Last week, school officials in an Atlanta suburb approved the creation of a new elementary school that,among other things, will require pupils to learn Arabic. While the news barely registered on the national radar, its passage has excited foreign language educators as further proof that Arabic, a language few Americans have any knowledge of, is worthy of attention. Amana Academy, which opens in August, will be the first publicly funded elementary school in the US requiring students to learn Arabic.
For decades, foreign language study has reflected US immigration trends and the nation's view of the world at large - German and Italian were first introduced to schools after a rush of European immigrants arrived at the turn of the twentieth century; Russian gained popularity shortly after Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, orbited the earth in 1957; and Japanese learning leaped during the country's economic rise in the 1980s. For Arabic, it has been the events of September 11 2001, the "war on terror" and war in Iraq that account for rising interest in the language.
According to the Modern Language Association, the number of university students enrolled in Arabic courses doubled from 1998 to 2002, to 10,584 students.
"We always have these waves of foreign language study in the American educational arena," says Muhammad Eissa, a former Arabic professor and educational consultant to secondary and elementary schools. "There was once such a demand for Japanese in college that they had to expand classrooms and hire lots of teachers in a short period of time - everyone wanted a piece of the pie. You have these surges and then they fade out again."
According to the founders of Amana Academy, white Christians, African- Americans and Asians in the community have all joined Arab-Americans in championing the study of Arabic. "Less than a quarter of the student population will be Arabs," predicts Ehab Jaleel, a Jordanian-American parent who helped establish the school. "We've been able to rally parents to go to board meetings and say ‘This is something I want my kids to learn'. If my kids can learn Spanish, French and Japanese, why not Arabic?" Only a couple of people have asked if there is really a need for this, he adds.
The US government - the largest employer of foreign language speakers - still suffers from a shortage of Arabic speakers in its operations against terrorism and in Iraq. The Central Intelligence Agency has been on a recruitment drive for Arabic speakers since last year; the State Department employs fewer than 60 fluent Arabic speakers, and is likely to need hundreds more in the next few years. The dearth brings about a comedy of tragedies: a US army using an assemblage of Arab "convenience store owners and cab drivers" for intelligence operations, according to one of the army's own reports; few Americans on Arab television able to argue the US viewpoint effectively; American troops on patrol in Iraq communicating with hand gestures and rudimentary Arabic.
It was only in 2002 that the Department of Education established the National Middle East Language Resource Center, at Brigham Young University in Utah, to help foster Arabic speakers. "I think that our government has never made it very clear to the general public that it's important to learn foreign languages," says Dora Johnson, director of the National Capital Language Resource Center.
Until now, most students of Arabic in the US have been Arab-Americans, so- called "heritage students" who simply want to understand their culture better. With the recent emphasis on Arabic, the reasons become more varied - and the potential for misunderstanding is increased. Antonia Folarin Schleicher, a foreign language teacher at the University of Wisconsin and president of the National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages, recalls: "I remember one of our students learning Arabic telling us he wanted to work for the CIA all the time." Talking to another student she mentioned that he had "a golden opportunity" to work for the government. "He said, ‘I don't want to learn Arabic so that I can use my language to kill people'."
Even as the US government seeks more Arabic speakers, this recruitment is tempered by caution. Last year at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, where hun suspected terrorists are in US custody, three translators were arrested on suspicion of spying. Which is why, perhaps, the instigators of the Amana Academy have distanced their school from political origins.
September 11 "had nothing to do with our pursuit", Mr Jaleel stresses. And as religious education is forbidden in public schools, there will be no teaching of Islam. But Mr Jaleel says Arab culture and history will be a part of the Amana curriculum.