Is Arabic Language Instruction Biased?

Is Arabic language instruction biased? Frank Salameh, writing in RCP, says yes (but not in the way that you would think):

At Middlebury College's Arabic Summer School, where I taught Arabic in 2004, students were exposed to more than intensive language instruction. Inside the classroom and across campus, administrators and language teachers adhered to a restrictive Arab-nationalist view of what is generically referred to as the "Arab world." In practice, this meant that the Middle East was presented as a mono-cultural, exclusively Arab region. The time-honored presence and deep-rooted histories of tens of millions of Kurds, Assyrians, Copts, Jews, Maronites, and Armenians--all of whom are indigenous Middle Easterners who object to an imputed "supra-Arab" identity--were dismissed in favor of a reductionist, ahistorical Arabist narrative. Those who didn't share this closed view of the Middle East were made to feel like dhimmi--the non-Muslim citizens of some Muslim-ruled lands whose rights are restricted because of their religious beliefs.

In maps, textbooks, lectures, and other teaching materials used in the instruction of Arabic, Israel didn't exist, and the overarching al-watan al-'arabiyy (the Arab fatherland) was substituted for the otherwise diverse and multi-faceted "Middle East." Curious and misleading geographical appellations, such as the "Arabian Gulf" in lieu of the time-honored "Persian Gulf," abounded. Syria's borders with its neighbors were marked "provisional," and Lebanon was referred to as a Qutr (or "Province") of an imagined Arab supra-state.

...

A leading Arabic language program shouldn't imbue language instruction with political philosophy. It should instead concentrate on teaching a difficult language well--on promoting linguistic ability, not ideological conformity. Academics should never intellectualize their politics and then peddle them to students under the guise of scholarship. Those who do may force a temporary dhimmitude on their student subjects, but in the end they only marginalize their field and themselves.

Read the whole thing. His argument is basically that Arab language instruction has adopted many of the core principles of Arab nationalism and that the Middle Eastern cultural diaspora exceeds that of just the Arab peoples, even if they are united under a common language.

This isn't a particularly science-related post, but I do think it is important that we talk about our biases in academia. Sometimes we perpetuate ahistorical views in our classes, and this is something we need to recognize and avoid.