Legacy 6: From Soldier to Peacemaker: Learning the Language of the “Enemy”
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Dates: 1996-98
Surface Culture: Arabs as ‘the Enemy’
Deep Culture: Language; Culture; Religion; Society; Values; Proxemics; Diet
Knowledge Bases for Diversity: Foundations of Racism; Socio-cultural Contexts
Salaam Alaykum: Peace be with You
I graduated with a B.A. in (Eurocentric) Humanities in 1996. Though a liberal secular humanist at heart, I had experienced increasing disenchantment in my final university years with the radical, theory-based dogmatism (for so it seemed to me) of my very left-wing academy: besides the aversively confrontational, shrill, divisive, and often uncivil tactics used by the radical community, I also harbored skepticism toward the theoretical basis of the ‘knowledge’ I was taught by an overwhelmingly white, middle class, existentially sheltered faculty. I wanted direct experience of life as a standard of comparison with the theories dominating my education. I was particularly alienated by the academic attack on the traditional literary canon, which I had devotedly studied and treasured for the prior fifteen years (an unwitting subject of/to the traditionalist philosophy of curriculum). Suddenly this new breed of professors seemed determined to demote Homer and Shakespeare and all my other heroes to politically suspect or simply irrelevant authors. I was so aghast at the prospect of becoming a professor who loved this canon among an intellectual community that didn’t that I abandoned my plans to earn my doctorate in literature and become a professor.
I was also nagged by a feeling of educational incompleteness owing to my lack of a second language, of knowledge of any non-EuroAmerican history and culture, and of direct experience living outside the United States. Finally, being shouldered with over $30,000 debt in the form of college loans, I saw a future of economic insecurity—as a joke at the time had it,
I have a liberal arts degree…will that be for here or to go?
Lo and behold, I stumbled across a solution to all these nagging misgivings in the unlikely form of an army veteran who told me of the possibility of becoming a linguist in Military Intelligence. If I passed the linguistic aptitude test and the security background check, I could be sent to full-time language school in Monterey, California, then stationed in Europe or Asia, have my student loans paid off by the army, and have the direct experience of the most academically demonized institution in the United States. I would be able to climb into the belly of the beast only theoretically known by my professors and fellow-student ideologues. That experience would round out my formal education with an existential reality-check. (The prospect of experiencing military life itself was to me, with my romantic infatuation with Homeric epic, not unappealing at all. I saw it as an opportunity to compare the modern military ethos with that of Homer’s ‘Heroic Age.’ It was an anthropological opportunity to experience that very foreign culture we call the U.S. Military.) My academic friends and most of my professors thought I was either crazy or immoral or both, but I trusted the Clinton administration not to compromise my morality—and anyway, I reasoned, in a worst-case scenario, I could always disobey orders. I only hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
Three months later I had finished basic training (aka “Boot Camp,” which strictly should only refer to Marine Corps basic training, if I recall correctly), and my shaven-headed self was beginning his 64-week, full-time study of al-FusHa (fus-ha)– Modern Standard Arabic. My instructors were all native Arabs from diverse Arab nations, and they all had stories to tell. They also were walking cultural artifacts themselves, representing the civilization that produced them. Overall I found them intensely likable and fascinating.
Studying the language itself was a labor of love. Arabic is a largely ‘pure’ language, uncorrupted by loan-words and structures from other language families. Consequently, the language is itself an artifact of its ancient origins in the Bedouin tribes of the Arabian interior. The desert environment in which the language was born is literally perceptible in the language itself. The Arabic word for mustache, for example, shariban, is based on the verb “to drink” and given the dual suffix “-an”. In other words, the meaning of “two drinks” is embedded in the noun. The function of the “two-sided” mustache as a collector of water to “drink” (by sucking on it when thirsty) points to the presence of the harsh Bedouin life of nomadic travel across the parched deserts of the Rubb al-Khali, the “Empty Quarter,” from oasis to oasis. Similar examples abound, to be discovered by the student of Arabic.
