“ PATRICE LUMUMBA UNIVERSITY ”:: A Tale Of Struggles Amid Reform And A Shadow Of Its Former Self.





Pic :: Mr Patrice Lumumba 

“ PATRICE LUMUMBA UNIVERSITY ” struggles amid reform and is a shadow of its former self.

 

MOSCOW --……. just about it later....... but to start with....... 

This article is all about a description of a UNIVERSITY named after the FIRST President from the CONTINENT  of Africa and visited by the FIRST President of India........ 

, Well " MOSCOW " .....This name when I was small in age ,  and a kid ,  use to somehow make me feel wonder…… as if I was a ALICE in the wonderful land or may be a WONDERLAND  and it use to make me to feel that  NO OTHER PLACE IN THE WORLD WOULD BE AS SO MUCH, WONDERFUL which always would keep me  WONDERING AND  WIZARDY IN NATURE as Moscow could be along with NEW YORK.

Then it happened in 1976 when I was admitted in Hislop College at Nagpur.  That ws the time that I had learned about this University and all about it’s GLITZ and GLARE through a chapter named as “ MERA PEHLA VIDESH YATRA ”  a lesson that contained all about the FIRST of all the other travels that Doctor Rajendra Prasad the FIRST President Of India had undertaken in his official capacity.

He in his note and in the lesson that we learned at that time narrated all about his experience which he encountered at the tour and he brilliantly narrated all about this University on which I’m going  to jot my lines all over here.

The memoirs of that chapter is still lave but ALIVE  and even after the passage of 44 years when I had like the  frost but FIRST  learned about this University as ascribed in that chapter and  described by Shri Rajendra Babu is fresh and etched in my memory.



Pics : The Patrice Lumumba Universit , then when Dr Rajendra Babu visited it 

The ONE para which I cannot forget written by him was that when he visited the University at Moscow the RATIO – OF – TEACHERS – AND – THE – STUDENTS were in the ratio of 1:2 which means that there were  TWO students  who were looked upon by ONE teachers and the SECOND was the ratio of the books in the University library to the students were in the ratio of 1:1 which means for every students at the University there were ONE books for him to utilize it for him in the library. This had turned my head around.

After scaling my readership in my web site  BHATTACHARJEE SHYAMAL Blogger at Ukraine which was a part of U.S.S.R then ,  and in Russia where at Ukraine I get about 60 plus of redaers everyday and at Russia where I get about two to three readers everyday, I felt and it hit me all of a sudden about finding out  HOW IS THIS UNIVERSITY RUNNING NOW AND WHAT IS IS DOING NOW.

Some memoirs of that reading while at the College days then, and many research for some days while I was finding out the OF-LATE-FACTS of the University, I at last have now come to a point and conclusion where I could put my words in and about this UNIVERSITY which once was HAILED as PERHAPS the BEST in the WORLD.

Well that was then. What is it now is all about the article and this makes an interesting reading This is for the readers to read it and read them all.

The GOOD – OLDEN – DAYS – OF – THIS – UNIVERSITY

 In the old days, the typical student at Patrice Lumumba University would be a young African, someone who could hope to become his country's first native-born doctor or an Engineer after graduation.  The teaching was such that it was based on the PRINCIPLES- OF – COMMUNISM back home. The new graduate would be expected to take communism home with him and preach of its glories.

Principles Of “ COMMUNISM ”  

The PRICIPLES of the Communism aand its’s politics is-:

YOU HAVE TWO COWS, I “ KILL ”  ONE AND I TAKE THE OTHER ONE .

 The Communist all across and all over the world wherever they existed believed and followed this theory of COUNTRY-MANAGEMENT lest their own voters THREW them off by kicking at their back .The examples of every country following COMMUNISM is to be seen and believed .The classic examples are the nation like Yugoslavia and  USSR. It is ONLY India that is still holding them and very soon I see the GONE-WITH-THE-WIND of this party and it’s primciples here at India. That communist dream is gone, but the university goes on, struggling to survive in free-market style.

Patrice Lumumba University -- alma mater of the terrorist " Carlos " and of hundreds of men and women who are government officials throughout the Third World -- now is a cheap and not so choosy institution. A mathematics professor despondent over the school's decline describes it as where " the best of the world's worst students " come for an easy degree. This is how the COMMUNISM is, this is what the COMMUNIST made it and this is what the COMMUNISM after the end of every DAMN and BLESSED things, make the institutions and the country like.

