It’s so satisfying when a wingnut steps right into the trap. Kids at a school in New York heard the pledge of allegiance recited in Arabic, and the student body president actually said “One nation under Allah”…and predictably, the right wing has gone into a frothy spluttering meltdown.
We’re supposed to speak English, yells Todd Starnes, and it’s supposed to be a promise to the Christian God, not this foreign Allah fellow.
In my most recent book, “God Less America,” I illustrate how the nation’s public schools have been turned into indoctrination centers. Teachers are preaching a liberal ideology. Our schoolhouses have become places where Christianity is marginalized and Islam is given accommodation.
Oh, Todd, finally. So you admit that the pledge of allegiance is a sectarian loyalty oath, that it’s not a generic deity being appealed to, but the god of one particular branch of the Abrahamic tree. You have confessed that you think public schools ought to be indoctrination centers for Christianity…and you’re only outraged if they’re used as indoctrination centers for some other religion.
Hey, I have an idea. What if we didn’t use schools to tell kids who to pray to at all?
Todd’s jealous, he’s the one who believes in indoctrination. And we can certainly see by his use of the word liberal where he falls in the political spectrum. Especially telling are the politicians who are opposed to teaching critical thinking skills in the schools. Afraid the kids might see through their agendas.
Apparently, how to translate the generic (but not really, wink wink) term “God” to Arabic is a huge deal. With missionaries mostly on one side, and native Arab Christians on the other.
Here’s a taste of each side:
http://www.thepeopleofthebook.org/Massey-Allah.html
http://www.arabbible.com/t-Allah.aspx
Frankly, I find the idea of any loyalty pledge in classrooms disturbing, sectarian or not.
And here is the thousandth illustration of why the “ceremonial deism” excuse for invoking god in secular forums is absolute bullshit and is ceding ground to asshole with wingnuts. Also: wingnuts hypocrisy example number seventy billion and twelve.
I’ve wondered what it must be like for wingnuts where you have to be outraged at something at least 3 times before breakfast. Does this fool actually believe that rote recitation of a bunch of words tagged with reference to some mythical deity is going to mean anything to a bunch of kids who’ve been saying it for years? It sure didn’t for me. And that changing the name of that mythical deity to some other name will influence any one? Chill, dude, it isn’t worth the ink spilled writing about it.
I’m confused. Doesn’t he want little Arabic-speaking children taking his beloved patriotism oath in school?
I’d mention that it was the entire Pledge that was in Arabic, not just “Allah” — not that that changes the irony of it, as a lot of the wingnuts are complaining specifically about the “Allah” part.
The one disturbing issue I found is there’s a history of anti-Semitism at this school. Some guy claims it’s from Arabic students, but I suspect not, since I can’t find any specific reference to it coming from Arabic students and the references I do find indicate swastikas and that the town had formerly been the home of one of the KKK leaders (which is a historically Christian organization). It’s frustrating, though, not being able to directly call him a liar. Anyone know any more about this?
Whether Starnes likes it or not, Allah is the Arabic word for the JCI deity. When Muslims say Allah, they mean the god that revealed his word to Jesus.
Doesn’t make the pledge any less creepy of course. I wish this would be cause enough for the Satanists to want a go at the pledge too.
Inclusion is indoctrination. Diversity is indoctrination. Rigid provincial cultural hegemony is normal.
I just wish sometimes that people like this would just realize how god damn boring they are.
Surely they’ve invented their own language by now.
Rey Fox@10
Satanist would just say it backwards.
I still think it is funny that when Todd Starnes wrote his essay about PZ oppressing the free speech of conservative students, the members of the Slyme, who supposedly value their atheism, were busy linking to that article.
For some reason, I do not see them linking to other Todd Starnes penned items. I wonder why that is.
Look, let’s face it. Islam and Christianity are just Jewish fan-fic. Starnes is like the Star Trek: Next Gen fan who thinks the original series was unsophisticated and deplores the subsequent series as inferior. All the religious strife is just like having a rumble at Comicon.
You give Starnes entirely too much credit here. For one, it wasn’t the Student President who said “One Nation under Allah.” Also, the words, “One Nation under Allah,” were never said.
a_ray_in_dilbert_space @ 13:
At least a rumble at Comicon would probably have lightsabres involved at some point.
