Arabic Lesson in Jenin
by Annie C. Higgins
The first time I
stopped into ‘Izz ad-Din School for boys [grades 7 – 10] in the
northeast section of Jenin was in early October when the tanks
were making the rounds of schools and blocking the entrances.
Three weeks later with the tanks practicing the same drill, I
stopped to check on the school, as it is on the path of one of
the tanks’ primary entrances to Jenin.
The school had not been
bothered that day. Instead the faculty were discussing the
unfairness of the Palestinian Authority’s announcement that teachers
would not be paid for days they missed due to absences caused by the
Occupation forces. This did not seem fair to the teachers who
undergo daily feats of hardship and courage facing checkpoints or
going around them, sometimes to be turned back or delayed until
school is over, through no fault of their own.
One teacher was a
relative of one of the youths who had carried out a suicide
operation the day before. Another told of having lived in Israel for
a decade, and of his friendly relationships with many Jewish
Israelis. Faces of schoolchildren killed by the Army looked down
from posters on the walls. Awards, a map of Palestine, an artistic
rendition of al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, and ubiquitous
Palestinian flowers were tastefully arranged. A teacher invited me
to sit in on his class. I felt honored at this rare invitation,
especially since he was teaching the same subject I do, Arabic. His
students were younger, though, in seventh grade.
Our entry to the
classroom acted as a switch, dimming the boys’ energetic voices to a
low murmur. The teacher/ustadh offered me a chair in front of the
blackboard facing the class. Instead I chose an empty desk on the
side where I could see both students and teacher. He began by
speaking of the value of language as a way of making your needs
understood, and as a way of strengthening ties between people. This
fit in with an idea I hear frequently, that social bonds are much
stronger in Arab societies than in the west, and which I find mainly
accurate. The teacher called on various boys amongst the
healthy-sized group of forty to read the day’s text on language. In
a very engaging style, he departed from the text to ask questions
relevant to their present life.
“What language beside
Arabic do you see in shop windows in Jenin?” A few boys answered,
“Hebrew.” “Yes,” the teacher/ustadh went on, “when there were good
relations between Israelis and us, people came from Israel to shop
in Jenin. How can they know where to buy something unless they can
understand the sign?” None of the children found this unusual or
distasteful, as I sat in my little desk remembering Hebrew signs I
had seen and wondered about. He went on to talk about people from
Jenin who needed to speak Hebrew when they went to work in Israel.
He spoke more about the ability of language to bind societies
together, and the value of translation and translators. One boy he
called on to read was very self-conscious about making a good
impression on the visitor. I kept my eyes focused on the serious
students and ignored the silly faces I could see in my peripheral
vision.
The teacher/ustadh went
on with the translation theme, and asked who knew how to say ‘na’m’
in English. The answer was instant and confident as they translated
to “Yes!” He asked how to say ‘yes’ in a number of other languages,
French, Polish, Russian, Chinese, usually supplying the answer
himself. But when he got to Hebrew, the answer was even louder and
more confident than the English one: “BE-SEDER!” They were surprised
when he corrected them: “‘Ken’ means yes. ‘Be-seder’ means fine.” I
recalled the times I had heard local Jenin Palestinians using
‘be-seder’ amongst themselves, but was surprised that the boys
belted it out so happily, without any recriminations. A few more
students read the remaining sentences from the text, before
listening to the ustadh’s finale of the homework assignment.
When class was over,
they became like papparazzi to a celebrity, asking me to autograph
their notebooks and ooh-ing admiringly when I wrote in Arabic. The
throng became overwhelming so the ustadh made them back off. They
settled down and settled for loud applause complete with vocal
accompaniment. I cannot imagine a classroom of seventh-grade boys in
my home country being so enthusiastic about a visitor’s presence! As
I walked on the outside pathway, other potential fans called to me
from the windows of their classrooms. But one lesson was my portion
for the day.
Making my way to the
center of town, I saw a teacher from a girls’ school I had visited
previously when they had gathered six hundred girls into two small
inner classrooms as the tanks did drive-by shootings of the
centuries-old school. Today, she invited me to the family optometry
shop. Although I did not mention my Arabic lesson, they began
talking about previous times when Israeli clients would come in from
Tabariyya, Afula, and other places. I asked if the prices were lower
in Jenin. The answer was affirmative-lower prices for the identical
product-and they told of how they would make tea for new and regular
customers alike, and enjoy chatting together. In Hebrew presumably.
I thought back to the Arabic lesson: language strengthens ties
between people.
My friends went on to
say how the Israeli shoppers would buy fruits and vegetables, and
all kinds of things. I looked out at the Hisbe Market just outside
the door, where the Army had plowed through the metal frames of the
outdoor stalls a few weeks before. Some vendors were still coming to
market with wheeled carts, but it was just a skeleton of the former
street-long corridor of booths selling all manner of products. Huge
billboards placed by the Palestinian Authority remain above
proclaiming Peres’ declaration: “The pains of peace are better than
the tortures of war/aalaam as-salaam khayr min ‘adhaabaat al-harb.”
The strange angles of metal stall supports testify to the torture.
Amidst the damage, I remember the lesson: language strengthens ties.
A seventh-grader tells
me of the day recently when a tank parked itself right outside their
UNRWA [United Nations Relief Works Agency] school. The teacher led
them in repeating with vigor: “We are steadfast/ihna samidin!” After
five minutes, the tank rolled away. Language strengthens.
On another day, a young
friend asks if I would like to hear her read from her history book.
She reads a section about Arab contributions to the sciences, such
as the astrolabe and maps. This sparks a memory and she tells me
excitedly that during the Big Invasion in April, when they were
practically the only family inhabiting the abandoned neighborhood, a
soldier knocked on the door. She remembers what he looked like, pale
and overweight. But what really struck her attention was that he had
in his hands a detailed map of the neighborhood. “They use the maps
to hunt wanted people and capture them.” She remembers, too, that
they had placed their own dead soldiers in a house across the narrow
passageway. Language strengthens memories of twisted ties between
people.
The schoolbooks also
have contemporary views of Arab contributions. One thing that
Palestinians always cite as a virtue is their power of endurance.
One book tells the story of a child going to visit a relative in
prison, and how, after a long wait in the rain, they are told that
no visits are allowed that day. With over eight thousand
Palestinians in Israeli prisons, many children have relatives either
in prison or in hiding. Children sing a song that resonates with a
tremendous proportion of them: “I am a Palestinian child…my brother
is far away, my father is a martyr, and my mother is always sad.”
But they endure. They smile and greet foreigners, often calling out
in Hebrew, “Shalom!” Language strengthens ties between peoples.
As I finish writing
this, I receive a phone call from a reader in Tel Aviv, “We are with
you! We are with the people of Jenin!” Language strengthens ties
between people.
Dr. Annie C. Higgins specializes
in Arabic and Islamic studies, and is currently doing research in
Jenin.
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