Do you really believe the racist effect of colonialism would cause this academic to not realize that his own father was producing Arabic script, which he himsel

Do you really believe the racist effect of colonialism would cause this academic to not realize that his own father was producing Arabic script, which he himself is fluent in, on a regular basis? I don't doubt that a bunch of people may have been incorrectly classified as illiterate, but the personal narrative of this story makes no sense.