Damascus: Students of Arabic Learn at a Syrian Crossroads

[Harold F. Schiffman]

November 14, 2007

Students of Arabic Learn at a Syrian Crossroads

By THANASSIS CAMBANIS

DAMASCUS, Syria  This sleepy capital has long been a popular destination
for foreigners who want to learn Arabic. Drawn by the charmingly
well-preserved old city, an easily understood Arabic dialect and dirt
cheap tuition prices subsidized by the government, thousands of foreign
students enroll in language institutes here every year.

Some students are not Muslim; others are devoutly so, bent on deepening
their Islamic faith during a year or two in Damascus.

The two drastically different pools of students intersect at the secular
Arabic Teaching Institute for Non-Arabic Speakers, tucked away on a back
street behind a row of embassies in the modern Mezze quarter.

Women in full niqab covering that reveals only their eyes mingle in the
hallways with European students in form-fitting T-shirts and skirts. The
institute is one of a handful that can sponsor foreign students for Syrian
residency, so even deeply religious students who prefer to study in a more
religiously observant environment, like the renowned Abu Noor mosques
strict conservative school, must take some of their classes at the
avowedly secular institute.

In a tightly controlled society whose government strictly limits foreign
visitors, language study is a notable exception, an oasis of relative
openness. Officially, the government has strained relations with America,
but it also has long been hostile to Islamists. The foreign student
roster, however, is crammed with both.

We are ambassadors of sorts, said Ahmad Haji Safar, the institutes
director. The students who come here can take back a real image of Syria,
not the caricature they see in the media.

A trim 40-year-old who wears a stylishly tailored white suit with a black
shirt, Mr. Safar looks as if he would be just as comfortable at a cafe in
France  where he lived for 12 years  as behind the imposing desk where he
receives students with a bowl of candy.

The director has brought with him from France decidedly modern ideas about
education, and he has enthusiastically signed up with the education
ministers project to overhaul and modernize higher education in Syria.

The institutes barren classrooms overlook a paved courtyard. The most
modern item in sight is the portrait in the lobby of President Bashar
Assad, who took power in 2000.

Mr. Safar, however, is overseeing a renovation to take the institute into
the modern age: Wi-Fi Internet across the campus, language labs with the
latest computers and video-conferencing equipment and a companion package
of CDs and Internet tutorials so students can continue learning Arabic
after they leave.

Still, his 300 students have to contend with the Syrian states arcane
bureaucracy, which requires students before they register to run a gamut
that includes an AIDS test, medical exam and registration at a bank.

Its like being under Communism again, although Communism in my country
worked better, said Jana Breska, 27, a student from the Czech Republic.

You waste so much time in the queue, added her friend, Asma Chehade, 23,
from Poland.

During breaks, students tend to cluster by nationality or religion. Theres
little mixing between the openly devout  proclaimed by Islamic skullcaps
for the men and veils for the women  and the secular. Americans and
Europeans smoke in the front of the school. Korean, Japanese and Chinese
students chat standing in a circle in the lobby. A veiled American from
California paces in and out of the courtyard.

Mr. Safar believes the mix of religious and non-religious students is one
of the schools strongest points.

A religious student who comes here has to improve their Arabic, not study
religion, he said. Language, here, is not a tool of religion or of the
imams.

A big part of the draw of this language institute is its price tag: free,
according to the director, for a majority of the 300 students admitted,
who get waivers or scholarships from the Syrian government. Full tuition
is only $200 for a three-month course.

Those who would prefer a more religious environment, like Marina Antonova,
19, who wears a tightly fastened gray head scarf, say the school requires
a necessary compromise.

Ms. Antonova, a devout Muslim from the Russian republic of Tatarstan,
spent two years at the Abu Noor language institute, which is affiliated
with a mosque and prepares students for careers in Islamic jurisprudence.

In October students had a chance to audit different sections of the
language courses. In the upper-level classes, they could choose between a
veiled teacher and one whose head was uncovered. Most of the religious
students in the uncovered teachers section shifted to the class taught by
the professor with the head scarf.

Ms. Antonova said a devout Muslim like herself was obliged to choose the
better teacher, but could opt for a religious teacher over a secular one
if the quality of their instruction was the same.

While Ms. Antonova said she was uncomfortable with the freewheeling
student body at the institute, she said she needed to acquire broader
Arabic language skills; the complex grammar and syntax of the Koranic
Arabic taught at the mosque would not suffice for her to return to Russia
and work as a translator.

She will miss Syrias Islamic mores when she goes home, she said, noting
that prejudice against religious Muslims is rampant in many parts of
Russia.

People here are better, more moral, Ms. Antonova said. They have ethics.
At home, there are far too many problems.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/14/world/middleeast/14syria.html?ref=world

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