I was reminded of Franck Salameh’s description of politicized Arabic language classes at Middlebury -- Arab Nationalism Run Rampant at Middlebury -- while reading this article on a new federally-funded Arabic language class at Charlestown High School: Speaking up. It sounds like a very good idea. We need more Arabic speakers.:
Arabic words for teacher, student, and homework decorate metal classroom doors. The 28 letters of the alphabet dot rows of orange lockers in the dimly lighted halls. The fourth floor of Charlestown High School, a five-story brick fortress that abuts two housing projects, has been transformed into a slice of the Middle East for five weeks.
Speaking halting Arabic, students use Iraqi dinars to buy granola bars and chewing gum in a makeshift dukan. They occasionally feast on kebabs , falafels, and grape leaves as Lebanese music fills their classroom. They watch sexy dancers in Egyptian music videos performing moves they are surprised to see on something other than MTV.
For more than five hours a day, six days a week, the 29 Boston public school students are learning Arabic and studying Middle Eastern history, geography, and culture as part of a national initiative to ramp up the number of Arabic speakers. The new, federally funded program, which is in only eight schools nationwide, is shattering many stereotypes of the Middle East that the students gleaned from coverage of the war in Iraq.
Saturated by images of Muslims and Arabs as terrorists since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the students say they have the unique opportunity to adopt more expansive views of a volatile, oil-rich region that will only grow in importance...
...On July 7, the students visited the Islamic Society of Boston, a mosque in Cambridge’s Central Square, where they sat in a circle on the carpet and learned about Islam from two mosque members. Peberlyn Moreta, 16, said she imagined that the women would be veiled head to toe, and was surprised to see only their heads covered...
...Across the hall , another group of students watched the film “Divine Intervention,” a 2003 comic tragedy about love on both sides of the Palestinian-Israeli border.
They giggled at the repeated scenes of a Palestinian woman holding hands with her lover. But the students quickly turned somber when their teacher, Lama Jarudi, delved into why some people martyr themselves in suicide bombings...
Jarudi, also an economics teacher, said she has received mixed feedback from family and friends about teaching Arabic.
“They fear that I’m helping Americans train more spies,” said Jarudi, who lived in Lebanon until age 9. “I feel quite the opposite. Anyone who learns the Arabic language inherently has to understand the culture a little bit.”...