Arabic-L:PEDA:Response to Washington Post article

[Dilworth Parkinson]

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Arabic-L: Mon 14 Jul 2008
Moderator: Dilworth Parkinson <dilworth_parkinson at byu.edu>
[To post messages to the list, send them to arabic-l at byu.edu]
[To unsubscribe, send message from same address you subscribed from to
listserv at byu.edu with first line reading:
            unsubscribe arabic-l                                      ]

-------------------------Directory------------------------------------

1) Subject:Response to Washington Post article

-------------------------Messages-----------------------------------
1)
Date: 14 Jul 2008
From:"Dora Johnson" <dJohnson at cal.org>
Subject:Response to Washington Post article

This was a letter to the editor published in the Washington Post  
today.   -- Dora Johnson
Teaching Arabic at Harvard
Wednesday, July 9, 2008; Page A14
I have been a student of Arabic at Harvard University for several  
years. In his July 5 op-ed, "Teaching Arabic and Propaganda," Joel  
Pollak distorted the content of Georgetown University Press's "Al- 
Kitaab" textbook and Harvard's Arabic language program.

Mr. Pollak claimed that the maps in "Al-Kitaab" do not include Israel.  
There are three maps in the book: On Page 13, Israel is represented  
without the West Bank and Gaza. On Page 389, two historical maps (from  
the Ottoman era to World War I) predate Israel's existence.

Second, the films that Mr. Pollak singled out as "political  
propaganda" have no direct political message. "West Beirut," for  
example, about the Lebanese civil war, was honored with an award at  
the 1998Cannes Film Festival.

Mr. Pollak's advocacy of policing "the content of the federally funded  
materials used in Arabic programs" is nothing more than a disgraceful  
call for censorship in the classroom.

MARYAM MONALISA GHARAVI
Cambridge
The writer is a doctoral candidate in comparative literature and film  
and visual studies at Harvard University.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
End of Arabic-L:  14 Jul 2008