Editorial cartoon, Al-Sharq al-Awsat, Aug. 24, 2010
The drowning figure is al-shebab (“youth”). Instead of throwing the life rings of (l. to r.) al-ta’leem (education) and al-tatawwur (“development”), the figure on the dock – du’ah al-tatarruf (“the propagandists of extremism”) – tosses to the figure representing Muslim youth an extremist’s gun.
Easter Sunday, according to the Christian Science Monitor, commemorates the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In Syria, about 10% of the population is Christian. With Easter Sunday in Syria, in “a region largely swept by the Arabic of Islam,” there has been a “bid to preserve its ancient heritage” and revive the “3000-year-old” language of Jesus’s time: Western Aramaic, “the closest modern descendant to the language spoken by Jesus and his disciples.” Thus, the founding of an Aramaic institute in the village of Malula, about 35 miles northwest of the capital city, Damascus. Interestingly enough, Aramaic was the language used by one of the most famous Jewish Torah commentaries, Rashi, or Rabbi Shlomo Yitchaki; in almost every printed copy of the chumash, (Pentateuch: 5 books of the Torah) the bottom third of each page is reserved for Rashi’s commentaries which are still in Aramaic, and in my old school we learned to read and translate Rashi’s Aramaic which was quite similar to biblical Hebrew. This very resemblance in the two languages’ characters was recently pointed out by a Syrian newspaper and sparked worry “that a flagship heritage scheme might in any way be associated with the country’s neighboring enemy, [Israel; so] the government-run University of Damascus, which established the institute, acted quickly to freeze the Aramaic program.” Many citizens of the surrounding villages and proponents of the Aramaic institute, however, hope that classes will resume soon, especially because “Aramaic is a constant reminder of the international importance of Syria in the ancient world, when it was a beacon of learning and culture that had a profound impact worldwide. It mirrors the cultural, linguistic and religious diversity that has always been of such great importance in Syria and is key to its long-term success.”
Question: How does this, if at all, speak to the degree to which the (far) past holds back cultural activities, modernization, and/or globalization in the Middle East?
That’s the question Thomas Friedman raises in another piece written this week from Yemen (“It’s All About Schools,” New York Times Op-Ed piece, Feb. 10, 2010). Should Arab schools teach courses aimed at building real world skills and critical thinking, or, fundamentalist Islam (which in Saudi Arabia and Yemen usually means the puritanical Wahhabi strain)?
Some students will find useful material for projects at the site archiving the “Arab Human Development Reports.” You will find a permanent link to this site in the “IMEB Link” list on the right hand side of the blog’s Home Page.
We have received notice of a new graduate program – “Politics of Conflict” – being offered by the Department of Politics and Government at Ben-Gurion University, Israel. The language of instruction is English. The website of the program is www.bgu.ac.il/politics-MA.
This week’s issue of The Economist (“Laggards Trying to Catch up,” Oct 17, 2009, pp. 59-60) contains yet another report on the dismal state of education in the Arab world. Excerpts:
“But the gap in the quality of education between Arabs and other people at a similar level of development is still frightening. It is one reason why Arab countries suffer unusually high rates of youth unemployment. According to a recent study by a team of Egyptian economists, the lack of skills in the workforce largely explains why a decade of fast economic growth has failed to lift more people out of poverty.
The most rigorous comparative study of education systems, a survey called Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) that comes out every four years, revealed in its latest report, in 2007, that out of 48 countries tested, all 12 participating Arab countries fell below the average. More disturbingly, less than 1% of students aged 12-13 in ten Arab countries reached an advanced benchmark in science, compared with 32% in Singapore and 10% in the United States. Only one Arab country, Jordan, scored above the international average, with 5% of its 13-year-olds reaching the advanced category.
Other comparative measures are equally alarming. A listing of the world’s top 500 universities, compiled annually by Shanghai Jiao Tong University, includes three South African and six Israeli universities, but not a single Arab one. The Swiss-based World Economic Forum ranks Egypt a modest 70th out of 133 countries in competitiveness, but in terms of the quality of its primary education system and its mathematics-and-science teaching, it slumps to 124th. Libya, despite an income of $16,000 a head, ranks an even more dismal 128th in the quality of its higher education, lower than dirt-poor Burkina Faso, with an average income of $577.”
The opening of a new university in Saudi Arabia, where the two sexes will be allowed to mix (to some degree at least), is a clear departure from the national ethos for that country. Some Wahhabi clerics are not sure.
HAMAS, the ruling Palestinian movement in Gaza, has condemned an initiative to teach about the Holocaust in schools run by the United Nations.
Foreigners are flocking to Damascus to study Arabic.
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