DOHA: Chairperson of the Education Above All (EAA) Foundation and Sustainable Development Goals Advocate Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser has stressed that attacking education is a barbaric assault on the lives of students and their teachers, that leaves nothing but destruction, emptiness and darkness looming over shattered dreams and hopes. She pointed out that those who target education are undoubtedly aware of what they are committing and intend it with premeditation.
"The future is annihilated, and there is no doubt that those who target education know what they are doing and do so with premeditation," Her Highness said.
During her speech on the occasion of the International Day to Protect Education from Attack, which is held under the title 'Education in Peril: The Human Cost of War' in 2024, Sheikha Moza said, "When I talk of education, my definition is not abstract, but comprehensive. Education is classrooms crowded with innocent children who dream. Education is the parents who dream of a bright future for their children. Education is the vessel that will carry those children to that bright future. Education is the dedicated teachers who guide the vessel and prepare the children to lead the way."
During the ceremony that was held at the Qatar National Convention Centre (QNCC), Sheikha Moza added, "When I speak of premeditation, Gaza is the most urgent and important issue. Gaza is being subjected to brutal bombardment - a genocide marked by massacres that are taking place every day. One of the most atrocious was the massacre of more than a hundred displaced Palestinians, killed as they took shelter in Al-Tabi'een School in Al Daraj district."
"If a similar massacre was committed by another country in Asia or Africa, the international community would have rushed, with no hesitation, to condemn and sanction it," she emphasised.
Sheikha Moza pointed out, "More than 10,000 students have been confirmed killed in Gaza since Oct 7 last year, and at least 400 teachers, while 93 percent of schools have been destroyed. Many were occupied by displaced people rendered homeless by the conflict. Some had even been designed to double as emergency accommodation."
In this context, she said, "Last April, 19 independent UN experts and rapporteurs gave an explicit warning of an intentional 'scholasticide' in the Gaza Strip."
"Recently, Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, has stated that Israel has been 'genociding the Palestinians, one school at a time' in the Gaza Strip. The failure of the international community to stop Israel's atrocities has permitted this genocide, and the international community cannot continue to ignore Israel's project to cleanse Palestine of the Palestinian people," Sheikha Moza continued.
Sheikha Moza said, "So, what now? Is this what we have become? Have we surrendered to apathy? Have we reached a point where we sit back and watch entire cities destroyed, their inhabitants deliberately shot at, deprived of medical treatment, tortured, and starved? Without any adequate response? Have we reached the stage where we allow children to die, frightened and alone, in hospitals with no medicine or medical staff? What have we become that we allow missiles and gunfire to target schools full of desperate refugees?"
"The reality is that the violence continues and the displacement of millions continues and attacks on education continue," Sheikha Moza said, adding, "In Sudan, Ukraine, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Colombia, innocent students pay an incalculable price for bitter division. We - the international community - have failed to protect education and we have failed to protect students."
"We are all too aware of the politics that shape our world and the unfair mechanisms through which policies are implemented. We may well rationalize what we see, but we cannot justify the international community allowing those who attack education to do so with impunity and without decisive deterrence," Sheikha Moza continued.
Sheikha Moza pointed out, "Rebuilding infrastructure will cost billions, including for schools and universities in Gaza, Yemen, Syria, Ukraine, Myanmar and others. We must agree that the states that caused the damage bear full legal responsibility for rebuilding the education systems they have destroyed."
Sheikha Moza indicated that in the midst of despair, it is young people who keep our hope alive. Those students around the world, who continue to protest against war and suffering embody the innate human instinct towards peace before it is tainted by personal interest, pragmatism and politics.
"As the challenges to this fragile planet mount - among them climate change, disease, and further wars - we need the talent and ability of every child and young person to be put to good use. We need them to fulfil their potential. We need them to continue their education. We need them to teach, to advocate and to lead, to defend the rights of children and young people to peace and education. Aboveall, we need them to live."
Sheikha Moza highlighted that, "the 'human cost' of the war on Gaza is unacceptable to any person with a conscience, morals, or humanitarian principles," expressing her outrage by saying, "I am outraged by the crimes committed against the Palestinians and against international law."
Sheikha Moza further expressed her fury, saying, "I am truly furious - angry at the scale and number of crimes committed in Gaza. I am angry at the blatant silence that has exposed our lack of humanity. Our humanity has absconded, losing its nobility completely in the face of the Occupation's barbarity."
"I am angry at an international community that claims to be civilized. Gaza has revealed its hypocrisy. I am angry at the leaders of countries who proclaim their anger over one war and remain silent about another. I am angry at leaders who blather about human rights and the mandate of international law and say nothing about the genocide taking place in Gaza. I am angry at leaders who often say that Palestine is the central cause of the Arabs, yet we see no centrality in their positions. I am angry for Hind a Palestinian child who was shot at and murdered, alongside the paramedics who went to rescue her, by the Israeli occupation forces' snipers, and remained in the car she was murdered in for 12 days until the occupation forces left the site, and I am angry for those killed before her and after her," Sheikha Moza added.
"I am among many who are angry. But God's anger will come. Those who have angered God will feel His wrath," Sheikha Moza continued.
She pointed out that, "what we are witnessing in Gaza has stripped away the world's imagined veil of civility unmasking its sheer brutality. We thought the world was civilized, but it was not so. This brutality extends beyond those who commit crimes and kill women and children. It includes all who have supported this depraved aggression with funds and weapons. It includes those who watch what is happening in Gaza; those who encourage it in private or in public; and those who choose to remain silent."
"After the veils have fallen, and we have lost our shared values, our principles, our very moral codes, what is left is Gaza: a litmus test against which all standards are measured," Sheikha Moza said, stressing that "the dignity of the women and children of Gaza reminds us that there is truth in God, truth in religion, truth in the right to a homeland, and that a life without dignity is no true life."