In the ’60s, the U.S. Department of Defense grew increasingly worried about containing the USSR and funded departments of South Asian Studies at many American universities. Ironically, many of the beneficiaries of the grants were exactly the kind of free spirits that granite-cut DoD types abhorred. As time went on, this faculty started facing 2nd gen desis asking to learn about modern South Asia rather than psychosexual analyses of Radha-Krishna, and asking for native language instructors rather than those one step phonetically removed.
Today the Hindoo Peril arises anew, and this time around it’s that the Axis of Non-English has imbibed capitalism too deeply (thanks, Joby):
President Bush is asking for Congress for $114 million in next years budget to push Americans into uncharted linguistic territory under what is being called National Security Language Initiative… Hindi has been identified as one of the critical foreign languages that Americans need to learn… Americans are also being urged to study Farsi, Arabic, Chinese and other languages… [Link]
Note the clumping of the language of potential military enemies with economic competitors. OTOH, since oil supply is an economic chokepoint, maybe it’s all about dem billz over at Larnin’ ‘bout Furriners, Part Deux.
Hey, you might even get a Tamil, Gujarati or Telugu class resurrected out of this. All in the name of knowing the ‘enemy,’ of course ;)
