actually, i thought the pollak piece was pretty far off the mark. it's quite a stretch to call al-kitaab, part one "arabic propaganda." a lot of pollak's criticisms of the book and his course are almost laughable. for example, pollak writes:
The DVD that comes with "Al-Kitaab" includes footage of Nasser's mass rallies in Cairo -- including slogans in Arabic and French such as "Brother Nations in Struggle, We Are By Your Side." These scenes of totalitarian rage are fondly described by the narrator as "dreams of his youth."it's been a few years since i saw the video (in my day it was on VHS, not DVD), but if i remember correctly the bit he is describing is when khalid's father is talking about his past. note that khalid's father is one of the characters. he's not a "narrator" in the sense that he's has the voice of objectivity. he's just a character telling his story as he sees it.
anyway, at one point abu khalid does talk about the "dreams of his youth" and there is a cut to a nasser rally from the 1960s. what apparently went over pollak's head is the sense that the character is reminiscing about the naive dreams of his youth. when i heard the remark it seemed to be about the disappointment that followed after nasser came to power, despite all the promise that khalid's dad saw in him when he was a young supporter of the revolution. and, in any case, it's really hard to see that brief scene and conclude that the book is trying to indoctrinate a new generation of nasserites.
other parts of his critique aren't much stronger. pollak says "Most maps of the Middle East in 'Al-Kitaab' do not include Israel, though a substantial minority of Israelis, both Jews and Arabs, are native Arabic speakers" actually, i think there's only one map in that entire book that covers that part of the middle east and the country names are not labeled. in a nearby page, there is a list of the names of "all arab countries" which does list "palestine" but not israel. then again, the list also doesn't include, turkey, iran, chad, or michigan, all places with a "substantial minority" of arabic-speakers.
really the only place in "al-kitaab, part one" where they address the israeli-palestinian situation at all is in the last chapter. but pollak says his class skipped that one. what kind of a secret indoctrination program is that!?!?
in any case, the skipped chapter, chapter 20, tells the story of maha's mother, who was a palestinian refugee during the 1967 war. it's worth noting that "al-kitaab" is designed to teach students arabic so that they can go out and read stuff beyond the story of maha and khalid. if you're going to prepare students for that, you need to deal with the israeli-palestinian situation somehow--"al-kitaab chose to do that through the life story of maha's mother. and yet, political reality makes that extremely difficult. there's really no way they could do it without having someone criticize them for whatever they say or don't say.
pollak's piece is a case-in-point. first pollak criticizes the book because the palestinian refugee character says "My childhood was taken from me!" but what else did pollak want her to say? a lot of refugees did have their childhood taken from them. if you leave out that element, it would look like a whitewash and you'd have other people criticizing the book for minimizing the suffering of a displaced people.
next pollak writes: "Over mournful music on the DVD, she talks about returning to Jerusalem, as if she were a refugee, but the images suggest that she left voluntarily after the Six-Day War" first, the story makes it pretty clear that she was forced out, as a lot of people were. pollak seems to be confusing the stock period footage on the video with the actual story. second, even if her family left voluntarily in 1967, they wouldn't be able to return now. only the people who stayed were given citizenship. why is it propaganda for a woman who spent her childhood in jerusalem and who now cannot return to speak longingly about that city? if she spoke differently, wouldn't that be propaganda? it seems to me that most palestinians who left, voluntarily or not, want to return, but can't. ignoring that would be a lot closer to propaganda.
pollak continues: "The fact that Israel also claims Jerusalem as its capital is ignored." that's true. it's also irrelevant to the story. maha's mother didn't mention the fact that the palestinian authority wants east jerusalem to be its capital either. nor, for that matter, did she name the capital cities of jordan or syria. the piece wasn't about capital cities of the middle east, it was about one woman's childhood experience.
pollak also criticizes the three films shown to his class. i've seen two of he films he mentions: west beirut and destiny.
west beirut is a coming of age story set in the midst of the lebanese civil war. the film doesn't take any side in the conflict, nor does it even get into the politics behind it. it's all from the point of view of a small boy who is trying to make his way across a town divided by sectarian militias. none of those militias are portrayed as heroes. nevertheless, pollak claims it "cast christians as the prime bad guys." actually, it doesn't. the only "bad guy" in "west beirut" is the war itself.
pollak's critique of "destiny" is even more flimsy. that film is a musical about the philosopher averroes, an arab philosopher who lived in 12th century andolusia. "destiny" is a thin metaphor for the struggle against islamists in the modern arab world as it portrays averroes' clashes with the fundamentalists of his time. you'd think this film would be right up pollak's alley. if anything it is anti-islamic fundamentalists propaganda. but while he acknowledges that the film is "nuanced" he nevertheless concludes that it is is all part of an anti-western indoctrination campaign because "the film omitted the fact that it was only through the Hebrew transcription of Averroes's writings by Jewish scholars in Egypt that his works were preserved for posterity." yes, that's right, because the film didn't mention an event involving jews, it should not be shown in university classrooms. never mind that the event in question (the preservation of averroes' writings) took place after the events depicted in the film. no doubt pollak has issues with "raiders of the lost ark" because it makes no mention of the shoah.
(via)
