In September, New York City will open the nation’s first public school dedicated to teaching Arabic and Arab culture.
Named after the Christian Arab poet Khalil Gibran, it’s one of 65 specialty dual-language schools in New York. But it’s the only one that has sparked a public controversy.
Some conservative critics have warned it could breed home-grown extremists: “A Madrassa Grows in Brooklyn,” read one provocative headline in The New York Sun. Others have attacked it for balkanizing public education, which has historically played a primary role in helping the nation’s many immigrants assimilate.
Supporters deny both claims and say the academy is designed to educate world citizens and bridge Eastern and Western cultures, something sorely needed in today’s increasingly global world.
Underlying the controversy, experts say, is a larger question of how the nation and its schools cope with the influx of Arab and Muslim immigrants during a time when the threat of Islamic terrorism sows distrust. It’s also a period in which ignorance about Arab culture and Islamic teaching runs high.
At the same time, however, US intelligence and law-enforcement agencies desperately need qualified Arab speakers to navigate the changed world.
“As a country, we still have a certain degree of fear in the aftermath of 9/11, and to a very great degree it exists because there are so many misconceptions still about what it means to be an Arab and what it means to be a Muslim,” says Nial Ibrahim, executive director of the Arab American Institute, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington. “Arabs and Arab-Americans ultimately look for the same things for their children [as any American]: a chance to get a meaningful education, an ability to improve on what their parents accomplished, and the opportunity to live in peace with their neighbors.”
When the New York Department of Education announced in mid-February that one of the new schools slated to open in September would be the Khalil Gibran International Academy, there was little fanfare. But within weeks, some parents at the school that was to share a location with the new academy objected, saying it would create overcrowding. Then conservative columnists at The New York Sun began warning that the new school could breed extremism.
There is a contrast between the quote of “Arabic-language instruction is inevitably laden with pan-Arabist and Islamist baggage.” and the observation “that the majority of Arabs in the US, like Khalil Gibran, are Christians.†It should be noted that a majority of the worlds Muslims are not Arabic and I could add that while growing up I never connected being Arabic with being Muslim. Indeed, my entire family is Antiochan Orthodox with the possible exception of myself being in the Anglican communion. I regret that because of acculturation I speak no Arabic.
If we allow parochial Catholic schools, and private Christian acadamies, and Jewish Yshivias, then we have to tolerate other religions having schools as well.
The main contention I’ve heard, and I think it valid, is if they teach violence against persons and religions outside of Islam, and call for the destruction (in school) of Israel and other countries.
Libraryjim: It is NOT a private Arabic School. It is a PUBLIC elementary school. It would be OK if it were only teaching Arabic but it needs to refrain from teaching any sort of Arabic religion.
drjoan beat me to it. The issue is not whether Muslims could organize a school on their own dime (which would be analogous to a parochial school etc.). The issue is what is being done with public money.
Well, of course that makes a difference. I thought it a private school. Since it is not, and we can’t even get legal classes on the Bible as Literature in public schools without the ACLU bringing lawsuits, they need to treat this exactly the same.
Dual language schools that also teach culture have been around for a good while. In San Francisco, for example, there is a Chinese language school with a significant anglo enrollment. The school started in the 1980s, I believe. The outrage about this school is motivated by fear of terrorism, but terrorists are bred in secretive ways, not in public schools.
Good point Alice. We are the strongest nation in the world militarily, economically, culturally, and philosophically, and yet we have succumbed to fear in a way that makes us weaker and belies our great strength.
RE: “Supporters deny both claims and say the academy is designed to educate world citizens and bridge Eastern and Western cultures, something sorely needed in today’s increasingly global world.”
My fear is that this language is code for downplaying allegiance to the United States in favor of sectarian allegiance.
Okay…
Let us first observe that this school is explicitly “named after the Christian Arab poet Khalil Gibran” (regardless of what most self-identified Christians in the US may think of his poetry, or indeed, of poetry in general), and that most Arabic-heritage Americans are *Christians. Second, let us observe that, while “multiculturalism” is a many-headed beast, it is not beyond the pale to apply the same standards to Arabic culture as have been applied to Chinese, Japanese, Hispanic (how’s that for an over-broad category?), even Cape-Verdean… Third, let us uncharitably observe the almost-deafening silence of the posters on this very blog (and its predecessor) regarding the fate of the historic native Christian minorities in Iraq (Kendall and the elves have kept us somewhat informed; it is the response, or lack thereof, to which I take issue).
It is as though most people on this blog equate Arabic culture with Islam, and are unwilling to pay the attention sufficient to tease out the multiple distinctions which must exist in any society of humans larger than a single family. Iraq alone is home to multiple Christian groups whose heritage may be traced back to Apostolic times. Beyond that, I hesitate even to bring up the Mandaeans, much less the Yazidim, but a whole chunk of the living historical context of our faith is on the verge of being snuffed out, or at least being rendered deniable, by the actions of our very own government.
My comments are no more off-topic than the others I’ve read.