COMMUNISM IS A TOTAL OUTPUT OF “ BAD- WORSE-WORST ” that exists everywhere

I was at Sri-Lanka between the period January 20th to January 27th this year ie the year 2020. I was there to attend some conference which related my daughter to complete some projectthat was in partial requirement for her to complete her course in ARCHITECTURE  as a pre mandatory requirement for partially fulfilling the requirement for her course for getting her degree in Architecture.  We were at the UNIVERSITY TECHNOLOGY at Sri-Lanka where my daughter spend a lot of time to complete the project assigned to her. That ws the time when I met a Sri-Lankan lady , a MEDICAL student who had come over there to do something that related to the X-Ray and it’s application as a technical aid in medicine. Free and interested to know about USSR and this University I just asked her about this University and say it LUCK, she was from this University. The story began and it was this to START with-:

" I couldn't get into the university at home, and that's the only reason I would come here ”  ie the University of Patrice Lumumba at Moscow,  says Nayana Prematilaka, a medical student from Sri Lanka who hopes to improve her English enough to pass exams qualifying her for her dream school -- the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

Her classmates from India, Jordan and Peru  who followed Ms Nayana Prematilaka to Sri – Lanka for their completion of their projects here at this Univeristy too has similar theories to offer when I asked them for thet too had to offer similar stories:

“ Even with the necessary year of Russian language study, they find it cheaper and easier to pay $8,000  ie about Rs 6,16,000=00 up front for a six-year degree program in Moscow than getting in anywhere else in the world ”.

Until the collapse of the Soviet Union, the school awarded full scholarships to everyone, and the Communist Party offered subsidies that paid round-trip airfare and room and board, plus a stipend generous enough for students to use to build a nest egg. More than 70 percent of the 6,500 students were foreigners, as that PERUVIAN , a total FOOTBALL-CRAZY- BUGGAR and a TREMENDOUS fan of Pele and Teofilo Cubbillas a FAMOUS Peruvian Footballer of the Seventies, asserted me. .

The foreigners are now slightly outnumbered by Russians, who can still attend the university free of charge. The mix of foreigners has changed, too: Those from Africa and Latin America, whose countries were considered the most fertile ground for Soviet cultivation, have been supplanted by their students from Arab states and Southeast Asia, who can more easily afford tuition.

Russia still honors the scholarships awarded to foreigners who began their studies before 1992 -- but there are complications, and these complications are growing day by days and the Government of Russia under Mr  Vladimir Putin is unable to do anything for anything.

MARXIST ECONOMY RUNS “ STRONG ”

The food stipend -- about $20 a month, when the school has money to pay it -- is no longer enough to feed anyone. Moreover, the university is housing graduates whose native countries are not safe to return to, such as Rwanda and Somalia. “ There are no jobs for those graduates at home and none for them in Russia ” . Those hardships mean that the profit motive that was vigorously denounced in the mandatory courses on scientific communism and Marxist Economics now runs strong.

Some of the poorest students take holiday smuggling trips for goods they can sell in Moscow's outdoor bazaars. It is not uncommon to see inventories of crocodile-skin purses in dorm closets, merchandise available for sale when the need for cash arises.

The golden age was the 1960s. Communism appeared to be on the rise, and the university was brand new.

When asked further to explain moe and something new about anything the words that came out from her mouth were really horrible and I do not want to ascribe it or describe it  over here. However she narrated me about a lady whom she had to fall upon during her initial struggle of her days at Moscow and this University and told me about a lady whoe name was  Nikita Khrushchev, who  proclaimed in 1960 that the Russian Peoples' Friendship University existed, and the " Communists being communists, they had to do what he ie the Communist  said," says or said. It was Anatoly Kirillov, an International Labor Organization consultant and a graduate and teacher at the school said and the entire University had to do that said that lady. .

" There were many and they are many and they would  be ,many , who would be the student of this University, in the days to come and they too would have to follow the principles of the VAGUE – COMMUNISM   who would have to act on the principles of Mr. Kirillov, who was drafted without much choice from another college. The  vague principles for the Univeristy and for the students of the university was created nearly overnight, and the military's general staff academy was evicted from its headquarters to make room for students from abroad.

" I was selected as a good representative of the Soviet young people. We knew there was a fight for the young brains of these countries; we wanted them to go the socialist way. But we were also doing it from our heart," Mr. Kirillov says always to the young and the aspirants and you too have to follow the same he adds .

