Juan Cole responds to the suggestion that his command of Arabic is less than commanding, after opting for English during an Iraqi elections roundtable on Al-Jazeera:
No one doubts that Cole speaks it. But speaking Arabic, and speaking it on television, involve very different levels of proficiency. A few Westerners, like the French scholar Gilles Kepel and the former U.S. diplomat Christopher Ross, have no problem going on television and gabbing away in the language. I won’t mention names, but I’ve heard that a few more non-Arab Americans can do it, and there are a couple of people on my own hallway who learned Arabic as adults and speak it on Al-Jazeera regularly. Cole prefers not to, and he gives this explanation:
Three things can be said about that. First, it’s not clear why a give-and-take on Iraqi elections would require an absolute control of nuance, especially if you’re just a pundit with nothing at stake. Second, what’s the point of achieving absolute control of nuance, if it means turning over the reformulation of your entire message to some guy who writes subtitles in Arabic? What if he dents your credibility in the eyes of Arab viewers?
Third, and perhaps most telling, why does Cole think that absolute control of nuance is limited to one’s mother tongue? I know quite a few Arabs whose command of English is better than their command of Arabic, because they’ve taken the trouble to master it. The late Elie Kedourie once caught Arnold Toynbee in some bit of nonsense similar to Cole’s, and he dismissed it as “nativism.” Kedourie:
Talking about electoral politics would be the least of it. Kedourie, by the way, spoke the Baghdadi Jewish dialect at home, French as a youngster at school, and only later developed an English that was elegant and precise. His English style was my model--and my own mother tongue is English.
Three factors explain why so few American Middle East experts have paid Arabic the compliment of achieving a high level of expression. First, the language is difficult. Second, there are plenty of polyglot Arabs willing to translate and interpret, at minimal cost. Third, perfect Arabic is less important to career advancement than mastering all the right academic jargon and professing all the right disciplinary dogmas--with absolute control of nuance. The first two factors are beyond anyone’s control, but the last can be affected, if government refocuses the Title VI subsidy program for area studies back on languages. I urge Cole, as president-elect of the Middle East Studies Association, to join me in supporting just that.
Finally, Cole offers this supposed behind-the-scenes testimonial from Fouad Ajami:
Leave it to Cole to retail a tongue-in-cheek quip--made by the quip-master at the expense of American-schooled or London-loving Arab rulers--as a compliment to himself. Really.
posted Tuesday, 8 February 2005