The Arabic speakers I know in the Antiochian Orthodox Church are devout Christians. The Metropolitan of the AOC has his headquarters in Damascus (on the Street called Straight), and Jordan encourages tourism by touting itself as the birthplace of Christianity. I agree, Oriscus, that Americans tend to think all Arabic speakers are Muslim.
Bob from Boone: “and yet we have succumbed to fear in a way that makes us weaker and belies our great strength.”
That fear is well-founded. Or, have you not followed the news for the past 50 years?
“The outrage about this school is motivated by fear of terrorism, but terrorists are bred in secretive ways, not in public schools.”
That is not true in the Middle East. Public schools are THE source of education to teach the youth to hate jews/The West, and to love Jihad/suicide bombings. It’s a simple fact.
There is little ground for comparison of public schools in the USA and madrasahs in the Middle East, but I do understand the fear that motivates concern about this school. I simply think the fear should be recognized for what it is. Fear is a powerful thing and often leads to irrational actions.
Nobody who supports George Bush’s “invade the world, invite the world” approach to foreign affairs should have any complaint about this school. And for people who are so eager to paint Arabs with this particular broad brush, I invite you to apply the metric of prevalence of criminal activity and social pathology to other easily-identifiable groups in the US and tell me who we should be carpet-bombing then.
I agree with the comments about irrational fear, and I’d add also that for those who identify with America’s globalist mission, that fear is misplaced. What this school is emblematic of is not “terrorism” but a retrenchment from the modern ideal of the nation as a mere secular market and back toward the traditional ethnic nation-state. This is the trend globally and the Western democracies are not immune to it. In fact, an irony peculiar to the secular democratic state is that the multiculturalism it champions eventually proves its undoing.
Alice: “Fear is a powerful thing and often leads to irrational actions.”
True, but that doesn’t mean fear is a bad thing. There are two “broad brushes” being used on this thread: The one that says all Arabs are Muslim terrorists, and the one that says any suspicion of Muslims is jingoistic bigotry.
Reactionary: “And for people who are so eager to paint Arabs with this particular broad brush, I invite you to apply the metric of prevalence of criminal activity and social pathology to other easily-identifiable groups in the US and tell me who we should be carpet-bombing then.”
Let’s see…just in the past month, we’ve seen the JFK would-be bombing, and the Fort Dix six in New Jersey. I’d say we’re carpet bombing the right people.
Rolling Eyes,
I invite you to compare the level of criminal activity and social pathology of Arabs in this country with the level of criminal activity and social pathology of Hispanics and African-Americans and tell me why George Bush is not shelling the Rio Grande and ordering the National Guard into every major urban area. And by the way, who do we need to be carpet-bombing in response to the actions of Tim McVeigh and Eric Rudolph?
And you are aware, are you not, that the Ft. Dix plotters were ethnic Albanians and that the US supports the creation of an independent Kosovo over the objections of Serbian Christians? Then you can tie this all in with why we should be occupying Iraq.
My friend Pamela Geller had the brilliant Mark Steyn on her radio show in February, and he said this about the Arabic school in NYC:
” it shows how we mischaracterized, we willfully misunderstand Islam. Yes, on the face of it yes Arabic is a language in a sense there is would be no difference between opening a foreign language school – a Spanish language school or a french language school – but in fact Arabic is more than a language. It is explicated the language of Islam so in that sense it is part of the Islamic religious imperial project. Radical Islam advances through the Arabic language. And you go all kinds of places that aren’t in the Arab world now like Pakistan, Indonesia, Central Asia, the Balk ins, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Canada and the United States and you will here those Imams preaching in Arabic. Arabic is not just another language like French or Italian, it is the spearhead of an idea logical project that is deeply opposed to the United States.
And to answer #15, yes, of course aware that the Fort Dix Six were Kosovar Albanian Islamists, otherwise known as the White Al Qaeda, and yes the U.S. is stupidly acting the dhimmi and supporting the creation of an independent Kosovo, run by the Islamists, in which the Christian Serbs will probably be slaughtered.
Reactionary, the Fort Dix Six were also Muslims, which speaks to my point more than your post does. The plotters who planned to blow up JFK airport, and most of Queens, were also Muslim. The plotters who planned to blow up and flood the tunnels leading to NYC were also Muslim. I could go on, but I won’t. Read the news. Put two and two together on your own. If you don’t get it by now, one measly post on a blog certainly won’t do it…
Rolling Eyes,
If Muslims are the threat you say they are, then our tolerance of them within our borders is hard to explain. Since the topic has now been switched from Arabs to Muslims, again, please compare the crime rates and social pathologies of certain minority ethnic groups in the US to Muslims and let me know which is the more likely threat.
And RE, I will grant you this: our “invade the world, invite the world” policy will surely have consequences. The US is preparing to accept 7,000 Iraqis, most of whom are Shi’ite Muslims. This follows on the large numbers of Somalian Muslims who have been resettled in the US as well. So I recommend we either stop invading the world or we stop inviting the world. Unfortunately, this appears historically inevitable from imperial wars: there is an influx of natives into the mother country from the colonial state, and some of them are going to have an axe to grind with us.
So to reiterate, if we’re going to invade and occupy other countries, we will have to steel ourselves for the inevitable blowback so long as we are intent on pursuing such a policy.