" Yes, we taught them Marxist-Leninist philosophy, the same way you taught capitalism in the U.S."….. he adds to his “ GLOAT ” and “ PRIDES ” himself with it……

For the Russians, the school ie the UNIVERSITY, offers and  offered the first contact with foreigners in nearly a generation and a first contact with blacks. When the African students ventured off campus, " old people would crowd around in the streets," the better to touch them, Mr. Kirillov says.

Within a year or two, the school was renamed Patrice Lumumba University, in honor of the first Prime Minister of the African nation now called Zaire, a figure who was a vocal critic of the West and who was assassinated in 1961.

In 1992, the university reverted to its original name, without anyone taking much notice.

The campus of Soviet-style cement-block buildings is in what used to be forest on the outskirts of Moscow. The buildings are crumbling, the university too nearly broke to repair them. In fall and winter, when darkness comes early, students climb unlighted stairwells because the school can not afford light bulbs.

Students don't talk a lot about political heroes. In the old days, Che Guevara and Nelson Mandela were the figures to admire, and the Soviets tried to put the best of their society on display,

" I know that in those days they were also looking for those with potential to work for Russian intelligence agencies -- but it's hard to know what they're trying to do today," and this is the REALITY of those Graduates who the Russian authorities look upon to serve the Russian Intelligence of late and the kind of the job that the Russain Government gets ready to offer .

Mr. Kirillov remembers students and professors working late into the night, remembers them sharing a dedication to making the university an academic and ideological success.

Salary :: A “ PITTIANCE ”

There is little incentive to work late now. The salary for professors is less than $150 a month. It works to about Rs 11,460=00 per month . Not many teachers who stay to talk after class, since they're in a rush to go to their second jobs.

" Teachers here used to be excited about teaching all they knew about a subject and about life here -- it made students and teachers close, life-long friends," said that Lady at Sri-Lanka , but now the case is totally reversed and turvy when she narrated about a   Professor Alexander Petrovich, who has taught here for two decades.

" But the fact is that students saw SOCIALISM , , and it wasn't as good as it could be, so the friendly university atmosphere compensated for what was wrong -- and those times seem romantic now."

There is still serious study taking place. " We have to be very grateful to this university," says Kola Are, a 34-year-old Nigerian, who will graduate in April with a degree in finance. " I wasn't good in math when I came here. In fact, I would run from math class. But they taught me well, and now I can solve any question and prove it " , said a student whose name was told to me by that lady student of Sri-Lanka about some good points which are too meagre to be proud of, as ashe described , about some good things that still runs in the University.

Battle against “ RACISM ” :: “ SMOKE ” up in the “ AIR ”

There is also still the haze of cigarette smoke, perhaps the only thing that hasn't changed. For the  DIFFICULTIES are so much greater.

That lady student went on further to add that ,  while talking to me and the talks of many a student at that University, ,  the talks surrounding the talks of students becoming homesick, struggling with the language, struggling with the winters and then, if they are black, having to battle racism.

He and  Many of them were thrashed and many and any of  the African friends have been beaten in the streets, she says. That is something that never happened " when the rule of law was respected " -- before the end of communism.

And thus before Patrice Lumumba University lost its “ LUSTER ” .

 Well , that is it

Regards and Thanks

Pics



Shyamal Bhattacharjee 

Mr Shyamal Bhattacharjee, the author was born at West Chirimiri Colliery at District Surguja, Chattisgarh on July 6th 1959 He received his early education at Carmel Convent School Bishrampur and later at Christ Church Boys' Higher Secondary School at Jabalpur. He later joined Hislop College at Nagpur and completed his graduation in Science and he also added a degree in    B A thereafter. He joined the HITAVADA, a leading dailies of Central India at Nagpur as a      Sub-Editor ( Sports ) but gave up to complete his MBA in 1984 He thereafter added a Diploma In Export Management. He has authored THREE books namely Notable Quotes and Noble Thought published by Pustak Mahal in 2001 Indian Cricket : Faces That Changed It  published by Manas Publications in 2009 and Essential Of Office Management published by NBCA, Kolkatta  in 2012. He has a experience of about 35 years in Marketing .






Signature Of Shyamal Bhattacharjee 


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Comments

  1. Now I know which way how, acclaimed famed bites the dust. No wonder many more to bite the dust in the coming days ahead. Not surprised by this detiorating saga. Takshila disappeared, so it will be in today's era's toothless Tigers 👏👏

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