28 October 2005, Issue 10

In Today's TIN:

• "Good Muslims Speak English"
• The Most Dangerous Civilian Job in Iraq
• ESL Rice Missionaries

"Good Muslims Speak English"

By Sohail Karmani
(forthcoming IATEFL Global Issues SIG, Newsletter)

It was only a few days after the London bombings of July 7th when the media announced that the perpetrators had now been identified. As the chilling details emerged, we were all somehow expected to be doubly shocked; not simply because of the sheer savagery that had been involved, but because the bombers had all been British—born and bred—and spoke English just like “you” and “me”. And while the media was scrambling to come up with a neat formula to explain why the bombings had happened and how they could have been prevented, it was perhaps the London Times that provided the most extraordinary analysis of the events of 7/7.

For the attacks, it insisted, had absolutely nothing to do with the continuing occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan but were rather—so it had us believe—the inevitable consequence of extremist views "disseminated in mosques by ill-educated imams, brought over from villages in Pakistan, unable to speak English and ill-equipped to guide young Muslims in a western society" (The Times, 2005, July 13).

This was by no means the first time that poor English skills (or lack thereof) were being singled out as one of the crucial strands that supposedly emanates from the roots of Muslim “rage”. In the aftermath of the summer riots of 2001, for instance, when mainly British-born Muslim youths rioted in the northern English cities of Bradford, Oldham and Burnley, Anne Cryer—British Member of Parliament for Keighley—posited a “direct connection” between difficulties in learning English, arranged marriages, and the acute poverty in Muslim Asian communities of Britain (BBC News, 2001, July 13). And, then of course there followed the outrageous outbursts of the then Home Secretary, David Blunkett, who a year on from the 9/11 attacks urged British Asian families to speak English at home and to refrain from speaking their ethnic languages in order to overcome what he called “schizophrenic rifts between generations of families” (The Observer, 2002, September 15). But even more astonishingly, at a time when the anti-war movement was beginning to mobilise with increasing intensity, the Home Secretary went a step further by now intruding into the inner sanctum of British mosques. Incredibly, like the London Times article, he now saw it fit to warn British-based imams to begin addressing their congregations in English rather than say in Arabic, Urdu or Punjabi (Morris, N, 2003, October 31)—in a move designed no doubt to drown dissent.

There is of course—taking a step back from all this—a highly dubious logic to the associations being made here, namely between language and Muslim “extremism”— even as America and her mainly English-speaking allies are fighting a so-called “war on terror”.

On the one hand, for instance, underpinning these suggestions is the ludicrous idea that young impressionable Muslim men are somehow less prone to commit acts of terrorism if they undergo greater exposure to English. Bizarrely, it’s as if to suggest that an increasing exposure to the English language triggers some sort of Krashen type affective-filter that—over time¬—will somehow weed out the offending traits of Muslim radicalisation. Outlandish though this may sound, this sort of thinking certainly seems to be behind the British government’s recent commitment to the notorious “Britishness” tests, in which of course proficiency in the English language is an essential component (BBC News, 2004 February 25). Ironically though—and much to the embarrassment of the Home Office—such proposals did little to deter the would-be London bomber, Muktar Said Ibrahim, of the failed bomb-attacks on July 21st who according to various news reports was naturalised as recently as September 2004 (see Travis & Gillan, 2005, July 28).

But on the other hand—and much more disturbingly—lurking beneath these recent suggestions is the blatantly racist belief that Muslim languages like Arabic, Urdu, Amharic or Somali are somehow inherently programmed to promote a militant Islamic mindset that have a special dislocating effect on young Muslim men and which can only then be corrected by greater exposure to English or some other “friendly” western language. Such outrageous associations between the purported properties of a language and a tiny—totally insignificant—minority of its users would never of course be tolerated in mainstream Western discourse—let alone be taken seriously—were they to be made about any other culture or group except nowadays when it concerns Arabs or Muslims. Consider for instance how utterly grotesque it would sound to suggest that the Jamaican variety of English was partly the reason that all young British-born Jamaican men were pimps, gangsters or drug pushers and accordingly they all needed to be exposed to standard British English in the interest of lowering crime rates in London! Or alternatively consider the unthinkable suggestion that the reason that all Jews were misers had something to do with the Hebrew language which is why British rabbis needed to address their congregations in English in order to boost the British economy!

In short, looming over this dangerous sort of nonsense is the embarrassingly crass idea that it’s always the good guys who speak English and it’s mostly the bad guys (at least for the time being) who speak Arabic, Urdu, Punjabi or any one of a host of other “radical” languages. It seems obvious to me that such views are able to take on a deeply troubling currency particularly in times of a national or cultural crisis. Alarmingly, they are easily evoked and instantly employable as part of an effort to pacify (and indeed vilify) a perceived “enemy within”—especially in a time of “war” and not least when it’s necessary to obfuscate the shockingly brutal realties of Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine. And more specifically because of the long history in the West of demonising the world of Islam, its cultures, its diverse peoples and its dozens of languages such absurdities about Muslim “realities” are able to find an easy readymade (Islamophobic) framework in which to thrive and to whip up tensions without ever being challenged. Which is why we as English language teachers—or let’s say intercultural mediators—need to be extremely vigilant about the emotive force of such ideas and forever cautious that we never—wittingly or unwittingly—reproduce or perpetuate them in our classrooms, much less in these very difficult and testing times.

The Most Dangerous Job in the World

It’s one of the most dangerous civilian jobs in one of the world’s most dangerous countries: translating Arabic for the U.S. military in Iraq.

One by one, little noticed in the daily mayhem, dozens of interpreters have been killed — mostly Iraqis but 12 Americans, too. They account for 40 percent of the 300-plus death claims filed by private contractors with the U.S. Labor Department.

Riding in bomb-blasted Humvees, tagging along on foot patrols in Fallujah or dashing into buildings behind Marines, translators are dying on the job, but also facing danger at home: hunted by insurgents who call them pro-American collaborators.



“If the insurgents catch us, they will cut off our heads because the imams say we are spies,” said Mustafa Fahmi, 24, an Iraqi interpreter with Titan Corp., the biggest employer of linguists in Iraq. “I’ve been threatened like fifteen times, but I won’t quit. A neighbor saw me driving and said, ’I am going to kill you.”’