Articles
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, May 2004, page 62
Education
More on the New Government Overseers—We’re Not Out of the Woods Yet
By Bill L. Turpen
Arabic classes at Purdue University in Indiana have increased over 355 percent during the past three years. Similar growth is reported all over the country. Such statistics were supposed to be good news for our nation, which is so short of Arabic interpreters and translators. On the other hand, Arabic classes may end up being places students avoid—because, if present trends continue, Arabic on a transcript could negate résumé items assembled during several years of university study, and render them useless. Many jobs nowadays require a security clearance, and few employers would want to hire a candidate who is under government scrutiny.The movement to have “advisory” committees oversee international studies, especially those dealing with the Middle East and North Africa, is truly an “ill wind.”
For a preview of what could happen in the future, one need only look at a rather bizarre situation that has developed at the University of Texas. The School of Law at Texas’ flagship university in Austin held a conference last February on women and Islam.
Now, I’ve never seen anything sinister about the fact that some Muslims are women, but apparently the U.S. Army does. Two agents from Army Intelligence visited the campus, passing out their cards and asking for a list of those who had attended the conference. There is no such list, of course, but the intimidation is there, just the same. According to Austin’s Channel 8, the agents “approached Jessica Biddle, who helped [UT law student and organizer Sahar] Aziz get funding for the event.” The agent claimed there was “. . .no problem, we’re investigating a couple of people who attended the conference and we need to see the list.”
Texans, however, are rarely timid. Members of the Texas Civil Rights Project, sometimes criticized for being “too Protestant,” and of the Texas Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, “not Protestant enough,” I suppose, are weighing in for the fight.
In fact, the Texas ACLU has uncovered facts indicating an ill wind from local authorities, as well. The campus newspaper, The Daily Texan, quotes from one of two police department memos obtained by the ACLU: “in an attempt to gather intelligence information regarding mass civil disobedience, members of the Organized Crime Division were requested to participate in training sessions and actual protests in an undercover capacity.”
To repeat: “organized crime.”
Despite language added to specify that the committees’ role does not include the functions to “mandate, direct or control” curriculum or content, university faculties in Texas have remained wary of the proposed changes in the Higher Education Act that would set up the “advisory” committees. Perhaps that fact alone makes the Texas schools such a target.
Meanwhile, Americans somehow are supposed to learn more about Arabs, their language and culture.
Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 7th Edition
That’s the edition I use, and am I glad! I bought it for a high school course many years ago, and it has been very helpful. My dictionary puts words into several categories, thereby helping me discover something called “usage.” I learned a part of my vocabulary was considered by people senior to me as archaic, dialectical, or even that most feared of labels, substandard. This has rescued me from a life of using the word, “irregardless,” and I am grateful. I’ll never need another dictionary.Subsequent editions dropped the labels, and I was very disappointed. The official line for dropping them was something along the lines of, “we just record the language; we do not set standards.” This explanation was offered the same year the company laid off many of its lexicographers. The decision to drop my beloved italicized labels was made based on economics, in fact, not on some sort of democratic inclusion philosophy.
The Third International Edition is being republished now, and it has upset many fans of the language. Under “anti-Semitism,” for example, two definitions are offered: (1) hostility toward Jews as a religious or racial minority group, often accompanied by social, political or economic discrimination, and (2) opposition to Zionism: sympathy with opponents of the state of Israel. Definition (1) is right on the money, but (2)—first written in 1956—needs some work.
Readers who e-mail John Morse, president and publisher of Merriam-Webster, will get a nice form reply indicating that definitions might be changed in the very next edition—in about seven to ten years. They also will learn that, in 1956, definition (2) was considered accurate by somebody or other, and that, according to the publisher, “we just record the language, we do not set standards.”
Well, somebody has to. Among other reasons is the fact that such knee-jerk definitions can trivialize problems of genuine anti-Semitism when they arise.
To contact these folks, use the online form available at <http://www.merriam-webster.com/info/contact.htm>, write to Merriam-Webster, Inc., 47 Federal Street, P.O. Box 281, Springfield, MA 01102, phone (413) 734-3134, or fax (413) 731-5979.
Update on Army Intelligence at the University of Texas
Wonders never cease. As I was writing the above words, I received an e-mail from the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee indicating that “Army intelligence has determined that its special agents acted improperly by questioning attendees of a Feb. 4 University of Texas at Austin Law School conference entitled, ”˜Islam and the Law: The Question of Sexism.’”Moreover, INSCOM, the Army’s Intelligence and Security Command, has concluded that “the special agents and their detachment commander exceeded their authority by requesting information about individuals who were not within the Army’s counterintelligence investigative jurisdiction.” In order to prevent similar missteps in the future, the Army announced, “INSCOM has provided refresher training on the limits of Army counterintelligence investigative jurisdiction to all counterintelligence personnel performing duties in the United States.”
Good news at last! Congratulations to the Army, and to ADC!
A Call to Help an Imprisoned Israeli Professor
More good news, for a change! The Faculty for Israeli-Palestinian Peace (FFIPP) thanks those who joined in their petition drive for jailed Professor Yigal Bronner. Bronner had refused service in West Bank incursions supporting the initiative begun by Ariel Sharon 20 years ago—to erect dozens of settler colonies in the heart of the occupied territories, and subjugate the Palestinian people to expropriate their land. Thanks in part to petition drives, and Hebrew and English advertisements in Ha’aretz, Professor Bronner has been set free.Current FFIPP petitions include one opposing the Apartheid Wall. Check them all out at <www.ffipp.org/campaigns.htm>.
Bill L. Turpen teaches history at the Oklahoma School of Science and Mathematics and is an adjunct instructor for the University of Central Oklahoma.
