za3eem, I don’t know where you live in this world, but as somebody who has lived the vast majority of my life inside the USA, I can tell you–before I left the country, I had never met a single Muslim. At least nobody that I knew was Muslim.

No, seriously.

I didn’t know the difference between Muslims/Islam. Seriously.

Not that I want to be all self-deprecating by pointing this out, but I want people like yourself to know that, while your suspicion is justified, and can be used to keep you safe and aware, it can also be divisive. Islam just became the most practiced religion in the world, ahead of Roman Catholicism (17% to Islam’s 21%). So I just want you to know that the surge of reverts, in my opinion, has to do mainly with people hearing about Islam for the first time/having a reason to look into it.

I am also a south african muslim gal and LOVE the Language .

If people aren’t complaining that we’re a bunch of ignorant, one-language slugs – they’re complaining that we’re learning another culture to join the ranks of the CIA.

Meanwhile, there continues to grow opportunities for outsourcing and trade between the Middle East and the U.S. that are greatly facilitated by both sides understanding the other better … but guess helping each other make a living is a bit too altruistic.

thanks

http://archive.gulfnews.com/region/Jordan/10242056.html

In fact, I get paid in the field of 1 million just to make it sound like that.

I’m really that good

From what I saw, a lot of the students had Arab parents so either they or their parents felt the need to be able so speak Arabic. Then there was students who came as part of University course back in the U.S and were interested in learning Arabic for various reasons such as becoming translators in Iraq.

On seeing these students in Rainbow street, everyone from the Arabic program hung out in the same places! At a Ramallah underground gig over half the people there were students learning Arabic.

Lina, an Arabic tutor in Chicago makes $35/hour. Fund your education!

In Central Illinois, rural corn country if there ever was, Chinese has replaced German and Arabic is probably going to replace French in the government school system.

Lina’s comment made me smile. Arabic is quite a cash cow these days. In fact, I studied at the Language Center at the University of Jordan for three months, and I concluded that it was mainly just that–a cash cow. The classes were overcrowded because anyone who could pay was let in, at any point in the semester, and very little homework was assigned or graded–probably because our teachers didn’t want to grade it (and probably they were underpaid to teach such a large class). It was my impression that unless they took great personal initiative to study, very few of the foreign students there came out any better at Arabic than they had been…so I wouldn’t actually worry about them being of much use to the American government.

Also, Middleburry College in the US has a highly acclaimed summer language program, and Arabic has the highest demand. We ran a piece about that in Venture. The business of teaching Arabic to foreigners here is booming, and Jordan is competing with places like Syria, Egypt, and Morocco… all of which have well-established programs.

Over here, I’m thinking of making some money out of it myself, doing some Arabic for beginners classes or something the number of students in the journalism school interested in learning Arabic is very interesting!

Sometimes our nativity can be so freighting.

I will admit that I’m a pre-9/11 Arabic learner, and that I think there are slightly more post-9/11 learners who got into it to protect their country from “furners.” But: 1) Still not all of them, and I’m not even willing to argue “most” — certainly not most of those willing to live abroad and learn it there; and 2) even among those who *do* get into Arabic because they fear Muslims, there are going to be a sizable number who learn to love Arab culture and people in the course of their studies. Isn’t that a good thing?

Not sure that it is so bad really. I don’t know a single one that went to work with the US gov’t–or any Western gov’t for that matter. In any case, wouldn’t it be good to have people working for the CIA who actually LIVED in the ME? But what MJWells said is true–which is sad, I think.

hasab ra’i.

These jobs are hot and they pay a lot of money. One of the main reasons one may chooose to go for them is the big salary and benefits, it’s not necessary that they’re pro-war or pro-Bush or even pro-government

I used to be alert around “those potential-future-spies learning arabic”, until I befriended so many of them here, and now I totally believe, like MJ Wells says above, they just think “jordan sounded cool”

now, when I can order Grits in Amman, that would be scary… ahh…, grits!

(I’m learning Arabic myself, a child of the post 9/11 you may call me, and I’d rather starve to death then working for any of these organizations.)