Saturday, August 19, 2006
Franck Salameh has an excellent pair of articles on what amounts to the making of an Arabist -- how it is that new proselytizers of the viewpoint of Arab Nationalist/Supremacism are created out of naive Westerners. Odd (or not) how Saidist, anti-Orientalists have become the prime purveyors of same. Salameh relates his experience as an Arabic instructor at Middlebury College.
The concise version is here, at Real Clear Politics: Arab Nationalism Run Rampant at Middlebury
In maps, textbooks, lectures, and other teaching materials used in the instruction of Arabic, Israel didn't exist, and the overarching watan 'Arabi (Arab fatherland) was substituted for the otherwise diverse and multi-faceted "Middle East." Curious and misleading geographical appellations, such as the "Arabian Gulf" in lieu of the time-honored "Persian Gulf," abounded. Syria's borders with its neighbors were marked "provisional," and Lebanon was referred to as a qutr (or "province") of an imagined Arab supra-state...
Well worth reading the rest. The longer version with a more academic bent and some additional detail is here: Arabist Indoctrination at Middlebury College
[h/t: Miss Kelly]
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