We’ve been doing it all wrong
In what can only be described as a flash of brilliance, PML-N lawmaker Parveen Masood Bhatti may have put her finger on the root-cause of our terrorism problem. (And wasn’t it about time somebody came up with something original instead of the clichéd tripe we have all been so sick of!) ‘We have started focusing on the English language, and parents put their children in English-medium schools and not bother teaching their children the Arabic language. It is because of this attitude that terrorism is increasing,’ claims Bhatti. If anything qualifies as cutting the crap, this surely is it. Bhatti was airing her views while the National Assembly Standing Committee on Cabinet Secretariat was debating the ‘Compulsory Education of Arabic Bill 2015’.
The mover of the bill, Naeema Kishwar Khan, was sadly not in attendance during the debate. She would undoubtedly have been delighted to hear the sundry unintended yet pleasant consequences of her bill. A few words on the original bill: it starts with invoking article 31(2) (a) of the Constitution, which ‘envisages to provide and to facilitate the teaching of Arabic language’. ‘By recognising the importance of the teaching of Arabic Language in the (sic) Muslim society like Pakistan,’ the bill continues, ‘by using direct method (sic), Arabic Language shall be taught as compulsory subject at primary, secondary and intermediate level.’ The objective of the bill is to ‘act upon recommendations made by the Islamic Ideology Council’ which had earlier approved similar recommendations. It is obvious that the bill itself was originally tabled for purposes other than defeating the scourge of terrorism. The bill also fails to mention that with enough Arabic training the citizens will be able to understand letters to and from Qatari princes without the aid of interpreters.
The bill is undoubtedly a big leap in the right direction. That being said, it would be premature to start celebrating while, and even after, our able parliamentarians make it law of the land. After teaching science for seventy years to students who continue believing that evil-eye explains the decline in milk-yield of their champion buffalo, we know only too well that merely getting something added to the syllabus is never enough. Can Arabic be taught the right way? We have been here before: Thanks to our original Ameer-ul-momineen Gen Zia, I am a part of the generation that studied Arabic as a compulsory subject in middle-school back in the eighties. We figured out pretty early how to ace the Arabic exam without knowing any Arabic at all. Considering the motivation and capability of students and teachers alike, I suspect the situation is not much different today.
Training of teachers and the requisite infrastructure will take time, and is obviously beyond the power of the ordinary citizen. And yet, it will be a bad idea to just sit still and do nothing about the matter. Here is something that I feel the ordinary citizens can do, here and now, irrespective of the noble efforts of our parliamentarians and the government:
A major impediment to my generation’s Arabic prowess was the fact that we didn’t have many avenues to hone our Arabic skills in everyday life. Readers who are old enough will recall that those were pre-Jazakallah times when gratitude was still expressed by ‘Thank you’ (or shukria), and ‘Khuda Hafiz’ was still ruling the roost. (Despite Zia’s efforts to rename the parliament ‘Majlis-e-shoora’, ‘InshaAllah’ was practically all the Arabic we got to use and hear in everyday life.) There were no ‘Al-Bakistan’ or ‘Al-Bunjab’ license plates. These are much better times for the Arabic beginner. ‘Alhamdulillah’, ‘Mashallah’, and ‘Subhanallah’ are among our everyday lexicon; and our national campaigns are appropriately named ‘Zarb-e-azb’, ‘Radd-ul-fasaad’, etc. But we obviously need to bring much more Arabic into our lives. A good approach would be to start from familiar, everyday concepts.
‘Congratulations’ should be replaced by ‘Mabrook’, ‘Yes’ by ‘Na’am’, ‘No’ by ‘Laa’, ‘I don’t know’ by ‘Wallahu aalam’, and ‘Well done!’ by ‘Bravo alaik’. Considering the misguided youth – which being most affected by lack of Arabic and over-exposure to English, is most likely to resort to terroristic activities – it might be a good idea to start from junk-food and garment brands: ‘Burger King’ should henceforth be pronounced ‘Burjer Kinj’; ‘Pizza Hut’, ‘Bitza Hut’; ‘Pepsi’, ‘Bebpsi’; ‘Gap’, ‘Jab’, and ‘Guess’, ‘Jes’.
Another good idea would be to end each response in a dialogue with ‘Ya akhi’ or ‘Ya ukhti’ (depending upon the gender of the person one is having the conversation with). This will also foster more brotherly (or sisterly) relations among Muslims. Use of words like namaz, zakat, and shariat should be strictly forbidden. Instead, ‘salah’, ‘zakah’, ‘shariah’, ‘bid’ah’, ‘dawah’, ‘jumu’ah’ and ‘ummah’ should be encouraged in all conversations. When this first phase has been successfully implemented by the bulk of the society, use of Arabic words should be further expanded, and so on.
If enough people start doing it individually in their homes and offices, it is reasonable to hope that one day it will lead to widespread Arabic proficiency resulting in a society where terrorism will be a vague and distant memory.
Ma’assalaama.
