As I have blogged several times in the past (in regards to Charlie Hebdo incident or the gang-style shooting in Sweden highlighting immigrants' situations in Europe), this op-ed piece talks about how Arabic language is associated with terrorism & Islamophobia.
Immigrants to US & Canada are constantly asked (in some cases, told) to assimilate & integrate with the culture of their new homelands. Assimilation & integration is a two-way street. Immigrants will happily assimilate & integrate with the culture of new homelands, as long as their native counterparts are also absorbing what immigrants are bringing to the nation.
But, that does not how it happens. Native residents (Anglo-Saxon Caucasians) of North America want immigrants to forget all about their pasts (culture, language, social norms etc.) & do as they are told to do by the native population.
Native residents have in their mind that beggars can't be choosers, so immigrants should change their ways, but native residents won't change their ways a bit ... to make their guests feel welcome.
Ironically, when these native residents of North America move to any other country in the world, which has a different culture than theirs, they try to change that country's culture or boldly defy it. For instance, Dubai authorities have politely asked their expat populations several times to cover up in public places but Europeans & North Americans stroll around in public places (malls etc.) in bikinis. Now, that may be acceptable in Miami or Rio or Bangkok, but it's not in Dubai.
Problem is that the native populations of North America & even Europe have a superiority complex. Lack of knowledge is hysterical (how is Arabic & Afghanistan are related is beyond me). Most of the population is closed-minded, & don't have any desire in learning something other than their own culture. This may not be as much visible or extreme in bigger cities, like Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia etc. (where both kinds of populations, native & immigrant, come across each other quite often), but a big chunk of population also lives in much smaller cities, e.g. Thunder Bay, Brandon, Kamloops, or, as in this op-ed, Pine Bush. Immigrant population is usually relatively much smaller or even non-existent in these smaller cities, compared to large metro areas.
Remember, you need both hands to clap. Assimilation & integration requires both sides, native & immigrant populations, to reach out towards each other & understand each other; be they be living in a large metro area or a small town. Until that happens, both sides will keep blaming each other for not extending the hand of friendship & trying to understand each other's cultures.
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2 weeks after New York City announced that its schools would observe the principal Muslim holidays, another school district in the State of New York signaled that Islamophobia in the US, & its classrooms, was hardly on the decline.
On March 18, a student at Pine Bush High School recited the American Pledge of Allegiance in Arabic. The exercise was part of the School's "National Foreign Language Week", an event held to celebrate the "many races, cultures & religions that make up [the US & the Pine Bush] School District".
However, an event celebrating American multiculturalism & pledging patriotism was immediately met with anger & offense - driven by the conflation of the Arabic language with Islam, & in turn, inassimilability, violence & terrorism.
The controversy sparked by the "Arabic pledge" highlights, very vividly, how different dimensions of Arab or Muslim identity - even language - are conflated with threat. And more audibly, how even reverent attempts to reconcile Arab or Muslim culture with American identity incites zeal & scorn.
Pine Bush is roughly 85 miles away from New York City. Although within a 2-mile drive of the Big Apple, the School District is culturally & demographically worlds away. At 95%, the small town is overwhelmingly white. The Arab & Muslim-American populations are negligible, as is the presence of other minority communities.
National Foreign Language Week was an institutional attempt to culturally integrate (racially & religiously) minority students. Providing a platform, within the walls of the classroom, for these students to celebrate their native tongues, customs, & identities.
This invaluable teaching moment, as soon as the pledge was recited in Arabic, mutated into mis-education & malice.
"The pledge should always be said in English," one student stated. Several parents were offended, "because they had family members killed in Afghanistan," associating the language with war, & a nation where Arabic is not even spoken.
The chorus of opposition was united by a common baseline. Namely, that Arabic was anything but a standalone language. But rather, the linguistic tentacle of perverted representations of Islam, ISIL & al-Qaeda, & terrorism.
