Pine Bush students react to Arabic pledge

Commentary by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS

An upstate New York school district has issued a formal apology after Pine Bush High School students were made to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in Arabic last week while celebrating Foreign Language Week.

TruthRevolt.org is reporting that authorities in the local school district say they never intended to offend so many people when students were asked to recite the Pledge of Allegiance last week in Arabic. Being part of Foreign Language Week, it was also to be recited in Japanese, Italian, French, and Spanish.

“The intention was to promote the fact that those who speak a language other than English still pledge to salute this great country,” the district said in a statement. “We sincerely apologize to any students, staff or community members who found this activity disrespectful.”

The ruckus began on March 18 when the morning’s regularly scheduled announcements included a reading of the Pledge of Allegiance in Arabic. Students told the Times Herald Courier that as students realized what they were hearing, the announcement was greeted by catcalls and derogatory statements by students who felt it was inappropriate.

This touched off a wave of angry talk that quickly escalated into a war of words between students who opposed, and those who supported, the reading.

As one student tweeted, “The pledge should always be said in English. They could’ve just said ‘Good Morning’ in a different language each day.”

Another student who supported the reading, a senior named Miranda Monroe, said she felt it was “wrong to discriminate – the whole thing is wrong.”

Andrew Zink, president of the student assembly and senior class president who ordinarily reads the morning announcements said he knew exactly what would happen when the Pledge was read in Arabic.

“I knew many wouldn’t support it,” he told the Record.

The controversy “divided the school in half,” school Superintendent Joan Carbone told the Record and admitted that what was supposed to be something good “turned out not to be.”

Nevertheless, Zink said he’d do it again, “Because it’s the right thing to do.”

It was, but it was the wrong way to do it. If the school district wants to promote tolerance, they need to do so within the framework of reality. Let’s face it, Arabic is a language associated with IS, al Qaeda, Hamas and other terrorist groups that regularly swear “death to America” while carrying out acts of extreme barbarity against anyone who does not share their faith. Videos of these horrendous acts have become the stuff of our nightly news. Students are aware of what’s happening in the world and will naturally recoil at the thought of reciting something so precious as the Pledge of Allegiance in the same language used by the people who curse this country and cut the heads off its innocent representatives.

This should have been taken into serious consideration, especially if the school wants to promote tolerance for the majority of the Muslim population of this country who do not support IS and its ilk and, in fact, have been willing to lay down their lives in defense of this country.

Teaching tolerance toward Muslims in the current world situation must begin with an  honest acknowledgment the very real wounds inflicted upon the psyche of this nation by these extremists. This must be followed by a forceful condemnation of this violence. Only then can we effectively speak up for the peace-loving Muslims who are suffering as a result of these radicals who are regularly defaming the name of Allah.

By just tossing in a language used by confirmed enemies of the United States alongside those of our nation’s friends was a clumsy and ill-conceived idea that resulted in dividing the students rather than teaching them what could have been a valuable lesson in genuine tolerance.

But we can’t blame the school entirely for this misbegotten program. The tactic of the PC police to label everyone as an “Islamaphobe” who speaks out against Muslim extremism is another example of how dictating behavior in spite of reality just doesn’t work – unless it’s forced upon people.

Perhaps this was the school’s greatest fault – listening to the misguided PC police rather than their own common sense.

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