On the Cutting Edge: Sabre Foundation Provides Books to Libraries in the Developing World

By David P. Johnson Jr.

When people refer to poor nations making the transition toward development they often think in terms of various infrastructure improvements, such as better roads and new airports.

However, development means a lot more than buildings and parking lots, officials at a Cambridge, Massachusetts organization are quick to point out. To create a modern society also takes knowledge, and that means books. But building a library can cost more money than many cash-strapped governments are able to come up with. That’s where the Sabre Foundation steps in.

Founded in 1969, the foundation “works to build free institutions and to examine the ideals that sustain them,” according to its annual report. The name, Sabre, is meant to imply “cutting edge,” according to the organization’s secretary, attorney Charles Getchell.

Working with private funding sources, its own money and donations from publishing companies, the Sabre Foundation allows libraries and schools in various countries to order current books at no cost. The foundation then handles the shipping and storage of the books.

Sabre has handled regular programs in 23 nations in Asia, Africa and Latin America and is currently managing projects in Uzbekistan and Kyrgystan. Libraries in Mongolia, war-torn Liberia and South Africa have also recently been helped, while a plan to help Cuba is under consideration.

In addition, the foundation has played an active role in rebuilding ruined libraries in Bosnia. (See “Scholars Help Bosnia Rebuild Destroyed Libraries,” Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, December 1998, p. 64.)

Periodic book shipments are made to an additional 29 countries, including such diverse Muslim nations as Albania, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Mali and Senegal. Programs in the West Bank and Gaza and possibly in Algeria are being developed. Institutions in Jordan and the Sudan have also expressed interest in working with Sabre.

“We’re getting more and more requests from Islamic countries for English-language books,” said Tania Vitvitsky, director of the scientific assistance project. “The Arabic world is underserved.”

Due to problems shipping through Israel, and the lack of a local partner organization to handle book storage and distribution, the programs in Gaza and the West Bank are stalled for the moment. The foundation prefers to work with local organizations, but will accept partnerships with international groups which are well-established and have distribution capabilities.

Getchell and Vitvitsky recently traveled to Algiers to assess a potential program there. During their four-day visit, they spoke with the Algerian Librarians’ Association, the National Library and the University of Algiers, where an English-language MBA program is being developed. At a children’s library, the staff requested picture books in English, while others wanted French-language material.

There is an “ample need for books,” Getchell said, noting that a shortage of hard currency since 1987 has made it difficult to buy foreign materials. Therefore, many of the reference books in the libraries are out of date. He also pointed out that since Arabic is now the official language of Algeria, the country could be turning away from French and be more open to English-language material.

Although they were constantly aware of Algeria’s tense political situation, Vitvitsky said people were charming.

“They’ve been so isolated. Everyone was just thrilled to see us,” she said. “It’s a lively city.”

Despite the fact that the curfew imposed on Algiers residents was lifted four years ago, Getchell and Vitvitsky admitted that the pervasive security was a sobering reminder of the periodic killings that rock Algeria. Metal detectors line the entrances to the hotels and the hotel van displayed no markings. American Embassy personnel warned them against wandering around alone.

“It was open season on foreigners four years ago,” Getchell said, adding that the situation has considerably improved.

Sabre is currently exploring ways to get the program going, including the possibility of obtaining some French-language books from France and Belgium.

“We want to help them, particularly the libraries, get out of this isolation that is very debilitating,” Getchell stated, explaining that the Algiers library was burned down in the 1960s.

Regardless of where they are located, most institutions seek English materials, Vitvitsky said. “Business and the Internet have fueled demand for English, even in Francophone countries.”

She added that there also have been some requests for children’s books in French and Spanish.

She stressed that the program is so popular around the world because it allows the institutions to pick what they need.

“People choose the books they want,” she said, noting that they order from the current lists offered by American commercial and academic publishers. For example, a library in Poland or Hungary may only want current medical texts, while a law school in the West Bank may seek material on international law.

The foundation will also buy books to fill specific requirements. “If we have the money, we will buy,” Vitvitsky stated, adding that they recently bought $100,000 worth of scientific books for a Ukrainian medical school. “We have a negligible endowment and so every program has to stand on its own two feet.” A project in Ghana, for example, is paid for by an outside donor.

Because of the high cost of shipping and storing thousands of books, Sabre does not accept general donations from individuals or publishers. Shipments are made by sea, with donations packed in huge containers, holding either 10,000 or 20,000 books. If children’s books are being sent, then even more can fit.

“What we don’t want is for people to clean out their basements,” Vitvitsky explained. “People overseas don’t need our trash. They need good materials. We don’t take used children’s books.”

In some cases, however, they do accept special collections of old books. Last fall a collection of 50,000 books and numerous language tapes was sent to the Ivan Franko Lviv State University Library in Ukraine. The collection had been amassed by the late scholar Jaroslav Holub of Detroit, who had promised the books to that library. Sabre has also accepted old economics books from the collection of former Federal Reserve Board chairman Paul Volker because of their scholastic value.

Getchell explained that they try to visit each project to inspect the facilities and ensure that resources are put to the maximum use. “We generally visit all of our partner countries sooner or later,” he said.

Their policy of letting each institution pick what it wants also allows the Sabre Foundation to avoid politics. Getchell and Vitvitsky explained that since the libraries and schools know what political authorities will tolerate, the foundation is able to avoid political confrontations.