Artor, do you have a copy of what was said?
Sam, I don’t, and I can’t type in Arabic anyway. It was the Pledge of Allegiance, in Arabic. The words, “One Nation under…” are English, in case nobody noticed.
Artor, but they did say “one nation under Allah” in Arabic, correct?
I agree, Artor, but then it’s really just a criticism of Starnes for misquoting. Given the number of people shrieking about “Allah”, it would be kind of cute if “Allah” weren’t in the translation the Arabic speaker tried to give. The only references I have that claim “Allah” *was* specifically in the Pledge spoken are not reliable*, to put it politely.
I got very little response to my question as to whether they were upset about the Bible being written in English.
* i.e., crazed wingnuts who can barely post a two sentence comment on an article without a non sequitur. So far responses to my posting that there’s nothing wrong with saying the Pledge in Arabic has included “abortion”, “capital punishment”, “the Bill of Rights”, “you’re a liberal”
So Starnes thinks the members of the Syrian Orthodox down the road from me are actually Muslims because they say ‘Allah’ during the service? Doesn’t he even know that Christians have been saying Allah since before there were any Muslims?
The worst part of this story for me is that the school apologized, not for making kids sit through this stupid loyalty pledge daily, but for doing it in Arabic (or, as they say, a language other than English). Why should they apologize for exposing kids to a bit of one of the 6000+ other languages spoken on the planet?
Starnes is dishonest even by wingnut standards. My fave was when he wrote angrily about a 5-year-old girl who was told not to pray by a teacher during lunch. It turns out that the girl was the daughter of his publicist, and that she or her parents had made the whole thing up.
samgardner wrote:
It would be cute if he were wrong even about that, but it probably was Allah that was said.
Another point not mentioned here is that the school was celebrating Foreign Languages Week, and the Arabic version was just one day out of a planned five other languages that the pledge would be said in. Of course, the wingnuts’ heads asploded only about the Arabic version.
Loyalty pledge is bullshit.
“Because I happened to be born here, and all the alternatives open to me look worse, I find myself begrudgingly forced to participate in this vast scam called The United States Of America. I wish you’d fuck off but since you won’t, yeah, I’ll obey you because your cops scare the shit out of me and your army and political leaders are worse.”
I believe Artor’s point is that the students recited, “One nation under God” in Arabic.
I like how they’re also playing the “offense” card of “some people had parents who died in Afghanistan [sic – Afghanistan’s official languages are Dari and Pashto, and about 40% can’t speak Arabic]”.
Isn’t the “offended victim PC status” supposed to be a liberal playcard?
@Marcus: On a similar note, my dad lived through the Red Scare when people were given the choice of reciting an anti-Communist pledge of loyalty to America. My dad’s thought about them: “The first people in line to take the oath are the spies.”
@latveriandiplomat:
In Arabic-speaking countries (for example Lebanon, Syria and Egypt) it’s the word ‘al-laah’/’allah’ and not ‘al-ilaah’ which is commonly used, in conjunction with ‘al-rabb’ (the Lord). There might be some controversy, but it isn’t hotly debated except in the theoretical sense. In churches, they use all three interchangeably (this is from my own experience). The pronunciation between Christians and Muslims is slightly different, though, but when you write it down it’s the same damned word.
The controversy actually arises in countries where Arabic isn’t the main language (like, for example, Malaysia, which banned the use of the word ‘Allah’ for non-Muslims). I’m not entirely sure how missionary work factors into it as opposed to just dialect.
Okay, to clarify Artor’s point:
Imagine I am running a daycare. In said daycare, I have a TV with a DVD player, and a selection of cartoons.
Now, if I am speaking in Japanese, I am likely to say the room is for the kids to watch “anime”–the Japanese word for “animated show”. It doesn’t matter what, specifically, I am showing–it could be the latest stuff from Disney and Pixar, it could be old Hannah-Barbera shorts, it could be Scooby-Doo classics. In Japanese, it’s all “anime”.
However, if I am speaking in English, and I say, “This is where the kids can watch anime,” I am likely to get arrested because everyone assumes I’m talking about showing the tykes tentacle porn. Less facetiously, the logical inference is that I’m showing them Sailor Moon, Speed Racer and other Japanese import cartoons. Maybe some classic Star Blazers if the kids are really lucky.