The very utterance of the language instantly evoked this imagery, & the translation of the pledge of allegiance from English to Arabic signaled hostility, imminent takeover, & the "clashing civilizations" discourse permeating through every pore of American society.
Instead of standing firm with the spirit of National Foreign Language Week, the Pine Bush High School principal apologised for the recital. Consequently, endorsing the idea that reciting the American pledge of allegiance in Arabic was an inherently unethical or unpatriotic act. A decision from the school's principal administrator & educator, no less, delivering a lesson (in Islamophobia) that won't be soon forgotten by the School's more than 1,000 students.
The Pine Bush pledge of allegiance controversy has also revitalised discussion of the tolerable scope of multiculturalism within American schools. Namely, which languages or cultures are deemed acceptable for students to celebrate at school - & which ones are considered pariahs?
This controversy, juxtaposed with NYC's plans to observe the Muslim holidays, illustrates that the answers to this question are more complex than clear. Indeed, languages - like Arabic & English - are more than merely systems of communication. They are symbols, expressions of membership, & perhaps most saliently, religious & racial proxies.
Arabic, in past & present in the US, does not only signal foreignness, but also an inextricable nexus to Islam, the Middle East, & the Orient. Spheres positioned as America's geopolitical & normative rival.
Several languages - primarily European ones such as French or Italian, for instance - are deemed assimilable with English. And therefore, American culture & its classrooms. However, other languages such as Chinese or Spanish are frequently branded as alien, inferior, & menacing. The former associated with long-embedded tropes of Asian hostility & subversion, & the latter linked to intense xenophobia & nativism.
However, Arabic - & the maligned entities & ideas it is associated with - stands head & shoulders above (other foreign languages) as linguistic pariah. While the pledge recited in Chinese or Spanish may have caused a minor stir, its reading in Arabic - as illustrated this past week at Pine Bush High School - rose to the level of national alarm & outrage.
A degree of zeal that matches the still climbing heights of Islamophobia on US streets. Which, unfortunately, is still being taught within the vast majority of its schools. While NYC's decision to observe the Muslim holidays offers a much heartening exception, Pine Bush - exactly 2 weeks after that unprecedented step forward - still stands as the unequivocal rule.
Immigrants to US & Canada are constantly asked (in some cases, told) to assimilate & integrate with the culture of their new homelands. Assimilation & integration is a two-way street. Immigrants will happily assimilate & integrate with the culture of new homelands, as long as their native counterparts are also absorbing what immigrants are bringing to the nation.
But, that does not how it happens. Native residents (Anglo-Saxon Caucasians) of North America want immigrants to forget all about their pasts (culture, language, social norms etc.) & do as they are told to do by the native population.
Native residents have in their mind that beggars can't be choosers, so immigrants should change their ways, but native residents won't change their ways a bit ... to make their guests feel welcome.
Ironically, when these native residents of North America move to any other country in the world, which has a different culture than theirs, they try to change that country's culture or boldly defy it. For instance, Dubai authorities have politely asked their expat populations several times to cover up in public places but Europeans & North Americans stroll around in public places (malls etc.) in bikinis. Now, that may be acceptable in Miami or Rio or Bangkok, but it's not in Dubai.
Problem is that the native populations of North America & even Europe have a superiority complex. Lack of knowledge is hysterical (how is Arabic & Afghanistan are related is beyond me). Most of the population is closed-minded, & don't have any desire in learning something other than their own culture. This may not be as much visible or extreme in bigger cities, like Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia etc. (where both kinds of populations, native & immigrant, come across each other quite often), but a big chunk of population also lives in much smaller cities, e.g. Thunder Bay, Brandon, Kamloops, or, as in this op-ed, Pine Bush. Immigrant population is usually relatively much smaller or even non-existent in these smaller cities, compared to large metro areas.
Remember, you need both hands to clap. Assimilation & integration requires both sides, native & immigrant populations, to reach out towards each other & understand each other; be they be living in a large metro area or a small town. Until that happens, both sides will keep blaming each other for not extending the hand of friendship & trying to understand each other's cultures.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2 weeks after New York City announced that its schools would observe the principal Muslim holidays, another school district in the State of New York signaled that Islamophobia in the US, & its classrooms, was hardly on the decline.
