A Moroccan At Berkeley

One of my former students is a university history professor. In a few weeks, he will be giving a talk at the University of Berkeley regarding Muslim-Jewish relations in the 20th century. So he contacted me to help him translate his talk to English. Last night we met after work to go over it.

The talk itself wasn't much longer than 15 minutes, but it took us over four hours to polish off the translation from French to English. Of course, that time included a meal prepared by his wife and plenty of side conversations as we worked our way through the text.

He spent 11 years in France as a student and teacher, and it shows. Besides speaking exceptional French, his family eats plain yogurt for dessert.

Now, this may not seem like a big deal to my American readers, but it's a telltale sign of French influence. The French love their yogurt, but only the unsweetened stuff. This is only one of the many cultural conflicts inherent in the French colonizing of Morocco. Moroccans love everything sweet. Moroccan tea puts American Southerners to shame with its excessive sugar content. The realm of yogurt, of course, is no different. Sweetened, flavored yogurt is one of the most popular foodstuffs available in every hanoot....much to the chagrin of the French.

Yes, my former student eats plain, unsweetened yogurt. He also had some strong words to say about his fellow classmates. One, a government official who used to constantly harp on the centrality of Islam to any correctly ordered society, he decried as a hypocrite: "I know that he takes bribes."

At one point I asked him a question that I had been harboring for quite some time about history and Islam. I told him that recently I had been reading about the development of Christian theology. Many Muslims have told me that that Christianity was good at first but eventually became corrupted, and yet when I press them on historical details, they cannot provide me with a satisfactory explanation for the when and where and how of Christianity's corruption. They don't understand how manuscripts were copied and passed down. They don't understand Christianity's relation to Judaism. And they often are unclear about central Christian doctrines. And yet, they still state with absolute certainty that it has become corrupted. They know because the Koran says it happened.

Now, I want to be open to the possibility of criticism. There are certainly things I find troubling about the development of Christian theology (the Roman emperor Constantine's role in the theological deliberations of the Council of Nicea has always rubbed me the wrong way, for instance). Since he is a Muslim and a historian, I figured he could provide me with the answer to my question. I told him that no one had been able to provide me with a satisfactory explanation of this supposed deviation of Christian theology.

He smiled, shook his head and said, "There is no answer."

We resumed our translation work. It was an exhilarating experience. He would elaborate on each sentence in French and I would craft a new sentence in English. It was slow-going but extremely rewarding. Sometimes the idea would just come to me, but other times I tossed around a few possibilities before settling for the least bad. I still find it amazing just how many subtle nuances I recognize in my native tongue. I doubt I could ever satisfactorily translate anything into another language. Doing a good job requires such an intimate knowledge of the target language.

He thanked me and promised me that he would invite me over for another meal when he returned.