653 A 9/11 Carpetbagger Speaks
After September 2001, foreigners in Egypt, as a group, began to change. They used to be a motley collection of scholarly oddballs with an interest in Medieval weaponry, hieroglyphics, or Ottoman bureaucracy, scam artists with an interest in getting rich on oil or USAID contracts, or Marines with an interest in getting the hell out of here, and, if possible, getting drunk and laid in the meantime. I liked the scholarly oddballs and the Marines best.
International flotsam and jetsam of the kind you find the world over—criminals, pill-freaks, pot-heads, freeloaders, misfits, adventurers, fallen priests—would also drift in and out of town. Let’s call them “Flo” and “Sam” for short. Flo and Sam used to (and perhaps still do) congregate at the fleabitten Hotel al-Shams, which had a decent cafe where local parasites thronged to take advantage of them. I went once to find my old roommate, a shifty felucca captain with a criminal record and a good heart, after he disappeared with some of my girlfriend’s money. I watched the little symbiotic ecosystem in that cafe for hours and wasn’t once bored.
Flo and Sam would also drift into Bab al-Luq’s landmark Cafeteria al-Hurreya, where they would rub shoulders with artists, revolutionaries, real-estate agents, informers, human-rights lawyers, small-time crooks, slow suicides, journalists, and other undesirables with a shared interest in beer.
To be fair, Hurreya also catered to chess players and distinguished gentlemen such as the one who once graced the masthead of this blog. And to be fair, Flo and Sam sometimes stopped drifting, got serious and got respectable jobs: Even the former U.S. ambassador sometimes recalled his days as a shaggy-haired backpacker in Egypt, and I genuinely believe those days gave him an affinity for the country that few of his predecessors shared.
Other times, Flo and Sam got motorcycles and set off on the road to South Africa, often without any inkling that it would end somewhere in the violent and pestilential swamps of southern Sudan or, for them, at a checkpoint somewhere outside of Assiut.
Stupid, yes, naive, OK—but also adventuresome and interesting! The past few times I’ve been to Hurreya myself, I’ve been driven off by huge groups of straight-laced arriviste interns from Virginia. The kind of kids voted “most likely to run for student office, again.” Resume-padding, self-promoting bounders.
In Cairo, the boys sometimes wear beards and sandals to look more Muslimy, as if passersby will not see their blue eyes and rich-boy smirks, their mall-bought clothes, their straight, white teeth, or their glowing, pink, oxygen-fed complexions. Bent over Al-Kitab in Starbucks back in Washington or New York, sustained through dreary hours of memorizing conjugation tables by lattes and glamorous dreams of being a CIA agent or testifying to Congress, they lose the beards and the sandals in favor of outfits from Banana Republic or Urban Outfitters. They remind me of Gary Johnston on his daring trip to Cairo.
I admire their sense of purpose and their discipline, but I don’t trust this new crop of Americans learning Arabic. Many of them seem to be learning Arabic because they want jobs with the CIA or with outfits that cherry-pick the worst of Arab writing to bolster the case for Israel. I met one such Israeli-American at a student party here once. I wasted five minutes listening to him telling me how genetically rotten Egyptians were and how glad he was to be going back to Israel before I was able to extricate myself from the conversation.
It’s great that Americans, including wannabe CIA agents, are learning Arabic. It’s too bad it took a terrorist attack to inspire them. But America needs honest reporters. The Israelis already supply information on the Arab world with an Israeli agenda. No need to duplicate their efforts.
Maybe all this stored-up irritation is why this Washington Post op-ed written by Alan Dershowitz‘s research assistant, Joel Pollak, has been irritating me like sand in my swimsuit over the past few weeks.
While I don’t love Al-Kitab (I blame that book for my premature hairloss), Pollak’s assertions about it don’t hold water. Where Pollak finds totalitarian propaganda, most everyone else who has used the book finds only anodyne language exercises. Pollak tells us how he, like the ancient Israelites refusing to bow to Caesar, heroically refused to read a passage about Nasser to practice his pronunciation because it was propaganda. Here’s the passage as translated by a commenter on Matthew Yglesias’ blog:
Gamal Abdel Nasser was born in Egypt in 1918 and spent his childhood in Alexandria where his father worked in the post office. When his mother died, his father sent him to his uncle in Cairo. After his graduation from high school, he joined the Egyptian army and became an officer. He and a group of young officers called the ‘Free Officers’ ejected King Faruq from Egypt on 23 July 1952 and thus Egypt became a republic. In 1954 Abdel Nasser became the first president of Egypt, and remained president until his death in 1970. Afterwards, Anwar al-Sadat assumed the presidency of Egypt. Nasser’s most noted achievements included the nationalization of the Suez Canal, the United Arabic Republic, and the High Dam in Aswan.
Dangerous, downright un-American stuff.
