Posted on 07/29/2003 10:11:57 AM PDT by ellery
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Sitting at a rickety desk with only a ceiling fan to cool Baghdad's searing summer air, Sajida hopes learning English will help her talk to the U.S. soldiers she sees as saviors.
It could also save her life.
She and the four other students in her beginners' English conversation class at Baghdad's Mamoun language institute are trying to gain an upper hand in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq -- where the streets are largely ruled by U.S. soldiers.
Few soldiers have a command of Arabic and misunderstandings have been blamed for more than one fatal checkpoint shooting.
But Sajida has other aims in learning a language she feels will open up a world previously closed to her by Saddam.
"If I have any information about Fedayeen or Saddam's followers, I must tell them. We must make friends with the Americans. I see them as angels. I call them God's army," said Sajida, a Shi'ite Muslim who says her two brothers were killed by Saddam.
"Saddam destroyed all our lives. We just want a new start."
Language institutes in Baghdad shut their doors during the U.S.-led war that ousted Saddam in April. But students are trickling back, demanding to learn American English, and fast.
Iraqi English teacher Dhia' Saadallah prefers a British accent, but says that's not the popular choice. "I teach them American English. What can I do? They want it," he said.
At Mamoun, around three dozen students hope the barely audible decades-old language tapes they are using will help win them jobs at U.S. companies they expect to pour into Iraq.
"Saddam Hussein made us backward," one student said. "We didn't learn the computer. We didn't learn English language very good."
NOT ALL PEACHY
Asked if they feel anything other than gratitude toward U.S.-led troops who have occupied Iraq for more than three months, the students clam up and avert their eyes.
But when pressed, they say they are less than satisfied though keen to get along.
"The electricity is not very good. The water is not good," said Jaafar, a student trained as a maths teacher who said he was denied work under Saddam.
"We have not seen anything from the United States of what they promised," he said. "I want to help them help me."
U.S. troops have been battling to restore order to Iraq, where attacks have killed 50 soldiers since President Bush declared major combat operations over on May 1.
Iraqis complain the Americans have not done enough to restore basic services and security to the capital, where only half the phone lines work and power outages occur daily.
Teachers say privately that students complain about the Americans, and that lack of security was scaring away students.
"We want security to be restored so there is a better atmosphere for learning," said Muhammad Majed Abdel-Wahab, director of the rival Mansour language institute.
He said student numbers were still lower than before the war, but students were more "zealous" about learning English.
Teachers said they expected demand to surge in the next four to five months as ordinary Iraqis realized the Americans could be in Iraq for a long stay. They were also eyeing a new market.
"I think in the future, Americans may even ask for the Arabic language," Mamoun director Ali Sabour said.
LOL!
LOL! You too, eh?
Apparently, since Oxford publishes a dictionary of American English. I would be willing to bet, though, that more English folks than Americans acknowledge the difference .
Probably.... his thugs weren't trying to cut lines and blow up power stations then.
And from what I've heard, the power never failed during a torture session with a live wire or cattle prod.
Being a Reuters article, they had to include the gimme gimme stuff even if no one had voiced any such thing- just as they twisted that American correspondant's story on Jessica Lynch out of recognition by adding things to it she had never written, and deleting anything positive.
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