The irony of this experience is that I was being taught this language implicitly as the language of ‘the enemy.’ Yet the unintended consequence of introducing me to my Arabic professors and the beauties of Arabic language, history, and culture - its propensity, shared with the USA, to attribute the creation of the universe to a mythic superhero who “wrote” three conflicting and conflict-causing books several millennia ago notwithstanding - was to convert me into a person who greatly (yet in certain instances critically) respects, sympathizes with, and reveres ‘the enemy.’ ¹
Pedagogically this experience is relevant in many respects. Our Anglophile tendency to glorify the richness of the English language, while justifiable, should not blind us to the probable glories in other languages. Students of all cultures should have the opportunity to share their pride in their language with non-speakers of it, and to learn about other languages from those who speak them. On a more humanitarian level, the most important thing we as educators can do today is counter any national propaganda that tries to dehumanize ‘enemy’ nations with direct encounters with people from those nations. The best way to convert an enemy to a fellow human being is to give him or her a name and a story.
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¹Learning the history of that “enemy” since those days, from the Crusades to the Imperial politics of of Palestine and the birth of Israel in the WW I and WW II eras, and of the Cold War politics after that (especially concerning Iran which, while not Arab is still a Muslim Middle Eastern nation: the USA and Britain overthrew Iranian democracy in 1953 to impose the brutal Shah as a puppet serving the interests of Western oil corporations, which led to the anti-American Islamist Revolution under the Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979, and leads today to the Bush/Cheney administration’s eagerness to again topple an Iranian government for geopolitical advantage) — all of that has only increased my understanding that the Arab resentment against the West has deeply justified historical roots. Here’s a nice little video lesson on that Iranian story, which all Arabs and Iranians haven’t forgotten, though most Americans (if they ever knew it at all) have:
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Photo credits: Soldier in Al-Anbar, Iraq by Jayel Aheram; Arabic Calligraphy by twocentsworth
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The Legacy Series So Far:
1. Fear and Trembling: Goodbye to Christianity
2. The Hulk Leads to Hamlet: Reading Despite School
3. Of Jocks and Fags: The High School Bullying Years
4. In the Crumbling Temple of the Dead White Males: The Beatnik College Years, pt. 1
5. Human Sacrifice: The College Years, pt. 2
If you like this post, please spread it: 
(But don't tag it "education." That will bury it.)
Oh my, I must say that I’m really enjoying this series of posts. Thanks, Clay. I’ll probably have more to add once I digest these some more.
Harold Jarches last blog post..On literacy
[Reply]
Harold Jarche
2 Aug 08 at 8:15 am
Thanks for that, Harold. I have to say that publishing these old college writings on the web is much more gratifying than only turning them in to the professor.
[Reply]
Clay Burell
2 Aug 08 at 8:26 am
When we “study the language of the enemy” does knowledge of his humanity make it more difficult to fight and hate? Was your experience unique or the norm in the military language schools?
dianes last blog post..Creatures Great and Small
[Reply]
diane
3 Aug 08 at 7:30 am
[...] Dead White Males: The Beatnik College Years, pt. 1 5. Human Sacrifice: The College Years, pt. 2 6. Learning the Enemy’s Language: The Army Years, part 1 Possibly Related Classroom Projects From DonorsChoose.org Using Non-Fiction [...]
Legacy 7: Teaching Killing | Beyond School
3 Aug 08 at 10:17 am
–I’ve enjoyed reading these posts, Clay. Is it your brush with mortality (in the form of your mother-in-law’s illness) that has you thinking retrospectively and in terms of “legacies”??? I hope you’re well. That said, I’d like to respond to this particular entry, which troubled me. You wrote:
“Yet the unintended consequence of introducing me to my Arabic professors and the beauties of Arabic language, history, and culture … was to convert me into a person who greatly (yet in certain instances critically) respects, sympathizes with, and reveres ‘the enemy.’”