In fact, Pollak’s article is thin on what he finds objectionable in Al-Kitab. His teacher showed a movie (apparently unrelated to Al-Kitab) on the life of (12th Century Andalusian Aristotle scholar) Averroes. Pollak was upset the movie didn’t mention that Jews translated Averroes’ writings into Latin. An interesting fact, and another important contribution the Jews have given to Western civilization, but hardly a fact that is essential to comprehending irregular Arabic verbs. By Pollak’s logic, Al-Kitab should also include at least a footnote in the section on reading menus that explains that Israelis also call felafel “Israeli cuisine.”
Pollak complains that Al-Kitab introduces students to Arab culture through a central character, Maha (“Maha Muhammed Abulaal, [Note the scary Muslim name!] to be precise”), whose fictional life he finds depressing. Maha is comically morose, it’s true. But so what? And if Pollak finds Maha’s life straddling New York and restaurants on the banks of the Nile depressing, he should try the life of the millions who don’t have mothers working at the United Nations and who can’t afford visas and plane tickets to New York.
He complains that the book is full of pre-September 11 biases. I’m not sure what this means. Perhaps it should be updated: Maha could dream of coming to the United States, spend months begging family members for the requisite funds to deposit in her bank account to get a visa, be denied that visa after the first attempt, succeed on a third attempt after enduring hours of rudeness and interminable waits at the U.S. Embassy, then be fingerprinted, photographed, and interrogated for hours in the “Muslim Room” at JFK. Then she could be briefly detained on a TIP for “talking Middle Eastern” on Atlantic Avenue. Are these the post-September 11 biases a language textbook should reflect?
One rather suspects that Pollak is studying Arabic so he can find the worst things written or said in that language. In starting with his textbook even before he’s finished learning, he has ejaculated prematurely. My advice to him would be, “Sit tight. As you continue to read Arabic, you will find plenty of ignorant, racist, or otherwise offensive garbage—as you will in English—and plenty of bonafide propaganda for dictatorships. Patience, young Israel-firster. Your career is assured by Dr. Dershowitz.”
Pollak’s slight of hand has been dissected elsewhere (here, here, here, and here), and his piece has been satirized here. I’ve been gratified by the response from other students of Arabic (see especially this wonderfully nerdy discussion of Al-Kitab‘s pedagogical shortcomings). It has reassured me that not all the students I see turning a venerable Cairo cafe into a dormitory mess hall are wannabe MEMRI translators.
For them, the honest ones who nonetheless are studying Arabic for careerist purposes, I have one word of advice: Mandarin.
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“Maha Muhammed Abulaal, to be precise.” The name is actually Abu al-‘Alaa — so much for Pollak’s “precision.” Maybe he should have paid more attention in Arabic class.
Comment by al-mutarjim — July 23, 2008 #
“He complains that the book is full of pre-September 11 biases. Im not sure what this means. Perhaps it should be updated: Maha could dream of coming to the United States, spend months begging family members for the requisite funds to deposit in her bank account to get a visa, be denied that visa after the first attempt, succeed on a third attempt after enduring hours of rudeness and interminable waits at the U.S. Embassy, then be fingerprinted, photographed, and interrogated for hours in the Muslim Room at JFK. Then she could be briefly detained on a TIP for talking Middle Eastern on Atlantic Avenue.”
So true.
Comment by R. L. — July 23, 2008 #
Noticed the Abu al-Ala thing, too. Good catch.
Comment by The Skeptic — July 23, 2008 #
very well said. every year this same basic article reappears like a bad wart. My enjoyment, however, comes from imagining his classmates’ groans and rolled eyes when Joel took his valiant stand against such left-wing, anti-American tyranny.
Comment by abu riley — July 23, 2008 #
Well done. I particularly enjoyed the last line.
When I was studying from Al-Kitaab, the only question in my mind was “What’s wrong with Maha?!”
I heard she later got a much-needed makeover.
Comment by Jillian C. York — July 24, 2008 #
Amen to that. I hated this article so much, that I fired back immediately:
http://arabicsource.wordpress.com/2008/07/13/al-haraka-critiques-the-us-arabic-teaching-system/
But, I digress. I loved Horreya after the first time I was there. I miss my favorite gang of lovable drunks. But, I did not know I really belonged until one waiter, Milad, saw on Saturday afternoon a very long Friday night. He tried to drag me in, and I had to tell him I needed to go home and sleep . . . in Sixth October. One of those many wonderful Cairo memories. Death to anyone who ruins the place?
By the way, how is the underage drinking? My last week in Cairo, I was told a few days prior the cops came to crash the joint because it was such a problem.
Comment by alharaka — July 24, 2008 #
Thanks very much for the article on Al-Kitab’s shortcomings as a language textbook (as opposed to an indoctrination tool), Haraka.
These days I go to Hurreya only for tea or Pepsi in the afternoon once every four months or so, so I’m not sure about underage drinking there. I’ve never seen much underage drinking in bars Cairo at all (though I confess I don’t know how old you have to be, legally speaking… 18? 21?), but that could also be because a drinker would have to be in or not yet in puberty to make me do a double-take.
