An American Airlines flight was recently delayed because of a passenger’s concern after overhearing a conversation in Arabic between other passengers. The Arabic speakers were returning home to Detroit from San Diego after training Marines headed for Iraq. Language Log has an analysis of this harshly ironic incident, noting that it “reveals a common confusion of language, ethnicity, and religion.”

This isn’t the first time that use of the Arabic language itself, in the absence of suspicious behavior, has been taken to indicate terrorist sympathies. There’s the case of Raed Jarrar, who was harrassed by JetBlue staff last year for the “crime” of wearing a t-shirt bearing Arabic writing. Jarrar reports that the ACLU recently filed a federal civil rights lawsuit based on this incident.

Then there’s the depressing case of the Khalil Gibran International Academy in New York, a school devoted to teaching Arabic that’s been attacked by various right-wing media organs. The focus of these attacks, as in the other cases, is the Arabic language itself, which Daniel Pipes believes carries “Islamist baggage” – although in another harsh irony, Khalil Gibran himself was a Christian. Anthony DiMaggio offers an analysis of the issues here that attempts to undo some of the confusion involved, and combat some of the hatred.

(Unfortunately, I can’t help noting that DiMaggio’s essay, while entirely admirable, contains a sentence confusing language and religion so badly that it’s almost impossible to understand: “Twenty-five percent of West Bank residents are Christian and Jewish speaking Arabs.” I think the editors at SleptOn were asleep on something.)

(cross-posted at Citizen Arnold)