–I’d be interested in hearing more about the “critically”. That you should come away from your language learning experience with a newfound respect and sympathy for a culture different from your own isn’t surprising; isn’t it what we all strive for in language pedagogy? What I find problematical if not somewhat shocking in your account, are the “conversion” and “reverence for the enemy” of which you speak, apparently on the sole basis of your irreverence for your native country! How about the fact that the American government (the at times benevolent arm of it’s tax-paying people) reimbursed your 30K debt to the university system, and by extension to the very civilization that providided you with both the circumstances and freedom to develop and express your critical thinking? It seems to me (at least at the time you were writing this missive) that you erred on two sides, swinging from one end of the pendulum to the other: categorical rejection of your roots and (the vocabulary is revealing) uncritical redemption of cultural otherness.
I see a common thread in your descriptions of discovery, from Mahler in the 80s to the Native American sweat lodges in the 90s: an energetic enthusiasm (reminiscent of the wanderlust of 19th century Romantics) that has allowed you to embrace the different and the new and that one cannot help but admire on the one side; and on the other, something like unrepaired damage (I’m not sure that’s what I mean, but I’m thinking about your statement, “I never went home again”) that risks getting in the way of grace, forgiveness (two more spiritual terms for you), and the willingness to recognize what’s wonderful about this country (in spite of its countless flaws).
Just a thought…
[Reply]
Carmen
5 Aug 08 at 12:57 am
@Diane: I think it was the norm, thinking back on my classmates. But this was before 9/11, so I have no idea how things stand now. Abu Ghraib makes me wonder - the folks doing the torturing were graduates of my school.
@Carmen: Not sure I get your point. One aspect of Arabic culture I’m critical of is alluded to - Islam and the absence of a strong secular voice in the Arab world speaking out against its follies (but again, America is is becoming more Arab every day in its own religious resurgence; it just doesn’t seem as weird when it’s your neighbors doing it in you own language and with a familiar set of superstitions) - and the rest are pretty predictable. Sexism comes to mind. To have gone more in depth on that and other things would have been off topic. It also would have been very American - my familiarity with that culture begins and ends with knowing those professors, a few other Arabs, and readings I’ve done. I’ll leave it to other Americans to slam a culture they’ve never visited physically. Again, off topic. The topic was the effects of learning a foreign language.
I don’t get the “solely on the basis of irreverence for my own country” part. Evidence in the post belies that claim.
I’d like to thank the American government for making higher education free, as it is in many European countries with a fraction of America’s wealth, rather than for shouldering all non-wealthy college graduates with crushing debt upon graduation. Maybe if we didn’t spend more on our military power than the rest of the world combined - this is true - we’d be able to boast of encouraging education for all. Let’s throw in health care for all while we’re at it. Only South Africa joins us in not providing that, among developed nations.
Grace is a great but tarnished word. I’ll leave it with the preachers. Same with “forgiveness.” Since these seven little papers aren’t a full autobiography, I think you might be mistaking the parts of the life for the whole?
Clay Burells last blog post..
[Reply]
Clay Burell
5 Aug 08 at 10:09 am
Good response Clay. I fail to understand Carmen’s point that one must not think critically about one’s own country because that country provided some of the conditions for critical thinking. Also, the military did not shoulder the burden of your student loan. They made a deal with you - “do the time and we pay the loan” - as part of their explicit recruiting strategy. As a military college graduate (fully paid by the government of Canada in return for my service) I am still critical of our government and our military. It’s my duty as a citizen.