Comment by The Skeptic — July 24, 2008 #
Couldn’t agree more about Pollak’s ridiculous article. It appalls/astounds me that it got published.
But as someone who has studied both Arabic and Mandarin, I must disagree with your closing advice. I take your point about professional aspirations, but Chinese is a darned sight harder than Arabic! Woe and frustration to those who begin that life-time struggle. I’ll take “Al Kitaab” anyday!
Comment by Yael — July 24, 2008 #
Ha! Well, I tip my hat to you, Yael, and I’m in no position to argue. There’s nothing more impressive to me than seeing a white person drop into fluent Chinese. I’ve wanted to study it since I was in school, but everyone, including my mother and my university, discouraged me.
Isn’t Chinese’s difficulty all the more reason why it’s a valuable skill for an ambitious young person? Think of all those juicy private-sector jobs. And all the public-sector jobs coming with the Rise of China I’ve been reading so much about in Newsweek.
Comment by The Skeptic — July 24, 2008 #
you are a genius.
Comment by the C in DC — July 24, 2008 #
How long have you been in Cairo? Since before 2001? Just curious.
Comment by Grandmasta — July 24, 2008 #
Premature hair loss … I liked that one. Actually, Maha was probably one of the best features of the book …
Speaking seriously now, I am convinced that conventional language courses either have to be overhauled or completely eliminated and replaced with completely new approaches to language learning.
One of the things that should be considered is that languages like Arabic and Chinese should be taught several hours a day. In that sense, the DLI is doing a good job as is Middlebury in the summer.
Comment by John — July 24, 2008 #
Yet another Jew who shames us all. Why must everything revolve around Israel for these types? Oh, I remember, the Jewish state is the only ‘civilised’ place in the Middle East.
My bad.
Comment by Antony Loewenstein — July 25, 2008 #
‘Carpetbaggers’–that’s a nice way to describe the corporate takeover of the Middle East through “consulting firms” and the like.
Comment by yaman — July 25, 2008 #
[…] joel pollak response number […]
Pingback by ???? ???????? ???????? « ???? ???? — July 25, 2008 #
That hotel is called the Sultan Hotel, only the cafe underneath is called the Shams al-Gedid. I once spent 12 straight hours there in the company of a Norwegian nihilist, a Spanish revolutionary, an excellent tawla player from Damietta, and a Moroccan (alleged) prostitute when I first arrived in Cairo in early 2000. The Sultan was spread over three floors: on the fifth floor you paid LE5 a night, on the sixth LE6, and on the seventh LE7. Although I did not live there (I splurged a full LE18 for a room in a hotel on Sherif St. that had mostly catered to Sudanese travelers), I once attended the very fun movie night at the Sultan. It’s also the place where extras are recruited for work in Egyptian movies and soaps.
The real outrage about the Pollak article is not that he wrote it – there’s plenty of similar stuff on FrontPageMag and MEF – but that the WaPo ran it, lending credibility to notions that any Arabic language expert (or indeed anyone with common sense) would instantly dismiss, no matter how anti-Arab (people or politics) they are. The only conclusion from this episode is that a culture of anti-Arab racism and paranoia has so infected the WaPo editorial team that they actively look out for this sort of drivel.
Comment by arabist — July 26, 2008 #
The Sultan. That’s right.
I think I recognize the nihilist from Norway. Was your female company allegedly Moroccan or allegedly a prostitute?
Comment by The Skeptic — July 26, 2008 #
She was definitely Moroccan. The Norwegian was a girl who always dressed in grey.
Comment by arabist — July 27, 2008 #
[…] Cairo, egypt, language learning Im adding my belated two cents to the discussion here, here, and here on Arabic language instruction that was triggered by this uber-whiney Joel Pollack op-ed. […]
Pingback by Lughat ash-shabab: Fear and loathing at AUC « Friday in Cairo — August 1, 2008 #
Hello
I’ve just posted my 2 cents on the Arabic teaching debate here:
http://willward.wordpress.com/2008/08/01/lughat-ash-shabab-fear-and-loathing-at-auc/
true, flo and jet have long since ditched cairo for damascus or yemen but maybe they’ll be back once wust el balad empties out in the fall with the departure of AUC.
as for the carpetbaggers, while its hard not to resent the type who are here to collect ammunition for joel pollak style articles, there seem to be many who came to learn something and make a difference.
give it a few more years before this second group gets disillusioned by DCs low regard for people with language skills and experience living in the region.
Comment by Friday in Cairo — August 2, 2008 #
good post, dude. i miss horreya, can we go there for a beer.
re underage drinking: i was in horreya about a month ago and a couple of my friends were actually carded. they were about 23. milad said he had to do it cos his boss was watching.
Comment by forsoothsayer — August 3, 2008 #
[…] Discuss. […]
Pingback by How to be a good patriot | Antony Loewenstein — October 31, 2008 #