From Genocide to Scholasticide -

By Kashif Hassan, Peshawar

Every era has its own language of violence. In the past, power often showed itself through open conquest, mass killing and occupation. In the modern world, violence has become more complex. It still kills bodies, but it also destroys institutions, memory, knowledge and the future of nations.

This is why the term “scholasticide” deserves serious attention.

Genocide targets a people. Scholasticide targets the intellectual life of a people. It does not only mean the destruction of a school or a university building. It means the systematic weakening of a society’s teachers, students, researchers, laboratories, libraries, data, academic networks and institutional memory. It is an attack on the ability of a nation to think, learn, heal, rebuild and move forward.

The recent conflict involving the United States, Israel and Iran has brought this issue into sharp focus. According to an editorial published in the International Journal of Health Policy and Management, attacks after February 28, 2026 destroyed or damaged 32 Iranian universities. At least 10 professors and 60 students linked with academic and research work were killed. The credibility of this source lies in the fact that it is not a solitary political comment. It is a collective scholarly intervention written by fourteen researchers and scholars affiliated with institutions across Canada, Iran, the United Kingdom, the United States, Switzerland, Malaysia, Pakistan and Lebanon. The same editorial also reports that on April 2, 2026, Iran’s historic Pasteur Institute was severely damaged. Established in 1920, the institute has been an important regional centre for vaccine development, disease surveillance and public health research.

These figures are not ordinary war statistics. They point to something deeper. Modern wars do not only damage roads, bridges, power stations or military sites. They can also damage the knowledge systems that keep a society alive. When universities are bombed, the loss is not limited to walls and classrooms. When research institutes are damaged, the loss is not limited to machines and files. A whole chain of social capacity is affected.

A university produces teachers, doctors, engineers, scientists, nurses, public health experts, economists, administrators and policy thinkers. A medical research institute helps a country monitor diseases, develop vaccines, collect data, train specialists and respond to health emergencies. If such institutions are destroyed, a nation does not only lose buildings. It loses future doctors, future scientists, future public health systems and future problem-solvers.

This is why scholasticide is not merely an educational issue. It is also a public health issue, a development issue and a human security issue.

Modern economies are increasingly knowledge-based. A country’s real strength does not come only from land, oil, gas or factories. It also comes from research, universities, technology, data, laboratories and trained human beings. A nation that can educate its youth, produce knowledge, manage public health and develop scientific capacity can survive crises more effectively. A nation whose intellectual infrastructure is destroyed becomes dependent, vulnerable and easier to control.

The destruction of a university therefore has long consequences. It affects students who lose their education. It affects teachers who lose their research environment. It affects patients who may never benefit from future medical discoveries. It affects the state because it loses trained people needed for governance, planning and service delivery. It also affects the region because diseases, climate risks and health crises do not stop at national borders.

The Pasteur Institute example is especially important. Public health is not built only in hospitals. It is built much earlier, in laboratories, research centres, medical universities and data systems. Hospitals treat patients after disease appears. Research institutions help societies understand, prevent and control disease before it spreads. They train the people who later run hospitals, laboratories and health departments. In simple words, if the university is weakened today, the hospital will suffer tomorrow.

Scholasticide is also not limited to bombs. It can continue in quieter forms during peace. Sanctions, visa restrictions, exclusion from academic platforms, denial of access to journals, databases, software, online learning tools and international collaboration can slowly isolate a country’s scholars. A researcher may remain physically alive, but intellectually cut off from the world. A student may sit in a classroom, but without access to global knowledge networks. A university may remain standing, but unable to function as a living institution.

This slow isolation can be as damaging as physical destruction. It creates brain drain. It weakens research quality. It reduces international credibility. It breaks academic continuity. It forces young scholars either to leave their country or abandon their intellectual ambitions. Over time, an entire society pays the price.

International humanitarian law does not treat educational and scientific institutions as ordinary targets. Schools, universities, laboratories and research centres are civilian objects unless they are clearly being used for military purposes. Buildings dedicated to education, science, hospitals and charitable purposes are protected under the laws of war. If this protection is weakened by vague claims of “dual use,” then almost any institution can be declared suspicious and destroyed. That would make the protection of civilian life almost meaningless.

This is the real danger of modern warfare. The language of security can be stretched so far that everything becomes a target: a university, a hospital, a laboratory, a data centre, a bridge, a power plant, a classroom. Once this logic is accepted, the distinction between civilian life and military objective begins to collapse.

There is also a moral contradiction here. The same powerful states that speak most loudly about human rights, democracy, law and civilization often become silent when their own actions, or the actions of their allies, damage civilian infrastructure. If international law applies only to weaker states, then it is not law. It becomes an instrument of power. If human rights are defended only when they serve strategic interests, then they become slogans rather than principles.

Disagreement with a government can never justify the destruction of a nation’s intellectual future. Governments change. Rulers come and go. But universities, laboratories, teachers, students and research institutions belong to the people. They are part of a nation’s collective inheritance. To destroy them is not to punish a government. It is to punish generations.

The silence around scholasticide is dangerous. When universities are destroyed in one country and the world looks away, future attackers receive a message: knowledge can be targeted without serious consequence. Today the issue may be Iran. Yesterday it was another country. Tomorrow it may be somewhere else. The real question is larger than any one conflict: can the centres of learning, science and health be left at the mercy of power politics?

Knowledge is not a luxury. It is one of the foundations of human dignity. It allows societies to heal, to think, to resist, to rebuild and to imagine a better future. A system that turns universities, hospitals and research centres into war targets does not only fight a state. It fights the future of human beings.

If genocide destroys human life, scholasticide darkens the future of nations.