A failure to communicate is an awful thing

FLO MARTIN

“Shahada.” It’s brought so much misunderstanding, so many

misconceptions, such vitriol, all fueled by the inability to

understand one another’s language and the resulting insensitivity to

one another’s culture.

“Shahada,” for some, affirms the oneness of God and, for others,

means “suicide bomber.” Now that’s some serious mixed messages,

right? Reminds me of the headlines, “Iraqi Head Seeks Arms” or “Drunk

Gets Nine Months in Violin Case” or “Miners Refuse to Work After

Death.”

Understanding one another must start with accepting the fact that

our different languages are couched in cultural context, and that we

need to be much more familiar with international cultural diversity.

We need more world language instruction in our schools.

Students throughout the world begin learning languages other than

their own at the primary school level. Here in the United States, a

second language is not required to graduate from high school, and

only two years’ study is required for college entrance. Bottom line:

The U.S. educational system needs to provide much more foreign

language instruction at all levels, starting with kindergarten kids

all the way through graduate school.

This past April, an official from the Defense Language Institute

in Monterey addressed the California Language Teachers’ Association

annual statewide conference. His keynote remarks explain how the lack

of language skills hurts our efforts to combat international

terrorism.

He said: “In today’s world ... national security requires

capabilities in foreign languages.... Today, all you have to do is

turn on one of the news channels to see that with military troops in

Iraq and Afghanistan, our lack of Pashto, Dari and Arabic language

skills has caught us between Iraq and a hard place.”

And, making matters even worse, American diplomats rely on

interpreters and translators, who are not properly trained to

understand the cultural implications of the words they hear or read.

National security depends on government officials who know what

the rest of the world is saying. Currently, our government is

severely lacking in people who are proficient in languages other than

English.

The teacher’s association speaker quoted a Department of Defense

official: “The greatest challenge we face is the general apathy in

the U.S. toward learning foreign languages.” The speaker also

explained that this concern has reached the very top levels.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said that one of his top

priorities is improving foreign language instruction in the United

States.

The Monterey speech summarizes the issue: “We cannot have lasting

peace without mutual understanding. We cannot have mutual

understanding without accurate communication. We cannot have accurate

communication without knowing each other’s language.”

Let’s all listen to one another more closely. Let’s do some online

research on what we read. Let’s hear what the other is really saying

before jumping to angry conclusions.

* FLO MARTIN is Costa Mesa resident and former high school

teacher.