“We try to work with neutral groups,” Getchell said. “We see our role as educational, not grinding some axe.”

In addition to its book programs, the foundation also teaches computer skills for librarians and academicians at its Cambridge offices, in a cooperative program with Harvard University.

For more information contact: Sabre Foundation, Inc., 872 Massachusetts Ave., Suite 2-1, Cambridge, MA 02139 phone (617) 868-3510, fax (617) 868-7916. The foundation maintains an Internet site at http://www.sabre.org.

Scholars Insist Peace Must Include Palestinian Civil Rights

Any lasting Israeli-Palestinian peace is doomed to fail unless it brings permanent human rights to the Palestinian people, a professor and a human rights lawyer said during a Feb. 18 forum in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Speaking before some 40 people at the First Parish Church, Dr. Elaine C. Hagopian, a former sociology professor at Simmons College, and Shawqi Issa, co-founder of the Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment, stressed that an actual improvement in the condition of the Palestinian people—as opposed to mere promises—must be achieved for peace to succeed.

They also said that human rights violations have been made by both Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Issa, who has seen the insides of both Israeli and Palestinian Authority jails, blasted the Palestinian Authority for its failure to strive to implement true justice. He said the Palestinian court system lacks credibility, noting that Yasser Arafat not long ago fired a Supreme Court justice for rendering an unpopular decision.

“This is what’s going on now. The Palestinians there don’t like this solution. They are not getting their rights,” he said. “It’s not a court at all. It’s just some soldiers playing games.”

Issa compared the current situation to apartheid, with Israeli police maintaining control over the West Bank, while only certain towns are controlled by the Palestinian Authority. “The legal system there is racist,” he stated, adding that the Israeli Supreme Court has endorsed the use of “moderate torture.”

Three percent of Palestinian territory is under the control of the Palestinian Authority, another 27 percent is jointly administered with Israel controlling police and defense matters, while 70 percent of the land remains under total Israeli jurisdiction. (Editor’s Note: Since the West Bank and Gaza together constitute less than 22 percent of the Mandate of Palestine, only about 7 percent of the Mandate is under Palestinian or joint Israeli-Palestinian control.)

Currently a fellow in the human rights program at Harvard University Law School, Issa said that although in his opinion Arafat is working on behalf of the Americans, not the Palestinians, it really does not matter who leads that nation as long as a viable legal system is implemented and followed.

“The system is more important,” he said. “If it is a democratic system, then it doesn’t matter who leads it.”

Issa said that in figuring out how the current situation arose, it is vital to understand the relations among the various colonial powers competing for influence in the Middle East during the latter part of the 19th century, when the Ottoman Empire gradually weakened.

France had influence through Roman Catholic Arabs, while Orthodox Christian Arabs sympathized with Russia. With no co-religionists of its own, Great Britain began working with the Jews, encouraging its own large Jewish population to emigrate. The rise of the Zionist movement and the subsequent Balfour Declaration supporting a state of Israel reinforced this tendency. However, Issa said, with the increase in U.S. power after World War II, Israel switched patrons, from Britain to America.

Issa charged that Washington uses Israel as a policeman. “The strategy of the United States is to keep control over the Middle East,” he said.

Issa also said that while the Palestinian question has always been an obstacle to peace, most Palestinians now accept that Israel is going to stay. They genuinely want peace. But Israel is going to have to treat the Palestinians like equals and tolerate their own self-government, he said.

Israel: The U.S. Policeman

Hagopian traced the history of United States involvement in the region since World War II, pointing out that U.S. and Israeli interests have largely coincided, at least up to the present.

“Israeli policy coalesced with U.S. policy,” she said.

The United States was able to dominate the region by using Israel as a proxy and by ensuring that the Arabs remained disunited, she explained. She said that U.S. policymaker George Kennan spelled out the policy of containment against the Soviets following World War II and also outlined the containment of Arab nationalism.

From the Truman administration onward, America used alliances and puppet regimes to contain states which threatened its power, Hagopian stated.

In addition, she said that this convergence of influence has made the job of the Israeli lobby much easier within the United States. “The Israel lobby is very strong in the United States. Because of the coalescence of interests between the U.S. and Israel, the lobby can extract more,” Hagopian stated. “If U.S.-Israeli interests diverge, as they will in the future, the lobby will lose its potency.”

In response to questions, both speakers felt that the late King Hussein of Jordan was definitely another American proxy in the region. Hagopian said, “The U.S., by sending four presidents [to Hussein’s funeral], was saying, ‘This is our boy.’”

Asked about the abduction of Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan by Turkish commandos, the speakers agreed that the operation had the hallmark of Israeli intelligence, although it is unlikely that Israeli troops participated in the actual kidnapping itself.

They predicted that Jordan will become more democratic as the new generation demands a role in the political system.

Another speaker from the audience pointed out the hypocrisy of the international Jewish community demanding and receiving compensation from Switzerland and other countries for property taken during World War II, while refusing to even acknowledge that the Zionists took property from the Palestinians without restitution. “We want our heritage,” the woman stated.

The program was sponsored by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee’s Massachusetts chapter and the Boston Committee on the Middle East. For more information, contact ADC at P.O. Box 299, Westwood, MA 02090.

David P. Johnson Jr. is a Boston-based free-lance writer specializing in international relations.