Languages In Africa

The premise of this book is that Africa’s numerous languages make education cumbersome. In this well-researched study, the authors discuss how the many tongues of the continent create a need for a common language, yet there’s apprehension over whether to use it. The Muslims above the equator want Arabic, but that takes longer to learn to speak and write. English seems like the best choice for language, as it’s already used in much of Africa, yet Senegal, Niger, Ivory Coast, Benin, and other still use French. As for Francophone Africa, the people haven’t benefited much from French or Belgium in the last 30 years. Which one will they use?

A statistical study was done on children in Cameroon, and some small African nations, along with Belize and the Philippines. The results were that the highest math scores occurred when the teacher was highly proficient either in English or French. When his/her mastery of that language was weak, the students’ scores were weak. Cameroon had high scores, because the teachers in that country are expected to be proficient. Ghana, which has had government funded education for the last 20 years, has seen success in teaching the students bilingually. Each school teaches the students in their local language, with English taught separately. The students are broken up into small classes for English, then grouped together for everything else. This allows them to get more attention in English class, while the math instruction is easier because the teacher and students have no trouble communicating. Think of it in terms of any language; if you were teaching English speaking kids to learn French, you would make French a separate class. You would not expect them to learn math, science, and history in the foreign language.

Further chapters discuss the subject of advertisements in Kenya, which are different depending on the region. It means that different posters have to be processed for each language area, which can make things costly, but at the same time the advertisements don’t work if people can’t understand them. The Latin alphabet is always used, because aside from Latin and Arabic script, Africa has no writing system. In a funny twist, a Paypoint advertisement appeared in two languages, but the product name had to come at the end of one ad and at the beginning of the other. As with the French-English difference, adjectives will come in the beginning in one language, or at the end in the other.

There are, however, some pieces missing from this book. It doesn’t have any case studies of Africans who move to NY, London, Paris, or Israel. I’m keen to know what they do about the language, and whether they benefit from knowing English or French once they arrive. The 2009 book Dead Aid by Dambissa Moyo (an economist from Zambia) was all about how “helping” Africa doesn’t work, and I would love to know her opinion on the continent’s language issue. There are many other great African writers who’ve spent time in Europe and the Americas, and I bet they’d have a unique perspective on this topic.

Ecclesiastical Knights: The Military Orders of Castile, 1150-1330

Sam Zeno Conedera tries to answer long-pondered questions about the religious based military orders. Firstly, how effective were they in military and government affairs? Secondly, how sincere were they in their religious belief? While there were many such orders, most famously the Templars and the Knights of Rhodes, the author focuses on the Iberian orders only. These “fighting monks,” as they are often known, existed in Spain before the country unified, so we might start by saying that they were the origin of Spain as we know it. As discussed in the book, they provided heavily for Spain’s defense, as well as economy.

In the chapter Interior Castle, we learn that the Iberian order weren’t all combatants; they had levels of knights, sergeants, clerics, and sister. The knights were nobles who took vows, while the sergeants were the more numerous commoners. There were clerics who acted as chaplains, and women members who served in the medical field. Thought history books ignore them, the nuns had greater medical knowledge than the doctors of the era, as attested by their surviving journals. After all, it was the nuns who ran the hospitals and cared for the sick, though the men get the credit (not with killing their patients.) The knight-sergeant arrangement was probably the same as that of the modern officer and enlisted man; the sergeant would lead common fighters, while the knight was involved in the planning, equipping, and overall decision making.

As far as religion goes, it was a kind of synergy, where the combatants and the clergy needed each other in several ways. The nation needed an army for defense, and the monasteries needed the knights to defend their vast property. Since the various Iberian states could easily get into conflict, the Catholic church was something of a unifying factor. If it could keep the Iberian knights from fighting each other, then they’d be less distracted when it came to fighting the Muslims. If they had charters from the Pope in Rome, then it would protect them from being attacked by the French and/or English.

I do remember a similar argument in the book Women of Faith, about Catholic sisters in Chicago, where the author promotes the nuns’ contribution. According to that book, the convents, with their schools and hospitals, provided a service to a land that was not well served by the government. They also provided a place for women who wanted education and work, but didn’t want to get married and by owned by a man. Similarly, a free-born peasant boy, uninterested in farming, and lacking any skill, could join one of the Iberian orders, learn to fight, and would no longer be subservient in the way a tenant farmer was.