Anime : Cartoon :: Allah : God
If you’re translating the line, “One nation, under God” into Arabic, you’ll use the word “Allah”. When reversing the translation, then, if you don’t complete the process (leaving in the word “Allah” even while re-translating the rest of the phrase), you change the meaning in a fashion that is inherently dishonest, and meant to suggest a specific deity–namely, the variety of desert monotheism ascribed to by Muslims.
This is a semantic nit-pick, but I would answer this question with a No, not really.
They said some words in arabic. Translated into English those words were “one nation under God”. The Arabic word that translates to “God” was (presumably; we actually don’t have it on record) “Allah”. Allah is not an English word so it doesn’t make sense to say the translation was “one nation under Allah” any more than it makes sense to tanslate sans souci as “without souci” (That’s a reference to the Mary Tyler Moore show.)
In Amuricah, “Allah” translates as “the muslim concept of God” and not actually the generic concept of God. Thus the implication is that rather than merely translating the pledge to arabic they somehow through the magic of semantics translated it into a muslim creed.
Well, I refuse to play those semantics so I choose to play my own. No, they never said “One nation under Allah”; They said “One nation under God” in Arabic.
@29: The links go into this in some detail. In short, Arab Christians have generally used “Allah” in their own translations of the Christian Bible. Many Western missionaries object to this because they view Allah as “the muslim false deity” and not just the word for God. I thought it was relevant because
a) The translation was probably made by someone familiar with how Arabs speak Arabic.
b) Starnes is definitely coming from the evangelical background of the most uptight of Western missionaries.
So, I think that, in a way, it is the same dispute in a different form.
freemage,
I understand that. What I was asking about was regarding Artor’s:
So what was actually recited? I’m assuming it was [Arabic for one nation under] followed by the sound “Allah”.
I think that’s enough to piss of an ignorant fool like Starnes. He thinks Allah is not the Arabic term used for the Christian god (which is also the Muslim god).
woozy,
That’s what I thought. I’m on the same page now.
I pledge allegiance to the wall
And the sheetrock of which it’s made
Hubris from start to finish. Interesting how christian associated schools make the students recite this bit of nationalist piffle while public schools do not. Would seem Sky Daddy needs a ride on the coat tails of Big Brother to feel all comfy and squishy.
Substitute any language you like, insert the name of any version of Sky Daddy that pleases you. It’s still hubris.
PZ’s got it right: Why not just leave Sky Daddy out of the classroom altogether?
My comment at number 31 was intended as a response to comment 28, not 29. And I really wish we could edit these things.
Well, to be fair, reading other articles about this it does seem that the flap is about reciting the pledge in foreign languages and in particular Arabic which is an “enemy language”. Only Todd Starnes is drumming up this “One nation under Allah” froofrah as a divisive tactic.
However, I must confess I find being upset by the pledge of allegiance in a foreign language to be baffling, jingoistic and offensive. And “enemy language” is just plain weird.
Presumably, probably, and likely. But we shouldn’t assume it as a given. At this point, who the heck knows.
@latveriandiplomat:
I have checked out the links, which is why I noted that in actuality, the ‘debated’ terms are used interchangeably for Arab Christians, which may be why, for the translator, it may have not even registered. Thank you for clarifying where you think the missionaries come in–I didn’t get that you meant Starnes’ background when reading your comment.
For what it’s worth, all three words sound very similar to the untrained ear. Whether the translator had translated it as ‘allah’, ‘al-ilaah’ or ‘al-laah’, it shouldn’t (and wouldn’t, for the non-native speaker) have made any real difference.
Maybe to keep it within the Christian faith, the translator should have gone for ‘al-rabb’ but that’s basically ‘the Lord’, which isn’t the literal translation of ‘god’. Or, you know, maybe they should not recited the freaking pledge of allegiance in school with that phrase in it.
@liberiandiplomat:
it’s no big deal to admit error, and it prevents dishonest “dialog” that cites edited comments as “proof” that someone didn’t say something.
Crip Dyke @38:
It’s Latveria, home of Doctor Doom, not to be confused with Liberia (or Latvia, or either of the Iberias).
@cr
My humor is something of an acquitted taste.
Think how Starnees would have reacted ad o used the original Bellamy salute when they said the pledge in Arabic.