Harold Jarches last blog post..A governing principle for work literacy
[Reply]
Harold Jarche
5 Aug 08 at 8:16 pm
Harold,
You did fail to understand the point. I suggested neither “slamming another culture” nor averting one’s critical gaze from one’s own culture. My objection: a recurrent tone in these otherwise unproblematic and very interesting posts, denigrating American culture (from the South, to low brow rock ‘n roll, to lousy academicians, to the WASPS whose taxes pay for programs like the one Clay benefited from, to the lobotomized dupes who signed on with the military, most of whom, excepting Clay, apparently checked their morality at the door) juxtaposed with “conversion” to and “reverence” for anything Other (from Mahler to Homer to Arabic). Thus I was questioning a religious semantics that struck me as problematical and somewhat risky. More importantly, if you read my comment carefully, you’ll see that it is precisely this very openness toward and enthusiasm for the Other that I simultaneously admire in Clay’s account of his personal history.
Regarding one’s right and civic duty to be critical of one’s government: the political left rarely turns its critical gaze on itself, preferring instead to chime in with the now popular incantations of American self hatred (or America “slamming” by its non-American partisans, from…yes, the Canadians to the French).
Cheers,
Carmen
[Reply]
Carmen
6 Aug 08 at 1:52 am
Heh, Carmen, I guess I just didn’t get your “questioning a religious semantics that struck me as problematical and somewhat risky”. Not sure who the political left is anymore, but at least we both agree that we like Clay’s blog.
Harold Jarches last blog post..A governing principle for work literacy
[Reply]
Harold Jarche
6 Aug 08 at 5:33 am
@Carmen,
I sort of get what you’re saying, though I don’t have it in me to respond to the the catalog of fairly off-base paraphrases of my posts in your last comment. That would take too long.
I’m not sure there is an American Left any more - at least in office. But if there is, I hope it’s doing what any healthy democracy requires, which is exercising informed dissent. If that’s problematic, we’ve got problems.
As for the “semantics” and all, too academic for my tastes. I write with all sorts of figures and tropes because I enjoy playing with language (and let me pre-empt another round by saying I do so fairly consciously, and normally intend the connotations).
I never called soldiers immoral, lobotomized dupes. Two points off. I did say I enlisted partly out of the same financial pressures other soldiers do.
[Reply]
Clay Burell
6 Aug 08 at 10:05 am
[...] wasn’t going to post this one, because I don’t care particularly for the tone. But a comment on the earlier “Learning the Enemy’s Language” post made me think I should post it anyway. If I [...]
A Defense of Soldier-Students | Beyond School
6 Aug 08 at 11:53 am
Dear Clay,
Off-based because they lack validity? When you post your positions in the public domain, you invite your readership to respond with requests for clarification, which, when delivered, render your position clearer and stronger. If we were sitting down over a cup of coffee, you’d hear the good will in my tone: t’would mitigate the sting of challenge that otherwise becomes the focus in an imperfect digital-script setting. Rock on, Carmen
[Reply]
Carmen
6 Aug 08 at 11:40 pm
@Carmen, It’s not the kind of sting that hurts as much as one of a different variety. Going into lay psychologizing of my tropes is just not something I’ve got the energy or interest in. Let a college student do that for a literary analysis assignment.
To call anything in this series “problematic,” “shocking,” or “risky” seems oddly out of proportion to me (and perplexing). To characterize my critiques of certain aspects of the South, of professors, of music, etc “denigrations” is a blanket misstatement I don’t want to spend time quibbling over.
To go into the details of the taxation system to point out that it’s not the WASPs who are paying the lion’s share of taxes in the States, so they don’t deserve my gratitude as much as the suckers they put that tax burden on - I don’t have that in me either (so you’ll have to settle for this).
And to speak of my love of Homer, Mahler, and all the rest as a “problematic” “religious semantics” to the Other (is that tired old trope still alive in academe?) just makes me scratch my head.
Sorry to be abrupt, but I just don’t have it in me to go farther down this path. Psychologize away. I don’t see much profit in it - especially since I’m a pretty happy guy these days, hospital trips to visit a terminal in-law notwithstanding.
[Reply]
Clay Burell
7 Aug 08 at 12:34 am