The Iberian orders were one of the few options for upward mobility in the days when Spain wasn’t unified. They would eventually go into a decline as the nation consolidated.

The Complete Book of Pickling by Jennifer MacKenzie

What Julia Child did for French cooking, Jennifer McKenzie does for pickling. She has crafted a great book to teach inhibited cooks about preserving fruits, vegetables, and sauces, using ingredients you can buy anywhere. She starts with basic scientific information about preserving foods, and the benefits of pickling. When I say benefits, I mean she provides reasons to pickle cucumbers, onions, and peaches, not only for the great taste, but also for the health benefits.

Take for instance her recipe for pickled figs, using marsala and vinegar. You can make the figs last longer, without having to dry them, and they will have a sweet or sour taste. Dried figs have an excessively sweet taste, but when you pickle them, you can control the taste and texture. There are recipes for pickled cucumbers, tomatoes, and plums, and she gives instructions for pickling them in the refrigerator, or hot-water pickling, which means you can leave the jars in the pantry.

The benefits of home pickling are many. Firstly, you can preserve the fruits and vegetables for a long time, which is great if you haven’t got room in the fridge. If you grow your own vegetables, and end up with more than you can store, pickling may be the best way to see that they don’t go to waste. Secondly, there are health benefits, because fruit and vegetables that are preserved in vinegar can have great effects on your heart. Lastly, when you buy pickled cucumbers or tomatoes in the store, they’re made with dyes, sodium, and all kinds of preservatives, but home-made pickles won’t have any of these harmful additives.

If you’re looking to start pickling your own foods at home, this book is a great help. It gives easy to follow instructions, and the ingredients are affordable.

The Jews of Iran

Iran’s Jews have an interesting history. They arrived by force during the Babylonian captivity, survived the conquest by the Persians, the empire’s conversion to Islam, persecution, constant resettlement, and humorously, conflict with Ashkenazi Jews in Queens! Their customs were a mix of ancient Jewish practices couples with Persian traditions, some of which they retained, others they lost after leaving the country.

This wonderful book discusses the customs and history or Iran’s Jews, with historical scholars contributing essays in each chapter. One of the biggest issues is the Jewish community’s place in Muslim society, mainly whether they were tolerated or distrusted. Haideh Sahim, a professor of literature at Hofstra, gives an interesting background to the persecutions, using the Mashadi community as an example. The Jews of Mashad were caught in the middle of a conflict between opposing armies, one of which was anti-clergy, and since Mashad is home to a Shiite shrine, this put them into a dangerous situation. Some converted to Islam to survive, but practiced Judaism in secret. There was some benefit to the Jews’ presence in Mashad, however; the British traders, wary of being robbed by Turkumen tribesmen, needed the Jews to act as go-betweens and make loans (so they wouldn’t have to carry cash.) The British couldn’t trust the Armenians, because they had ties to Russia, who wanted to sabotage the British trade efforts. When Britain attacked Iran in the 1830’s, the Jews were blamed for it and their quarters were attacked.

Shalom Sabar, professor at Hebrew University in Israel, discusses a more positive aspect of Iranian Jewish life, namely the decorated Ketubah. For Ashkenazi Jews in Europe, and even Sephardic Jews in Italy, the fancy artistic marriage documents were for the wealthy. In Iran however, all people had them decorated. He points out that the decorate Ketubahs of Europe used the square calligraphy of the sofer, but in Iran, the writing was done in common cursive script. Calligraphy was used only for the brachot, or anything that had the name of the creator. In Iranian Ketubahs, there is also, according to him, a lack of imagery. Islam prohibits human faces, so an Iranian Ketubah would not show the bride and groom, or images of Jerusalem, or any biblical imagery. It’s only going to have vines, flowers, or decorative motifs.

I went to Yeshiva until I was 18 years old, but I never had a really well-rounded education on Judaism like I got from reading this book. If you’re studying Jewish history, this book will make you an expert, because each chapter is written by a different scholar, offering diverse theories and opinions.

From Abortion to Pederasty: Addressing Difficult Topics in the Classics Classroom

In the book of Genesis, Lot faces a mob of Sodomites intent on harming the men in his home. His offer is surprising by today’s standards; “I have two daughters who have known no man, I will give them to you to do with as you please, but do not harm the men who took shelter under my roof.” Most would be horrified at this offer, as this would mean throwing two twelve year old girls to a frenzied mob, who would not protect them from something as trivial to them as a gang-rape. However, to the people of the time, it was of no consequence to them. Women were nothing but property.