I sincerely hope that Todd Starnes never will visit Malta. That would be very bad for his mental health. See, the totally catholic Maltese people call their totally catholic god “Allah” in the Maltese language.
@38 Yes, I can see that it serves a purpose, but one does regret that such a thing is necessary.
Append only editing might be a compromise (a way to keep small corrections with the posts they are meant to correct, but I could see that getting complicated and hard to read quickly.
Ah, I hadn’t thought of “append only” editing. That’s actually not a bad thought, though communities wide open to anyone from the internet might (I’m certain you are correct) make it unworkable.
Even here I have faith in most people to use it well, but not everyone.
And, as you say, we can certainly lament the dishonesty which requires the lack of such a function.
…though now that we’re having this as a more extended conversation…how would you know as you have a conversation that previous comments were being changed? Even if they other person wasn’t being dishonest, do you reread earlier parts of a conversation to make sure they haven’t changed since? That might be ridiculously cumbersome. Ugh. THere’s an unpleasant thought I hadn’t had before.
@37, Thanks. I am by no means a supporter of “under God” or the pledge in general, but I thought it might be helpful to understand that Starnes are his supporters are unlikely to be moved or even acknowledge as legitimate the “Allah is just the Arabic for God” defense.
I also personally find silly word game arguments among the religious (e.g., transubstantiation vs. consubstantiation) to interesting, in a car accident kind of way.
That’s not particularly dishonest by wingnut standards. It sounds pretty typical. From “death panels” to “welfare queens” to “WMDs in Iraq,” they thrive on dishonesty, and they wilt under the harsh, merciless light of reality.
CD & latveriandiplomat
Some systems allow an editing window of five minutes or so, in which to fix errors, make additions etc, which seems to work okay. I don’t think it’s possible to implement on Word Press based sites such as this, though.
I’m going to have to throw down a red card and send you to the sidelines for the rest of this news cycle. It’s against the rules to suggest political correctness as a factor if a conservative is offended. Come on. You know that.
@44 Even on a system that allows a great deal of editing, like disqus, I try to label additions with “ETA:” (edited to add) and apply a strike through tag to things I would wish to delete. That seems only fair to people who replied to the original, but it’s definitely not something disqus enforces. (For simple spelling errors, etc. I don’t label my edits.)
Unfortunately, disqus doesn’t notify about edited posts, so any user who acknowledges feedback by editing their original post (e.g., to retract or amend any erroneous or intemperate statement) also has to create a new message to let the other party know they were heard.
For places like here and wordpress sites (even with the limited edit window) I’m trying to get better about doing a good proofreading pass before I hit post.
Daz, saying “you can’t do that in wordpress” is a recipe for pie. Part of what makes wordpress a disaster is that you can do *anything*. For example, here’s a plugin:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-ajax-edit-comments/
Doesn’t he even realize that he’s pretty much calling for Christian indoctrination in schools?
Also, I wish his interpretation could be made official, so that the Pledge of Allegiance would violate the First Amendment.
Wait.
Isn’t the Pledge establishing monotheism over other religion forms? Or it does not count as a “law”?
I’m not American, so my understanding is limited. How that managed to pass?
@F.O.
The court has interpreted many overtly religious actions by the government to be Ceremonial Deism.
This allows the government to pay a chaplain to minister to Congress and certain others as Congress designates. The “ministering” is considered a sideshow to the actual work of the chaplain: saying godly things in the chamber as sessions open/reopen or close/reclose/finally end dammit and being an arbiter of which other godly folk can be guest-godly speakers to the congress, including scheduling those speakers and generally keeping up communications between the Chaplain’s office and religious communities so that the Chaplain knows what things to say/not say in order to keep Congress’ image religion-positive.
This work, …
…announcing that god is looking down on the members of Congress and let’s all hope he doesn’t hate us too much and might even nudge in positive directions the slimy, otherwise-incompetent good-for-nothings he created and placed in positions of trust, …
…the court has interpreted to be merely mouthing platitudes, saying things no one could reasonably believe are **actually religious** because who the fuck believes that shit, anyway?
Personally, I would think being called disingenuous fucks by the supreme court would be less desirable than getting to pay godly folk to do things that lots of godly folk would be happy to do as volunteers outside of government. But to the Christians who run – and game – the system, getting the right to discriminate on the basis of religion is far more valuable than treating the constitution with respect.
