Charles A. Kennedy: An Unparalleled Opportunity

As a teacher of undergraduates in the area of Middle Eastern religions, I found my experiences as a Malone Fellow (Tunisia, 1990) and an alumnus on the Syria-Kuwait program (1992) invaluable in the classroom.  No amount of library reading can replace the person-to-person contacts with key statesmen, educators, and civic leaders in the Arab states made possible by your tireless networking on behalf of the Council.  Whether it was a meeting with the speaker of the Syrian parliament or a dean of Kuwait University, we were always accorded a warm welcome and an unparalleled opportunity to talk openly and freely about subjects of mutual concern.

Of all the interviews and meetings arranged for us by the Council – and let no one think these study trips were junkets, far from it – the most memorable was a sequence of meetings one afternoon in Tunis.  I was leading a group of high school students on a National Council study abroad program.  First, we met with Ambassador Robert Pelletreau in the new USIS library.  He briefed us on the status of negotiations with Yasir Arafat, then headquartered in Tunis.  The State Department had prepared a position paper to govern the course of discussions with the PLO.  The ambassador, who is fluent in Arabic, said that his first order of business was to translate the document into Arabic in order to understand what Arafat would hear.  Then he requested clarification from the State Department about the American position as it would perceive as it would percieved in the Arabic version.  The members of our group, all of whom had been struggling with an intensive course in spoken Arabic, could immediately appreciate the ambassadors sensitivity to the nuances of translation.  Unfortunately, the talks had been suspended because of recent events in Israel.  We left the meeting with a new appreciation of the work of the men and women of our Foreign Service in serving American interests around the world.

The second meeting of the afternoon was a taxi-ride and a world away.  We went to the PLO headquarters, ostensibly to see an exhibit of poster art and a video on the status of the Palestinians in the aftermath of the Lebanese war.  After the viewing we were informed that the chairman would meet us, and with no further ado we were seated in a conference room.  Arafat entered, and for the next two hours he spoke and answered questions, then posed for pictures and signed autographs.

That evening, back in our hotel for dinner, I asked some of the high school students about their reactions to the afternoon’s events.  I shall never forget the question posed by one of them: “How is it that we high school students can get in a taxi, go to PLO headquarters and talk with Arafat when our ambassador, the representative of the world’s super-power, can’t?”

This is the kind of empowerment that the Council’s programs have provided to students and faculty over the years.  Several of our students said they would not attend a college or university unless it offered Arabic language instruction.  A new world had been opened up to them through the Council’s program and they were anxious to quest for a deeper understanding of the Arab world.  As a teacher, I could not ask for more motivated students!

In my own teaching and lecturing the greatest contributions of the Council’s programs have been to transport me to the historical sites I have studied and, more importantly, to put a face on the Arab world.  Now, when I read about the events in the countries I have visited, I am reminded of specific individuals I have met and the friendships that have ensued.  The trips to different countries vividly demonstrated the complexity of the Arab world.  Tunisia is not Kuwait; Syria is not Egypt.  Each of the Arab states has its own personality and the diversity among them is comparable to that found in the English-speaking countries of the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.

Above all, the greatest impression from my travels with the Council is the amount of good-will towards the American people (if not always our government) and the hospitality shown to us as Americans.  The legendary Middle Eastern hospitality was evident at every turn, from refreshments at meetings to homes opened to us for family celebrations during Eid.  I can only wish that teachers and civic leaders from the United States will be enabled to benefit from the work of the Council in forging better relations between our country and the Middle East.   

Charles A. Kennedy is Professor Emeritus of Religion at Virginia Polytechnic Institute.  To learn more about the Malone Fellows program, click here.

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