From Abortion to Pederasty is a wonderful collection of essays by today’s scholars on controversial topics in the classics. Sexual violence, child abuse, and rape often figure in the bible, mythology, and other forms of classical literature, and we often wonder how we can reconcile that against today’s codes of conduct. Sharon James, for instance, writes how many students and female coworkers confided in her that they were the victim of sexual assault, which she finds rife on today’s college campuses. For her, it’s difficult to hear this when the classics in her curriculum often have instances of rape, just not blatantly stated.

James, like other writers in this book, looks at this from the standpoint of the scholar, not a prosecutor. She welcomes the opportunity to have open dialogue on this topic, and have the students compare the treatment of women in the classics to the norms of today. Whether it’s the story of the Sabine women, Lucretia, these issues can’t be ignored in the classroom.

The Deerholme Foraging Book

The mushrooms, onions, and berries that we buy for a fortune at the farmer’s market can be had for nothing out in the woods, if you know where to look. Thanks to the Deerholme Foraging Book, you can learn how to recognize edible plants and wild fruits, and reap the bounties of nature as our ancestors did centuries ago.

For starters, chantrelle mushrooms, white and globby looking, grow wild. You also have lobster mushrooms, named for their orange color, and black morels, which are cone shaped. If you want free seafood, you can harvest manila clams, geoduck, and crabs. The geoduck are harder to find now that they’re a delicacy, and they take years to mature, but smaller clams and mussels are available. This book comes with cooking instructions for the crabs, so you’ll get the most out of your harvest.

Recipes are included, such as seaweed pesto, which is absolutely wonderful. Jams made of wild berries can be preserved if they are jarred using the hot-water process, only problem is that they require a lot of sugar. However, it’s better to make them yourself, because they store-bought preserves will be full of dyes and preservatives. Wild rose seedpods can be eaten, but they have “hairs” that need to be strained out, or they irritate the digestive system.

This book is full of excellent photos for identifying edible mushrooms and herbs, and has great recipes. Unfortunately, most of the plants identified in this book grow in the Pacific Northwest, not on the East Coast, but it’s still a great asset for anyone interested in forest foraging. I would definitely buy it if I were going to live in Washington State.

Origins of the National Security State and the Legacy of Harry S. Truman

This book is a collection of essays on the origins of the US concept of national security, particularly in terms of Truman’s presidency. Beginning with the first chapter, by Douglas Stewart, we see how WWII brought about the need for a government agency devoted to being the “eyes and ears” for what was going on overseas. We had the FBI for internal security, and J. Edgar Hoover concentrated on rooting out subversives, but until WWII, there was no overseas branch of US intelligence. It wasn’t until after Pearl Harbor that Congress saw the need for this, and what we started with was the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) which would eventually become the CIA.

One of the problems that Stewart points out is that the military has always had the upper hand when it comes to foreign intelligence. This is a problem, as a lot of the threats today, from terrorism to drug cartels, require closer surveillance than the military is ready for. The US military can guard the borders, but how are they at spying? What about phone tapping, close observation, and undercover work? As far back as the 1980’s, Columbia’s drug cartels were experts at evading armies, navies, and coast guards, so how effective would the military be at fighting them? In the post 9/11 world, the threat isn’t from national armies like the Soviet Union, but fighters who answer to no government. What this country developed under Truman’s Cold War policy doesn’t work well now.

A later chapter by Benjamin O. Fordham tackles the changes in military spending. He notes that Woodrow Wilson wanted to increase the role of the USA in foreign affairs, but it didn’t happen. You can’t really blame the president for it; Congress had always been in favor of neutrality, and the wealthiest men in the country wanted it too. They didn’t want the USA to have a bigger military budget because then the government would have to raise taxes, which no American wants. He writes that the huge military expenditures began in the Truman administration and continues to this day. In some ways I wonder if maybe it began because he could get away with it? While the USA had huge war debts to pay, we also had a monopoly on shipping, air travel, manufacturing, and agriculture, with low gas prices and a much smaller prison system budget. Workers were paid less, insurance was low, and we weren’t paranoid about drug dealing and terrorism. Perhaps we spent more on the military because there was less debate on how to pay for it?

These scholars all give good insights on the involvement of the USA in foreign affairs after WWII ended. Compared to the War on Terror of today, it makes me wonder how much of this fear is based on paranoia.