And, of course, that’s not the only evidence of those values.
@51 As I understand it, the “Ceremonial Deism” doctrine of the Supreme Court says that “God” used in government mandated ceremonial texts like the pledge, does not make any theological statement, but just serves a solemnizing function (although, AFAIK, they have avoided ruling this explicitly in the specific case of the pledge of allegiance).
Nobody really believes that, I think, but proponents of goddy language in such contexts find a useful legal fiction to hide behind when necessary, and ignore when banging the drum for the US as a “Judeo-Christian” nation.
Even if something like that was supposed to be the function (and you’re right that this is the sort of claim people often make), I don’t see how that makes any sense. “Gods” and “deities” and so forth are words that have definite meanings relating to theological entities. If they’re being used for solemnizing or celebrating or whatever else, that is still a flavor of theological statement. I just don’t buy it that you can’t be solemn without mentioning a “god,” or that it says nothing about the solemnity of a truly secular/god-free statement that these words (with their implications) ought to be uttered in order for that kind of function to be served. Indeed, to me as an atheist, it makes the proceedings more ridiculous and bullshitty, not more solemn. But there’s no shortage of things you can say to make things solemn (or anything you like, other than religious) which have no theological underpinnings at all.
That’s all in addition to the fact that, as you seem to be suggesting, it’s blatantly supposed to be a sectarian reference to specific flavors of Christian goddiness to the exclusion of others, and nobody really buys the idea that’s it’s just some nebulous placeholder-with-a-function. Because it’s intentionally nebulous and bullshitty and there’s nothing to get about that.
So I assume “Dieu” is the name of the French god, and Todd Starnes doesn’t pray to him either?
FWIW, the kind of dissembling in which the Justices engage, from the O’Connor concurrence in Elk Grove:
@54. Yeah, I’m not defending it or pretending that it’s anything but the convenient dismissal of the clear meaning of certain words. Just trying to explain the current ridiculous state of the law in the US.
For more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceremonial_deism
Oh, hey!
Someone editing wikipedia also thought O’Connor’s Elk Grove concurrence was relevant to the discussion.
Hmm. Maybe my thoughts about Elk Grove weren’t as random as I presumed. Maybe I’m actually remembering something important about Elk Grove…
…deep, deep down.
Obviously. It can acknowledge things which aren’t even known to exist without offending the Constitution, since that doesn’t technically say our government should be honest about anything. I’m sure you could also make a very compelling case concerning the “history and ubiquity” of dishonesty in our government. But shouldn’t our government be acknowledging Bigfoot as well? What gives?
I find it interesting that the author of that page seems not to have noticed that /alʔilaːh/ is what /alˁːaːh/ has developed from – by a completely regular sound shift. By trying to avoid the word, he has reinvented it the way other people reinvent the wheel.
Amazing. O’Connor says tradition cannot be unconstitutional. My mind is blown!
Cathy F @55:
IIRC they renamed French God as “Freedom God” in 2002.
@Crip Dyke @latveriandiplomat: thanks for the explanation.
The case still sounds very dodgy. I wonder why it is not being challenged.
@62 Sadly, even if the court ruled correctly on this, it’s quite possible that there would be quite an impetus for a Constitutional amendment to restore Ceremonial Deism. And it’s quite likely that such an amendment would have other privileges for the religious as baggage.
Maybe in a generation or two, it will be safer. Or maybe I am too cynical about that reaction.
And note, protecting the 1st amendment from this type of reaction is NOT why the current justices ruled the way they do. They really do want to protect the status quo of Christian privilege that they pretend doesn’t exist.
I still think the whole “under God” business is a minor sideshow to the idea of the pledge itself. Americans have, rightly or wrongly, a reputation for having a far greater degree of nationalistic jingoism than people elsewhere in the world, and forcing this bizarre ritual on kids does nothing to counter this image.
Note to self: when trying to make fundies admit that they are lying, simply make them so incoherently angry that they can’t keep their lies straight in their head. Good to know.
I could actually support saying the Pledge of Allegiance in a different language every day.
@cjcolucci,
To make their heads explode, you only have to say it in two languages: Spanish and Arabic. You can add French if you want to add a little more insult.