghdad earlier this year. Thanks to JWN commenter Salah for contibuting the link to this piece.
Dr. Hashimi was a former Vice-President of the International Union of Geological Sciences. I’m writing about it here because the story of Dr. Hashimi’s life and death can stand as an example for the fate of the literally hundreds, perhaps thousands of well-trained Iraqi professional men and women who have lost their lives to violence in the “New”, i.e. post-Saddam, Iraq. (Here is a portal to some information about the attacks on Iraqi academics over the past couple of years.)
The writer of the obituary of Dr. Hashimi that’s linked to above is John Aron, the Web Manager for IUGS. He writes:
- I came to know Wissam beginning in 1997, after he was elected a Vice-President of the IUGS. I saw him regularly over the six years that he served in that position. He impressed all of his IUGS colleagues with the quality of his preparation for the annual meetings of the Executive Committee, and with the honest, forthright, and thoughtful counsel that he offered at those meetings. Equally admirable, however, was the enormous personal effort required for him to attend those meetings, each of which always began and ended with a frequently dangerous 12-hour trip by bus or taxi from his home in Baghdad to and from Amman, Jordan, his closest connection to an international airline.
Over the years of our association, I came to appreciate and admire his integrity and deep commitment to science, especially to international scientific activities. Despite the professional isolation and other obvious difficulties of pursuing his career while living in Iraq, his focus, drive, and enthusiasm were remarkable; he was undaunted by the challenges he faced. He was a fine scientist who could have forged a notable career in any country of his choosing. But Iraq was his homeland, and he was determined to serve there.
Since 2002, when his IUGS term ended, we carried on an active e-mail correspondence. Some was personal or was related to professional matters such as helping him to acquire needed reference materials, or helping him to contact other scientists in whose work he was interested, or publicizing scientific meetings that he was instrumental in organizing in Iraq or elsewhere in the middle East. Not surprising, however, is that some of our correspondence was political in nature, especially leading up to and during the current war in Iraq. Wissam was an avid student of U.S. politics, which interest I helped to advance by regularly sending him cogent articles collected from electronic and print media from the U.S. and around the world. He usually responded, sometimes at great length, with detailed comments and analysis based on his perspective and first-hand experiences in Iraq. His observations were especially interesting, because they frequently differed radically from published accounts. Wissam despaired at the wanton death and needless destruction inflicted on his country in the current conflict. He took satisfaction, however, from the fact that most of his scientific colleagues, including Americans, supported him and his country in their distress.
Along with other close colleagues, I last saw Wissam in August 2004 in Florence, Italy, at the 32nd IGC. There he presented two papers and co-chaired a session on dolomitization and dedolomitization. He was also the Iraqi representative to the Mediterranean Consortium of the Congress. We were pleased to see him looking well, and, as ever, actively engaged with scientific pursuits. We enjoyed visiting with him, sharing meals, and exchanging personal reflections on matters of science, politics, our families, and life.
In one of his messages to me Wissam commented that the neighborhood where he lived was very dangerous, and he feared for his life and the safety of his family. As a precaution, he took a different route to work every day. Tragically, that strategy ultimately failed him. Ironically, only two days before receiving word of his death, I expressed to mutual friends my concern about his welfare because my messages to him had gone unanswered for almost three weeks. Now we know why. The geological community has lost a dedicated scientist and a fine and very decent man. Worse, I lost a good friend.
Hashimi was born in Baghdad. He received his B.Sc. from the University of Baghdad in 1965 and his Ph.D from the University of Newcastle, in England, in 1972. If you read the whole obituary you can learn about his fine professional achievements, and the many contributions he made to the development of the geological sciences in Iraq and elsewhere in the Arab world.
Aron writes this about the manner of his death:
- His daughter, Tara, reports that he was kidnapped early in the morning of August 24 while on his way to work. The ransom demanded by his abductors was paid by his family, but to no avail. He died of two bullet wounds to his head. Because his identification was taken from him, it took his family two weeks to find his body in a Baghdad hospital.
Condolences to Tara al-Hashimi and all Iraqis who have lost loved ones through violence.