It's in the P-I

Last week, I mentioned a Seattle Times report about an after-school Arabic language program in Seattle high schools. Today, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer picks up on the story under the heading

Students look into the Arab world
They hope to understand the culture by speaking the language

The article closes with a quote from instructor Saadia Al-Tahir

Al-Tahir said she thought that learning Arabic would help her students see through blanket generalizations tying Arabs to terrorism, and counter the fear that comes from misunderstanding. They'll be able to separate an individual from the millions of people that make up the Arab world.

"I think that when you say 'Arabs' or 'Islam,' people think of buildings being bombed," she said. "People associate Arabs with terrorists. Maybe some people have a fear in their heart.

"By getting to know the language, they get to know the people and the culture. And that fear will disappear."

As I wrote the other day, I think its vitally important that more Americans study Arabic and this program could be a good step in that direction. But let's not kid ourselves, we are at war with certain elements of the Arab world. This program was launched, the Times reported, "after the 9-11 terrorist attacks, with the goal of increasing youths' understanding of global issues and to improve the image of Americans abroad."

But to assume that getting to know Arab culture is a path to shedding one's healthy fear and caution about the Arab world is as foolhardy as not trying to understand it in the first place. To assume that understanding is a step towards peaceful co-existence would be as dumb as assuming that America could have avoided all that messy fighting in World War II by giving Japanese and German lessons to American high school students in 1942. Yes, it is important that we learn more about Arab language and culture and civilization. But truly understanding the Arab world entails understanding the difference between our friends and our enemies in the Arab world. It entails not only understanding how to build bridges to our Arab friends. It also entails understanding why our enemies hate us, why they cannot be accommodated, why we must prevail and what we must do to defeat them.

I do hope more Americans learn Arabic. In the meantime, we can all gain understanding by reading the Arab media in translation. MEMRI is a good place to start.

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at October 21, 2003 04:33 PM