Update: Rebecca has already posted about this, but as we emphasise slightly different aspects of the topic, I'll leave my post up too. Do read the full post and the comments - and watch the clip - it's very enlightening.
Dave M of Harry’s Place has had trouble learning Arabic:
It’s not like European languages, which are basically verbal ways to convey information on who did what, where, when, how and why. It appears to me that having developed in an environment that prohibits any sort of critical thought, especially in the fields of religion and politics, Arabic has become a means to avoid dealing with difficult issues.
In some Arabic-speaking countries, asking ‘how’ and ‘why’ can get you imprisoned. Therefore the more skilled you are at it, the better you are at avoidance by using ever bigger words and ever more flowery metaphors. In the end it just becomes one big exercise in denial.
Nothing can top the frustration I endured trying desperately but in vain, for a full year, to have a normal conversation with the locals in Assad’s Syria. …
The only path left is learning via TV, at which point you’re like Alice In Wonderland, where facts, logic and analysis have absolutely no place. However conspiracies, unsubstantiated allegations, “group think”, paranoia, and denial become the common currency. If you don’t subscribe to them then you’re a “Jew” or a “spy”. What else could you be?
Understandably the Arab world likes to keep this sort of thing well away from the English-speaking world– which is probably why channels like Al Jazeera English do not broadcast the Arabic channel’s output.
It’s called taqiyya. But we have MEMRI.
However occasionally something slips through the net, and for whatever reason this episode of Al Jazeera’s “Top Secret” has English subtitles. It’s really worth watching for a very specific reason.
Not because of Mohammed Atta’s father ranting on about his son’s innocence, or even because he recites from the phony, antisemitic “Franklin Prophecies” while the presenter tacitly agree with him.
[,,,]
No, you should watch it because this represents mainstream Arab opinion. Forget anything spoken in English to a Western audience. That counts for nothing. This is what the vast majority of people truly believe.
[…]
Now even before analysing the content, I’d like you to notice the language. It’s very descriptive, passive, emotional, and all about feelings and sensations. It’s not about goals that can be analysed and measured. You try to speak Arabic like that and it feels like you’re stretching it to breaking point. You are swimming against a very strong tide.
Raphael Patai disussed the limitations of Arabic in The Arab Mind, but neither he nor this writer makes the connection with Islam. A reader comments:
Language is a reflection of the needs of the people who speak it. If Islam disappeared tomorrow, then the need for rational thought and discussion would create new ways to use Arabic. Something would change, an new pattern would be imported into the language, and rational discussion would flourish.
I think he is right. But for now, Arabic is a tool of Islam. Arabic-speaking apostates, for example Wafa Sultan, are all the more admirable for being able to think independently in such a language.