On March 18, a student at Pine Bush High School recited the American Pledge of Allegiance in Arabic. The exercise was part of the School's "National Foreign Language Week", an event held to celebrate the "many races, cultures & religions that make up [the US & the Pine Bush] School District".
However, an event celebrating American multiculturalism & pledging patriotism was immediately met with anger & offense - driven by the conflation of the Arabic language with Islam, & in turn, inassimilability, violence & terrorism.
The controversy sparked by the "Arabic pledge" highlights, very vividly, how different dimensions of Arab or Muslim identity - even language - are conflated with threat. And more audibly, how even reverent attempts to reconcile Arab or Muslim culture with American identity incites zeal & scorn.
Pine Bush is roughly 85 miles away from New York City. Although within a 2-mile drive of the Big Apple, the School District is culturally & demographically worlds away. At 95%, the small town is overwhelmingly white. The Arab & Muslim-American populations are negligible, as is the presence of other minority communities.
National Foreign Language Week was an institutional attempt to culturally integrate (racially & religiously) minority students. Providing a platform, within the walls of the classroom, for these students to celebrate their native tongues, customs, & identities.
This invaluable teaching moment, as soon as the pledge was recited in Arabic, mutated into mis-education & malice.
"The pledge should always be said in English," one student stated. Several parents were offended, "because they had family members killed in Afghanistan," associating the language with war, & a nation where Arabic is not even spoken.
The chorus of opposition was united by a common baseline. Namely, that Arabic was anything but a standalone language. But rather, the linguistic tentacle of perverted representations of Islam, ISIL & al-Qaeda, & terrorism.
The very utterance of the language instantly evoked this imagery, & the translation of the pledge of allegiance from English to Arabic signaled hostility, imminent takeover, & the "clashing civilizations" discourse permeating through every pore of American society.
Instead of standing firm with the spirit of National Foreign Language Week, the Pine Bush High School principal apologised for the recital. Consequently, endorsing the idea that reciting the American pledge of allegiance in Arabic was an inherently unethical or unpatriotic act. A decision from the school's principal administrator & educator, no less, delivering a lesson (in Islamophobia) that won't be soon forgotten by the School's more than 1,000 students.
The Pine Bush pledge of allegiance controversy has also revitalised discussion of the tolerable scope of multiculturalism within American schools. Namely, which languages or cultures are deemed acceptable for students to celebrate at school - & which ones are considered pariahs?
This controversy, juxtaposed with NYC's plans to observe the Muslim holidays, illustrates that the answers to this question are more complex than clear. Indeed, languages - like Arabic & English - are more than merely systems of communication. They are symbols, expressions of membership, & perhaps most saliently, religious & racial proxies.
Arabic, in past & present in the US, does not only signal foreignness, but also an inextricable nexus to Islam, the Middle East, & the Orient. Spheres positioned as America's geopolitical & normative rival.
Several languages - primarily European ones such as French or Italian, for instance - are deemed assimilable with English. And therefore, American culture & its classrooms. However, other languages such as Chinese or Spanish are frequently branded as alien, inferior, & menacing. The former associated with long-embedded tropes of Asian hostility & subversion, & the latter linked to intense xenophobia & nativism.
However, Arabic - & the maligned entities & ideas it is associated with - stands head & shoulders above (other foreign languages) as linguistic pariah. While the pledge recited in Chinese or Spanish may have caused a minor stir, its reading in Arabic - as illustrated this past week at Pine Bush High School - rose to the level of national alarm & outrage.
A degree of zeal that matches the still climbing heights of Islamophobia on US streets. Which, unfortunately, is still being taught within the vast majority of its schools. While NYC's decision to observe the Muslim holidays offers a much heartening exception, Pine Bush - exactly 2 weeks after that unprecedented step forward - still stands as the unequivocal rule.
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