Tongue-Tied in the Arab World (Washington Post)

[Aurolyn Luykx]

I read that too but I think it was only 3-4 people.
Given the original article, I'd be surprised if they
were ever 26 openly gay Arabists over there!
A.L.

--- Christina Paulston <paulston+ at pitt.edu> wrote:
> Not only that, on top of it, they recently fired
> 26??? (I think it was 26)
> arab-speaking interpreters because they were gay.
> Stupidity! Christina
>
> ----------
> >From: Aurolyn Luykx <aurolynluykx at yahoo.com>
> >To: lgpolicy-list at ccat.sas.upenn.edu
> >Subject: Re: Tongue-Tied in the Arab World
> (Washington Post)
> >Date: Fri, Jul 11, 2003, 9:49 AM
> >
>
> > Interesting that Fukuyama (yes, the same who
> declared
> > "the end of history" inasmuch as Western
> capitalism &
> > democracy no longer faced any serious challenges!)
> and
> > his ilk fear that learning the languages of those
> > dangerous cultural "others" may lead to feelings
> of
> > sympathy with their points of view. Is not this
> hope
> > of empathy through cultural understanding part of
> what
> > motivated many of us toward linguistics in the
> first
> > place?
> > Aurolyn Luykx
> > University of Miami
> >
> > --- "Harold F. Schiffman"
> > <haroldfs at ccat.sas.upenn.edu> wrote:
> >> This article is not surprising, and the disdain
> for
> >> knowledge of Arabic
> >> (or any other language spoken "east of Suez") is
> >> well-known.  To those of
> >> us who have specialized in the less-known and
> >> less-studied languages of
> >> the world, the article could be written with any
> >> less-commonly known
> >> language substituted for "Arabic".  People like
> >> myself, who took the leap
> >> and specialized in Tamil back in the 1960's,
> thought
> >> that the eurocentric
> >> bent of American education, where people only
> >> studied European languages,
> >> whether in high school or beyond, was over, and
> that
> >> the change of
> >> emphasis in the 1960's meant that eurocentrism
> was
> >> dead.  But then in the
> >> 1970's the disdain for knowledge of the rest of
> the
> >> world returned.  This
> >> was particularly true during the Vietnam War,
> >> because Nixon and others
> >> felt that we specialists were "tilting" towards
> the
> >> "enemy" and "going
> >> native" and "sympathizing too much" with "those
> >> people."  Just the same
> >> attitudes as quoted from Francis Fukuyama below.
> >> (Is this the same person
> >> who predicted the "death of history"?)
> >>
> >> Suddenly, on September 12, 2001, somebody in
> >> Washington DC woke up and
> >> realized that we really don't know enough about
> >> "those languages" and
> >> maybe we ought to have someone who does.
> >>
> >> (Sigh)
> >>
> >> Your moderator,
> >>
> >> Hal Schiffman
> >>
> >> On Fri, 11 Jul 2003 ronkinm at georgetown.edu wrote:
> >>
> >> > washingtonpost.com
> >> >
> >> > Tongue-Tied In the Arab World
> >> >
> >> > By David Ignatius
> >> >
> >> > Friday, July 11, 2003; Page A21
> >> >
> >> > PARIS -- The Post ran a story this week about
> an
> >> explosion on a bridge
> >> > in Baghdad that targeted U.S. troops. Sadly,
> such
> >> stories are
> >> > becoming routine, but something in the lead
> >> sentence caught my eye: "The
> >> > combat engineers inside the tan Humvees had
> >> traversed the
> >> > Wedding Island Bridge dozens of times to fetch
> >> their translator."
> >> >
> >> > "To fetch their translator." That's the
> worrying
> >> detail. None of the
> >> > engineers spoke Arabic, apparently. Which meant
> >> that, like most of the
> >> > 150,000 U.S. personnel in Iraq, they were
> >> dependent on interpreters.
> >> > That's a dangerous vulnerability. But, as with
> so
> >> much else about
> >> > postwar Iraq, nobody seems to have thought it
> >> through carefully.
> >> >
> >> > This is a self-inflicted wound. For until
> >> recently, fluency in Arabic
> >> > was often suspect in Washington, a sign of
> >> potential pro-Arab
> >> > sympathies. It could be dangerous to your
> career
> >> health.
> >> >
> >> > The ideological purges of the 1950s wiped out a
> >> generation of
> >> > Sinologists who were deemed too close to
> Beijing,
> >> leaving America
> >> > without needed expertise when it went to war in
> >> Vietnam. So now the lack
> >> > of Arab-world expertise limits America in Iraq.
> >> >
> >> > The shortage of Arabic speakers has become so
> >> acute that one of the U.S.
> >> > government's most fluent Arabists recently had
> to
> >> interpret trivial
> >> > housekeeping questions at his headquarters in
> >> Baghdad. This is a man who
> >> > could help create a new Iraq; what a waste that
> he
> >> must spend time
> >> > minding the domestic staff.
> >> >
> >> > The lack of Arabists already was severe during
> the
> >> Afghanistan war.
> >> > Indeed, I am told that an Arabic document found
> in
> >> Kabul before the
> >> > murder of Daniel Pearl outlined a plot to
> kidnap
> >> an American journalist
> >> > in an unnamed country. But it was ignored in a
> >> heap of documents by
> >> > an overwhelmed Pentagon bureaucracy.
> >> >
> >> > Once upon a time it was different. There was a
> >> caste at the State
> >> > Department and the CIA known as "the Arabists."
> >> Often their parents had
> >> > been missionaries or teachers in the Arab
> world,
> >> so they grew up
> >> > learning subtleties of language and culture.
> >> Sometimes, they became
> >> > Arabists by choice rather than birth -- drawn
> to
> >> that part of the world
> >> > by its exotic if dangerous political history.
> >> >
> >> > I think of people such as Robert Ames, a young
> >> basketball star who fell
> >> > in love with the Arab world in the 1960s after
> CIA
> >> language school.
> >> > As I wrote in a 1987 novel based loosely on
> Ames's
> >> experiences, "he felt
> >> > the Middle East like a physical sensation on
> his
> >> skin." The real-life
> >> > Ames developed secret contact with the PLO's
> chief
> >> of intelligence
> >> > during the 1970s that saved hundreds of
> American
> >> lives.
> >> >
> >> > Or I think of Ray Close, who was CIA station
> chief
> >> in Saudi Arabia for
> >> > seven turbulent years and helped limit the
> damage
> >> of the 1973
> >> > Arab-Israeli war and subsequent oil embargo. He
> is
> >> descended from four
>
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