EDITOR'S COMMENT/ELIE CHALALA

Arab Americans After September 11th:
Rethinking Ideas Not Carved in Stone

by Elie Chalala

Words like shock, sadness, even depression cannot describe how I, and all of us at Al Jadid, felt on September 11th and during the ensuing weeks. It is useless to search for the right words to express the inexpressible pain that has followed the horrible deaths of thousands in New York, Washington, DC, and Pennsylvania.

But there is another source of this pain: the severe blow that has been struck against the accomplishments made in recent years by Arab Americans toward correcting centuries-old stereotypes of both themselves and Arabs in the Middle East. We feel this blow acutely, for Al Jadid's whole concept is to share with English-language readers the wealth of Arab culture and arts, contributing to the goal of correcting common misunderstandings about the region and its people. We have approached this difficult task through book, film, music, and art reviews, intellectual debate, poetry, and other short works of literature, offering an all too, rare view through the eyes of our best writers of this besieged part of the world.

Unquestionably, this task has become more difficult. Non-Arabs will ask more questions and demand more convincing answers from us and the many other individuals and organizations who have devoted years of their professional lives to advancing an alternative to the orientalist stereotype of the Arab.

This may be questioned by the Arab American academic who argued, in a document widely circulated on the Internet, that Arab Americans cannot be held accountable for any act by other Arabs and thus they - or their major organizations - need not issue statements of condemnation. This opinion captured my sympathetic attention on first reading, but this feeling lasted only a day or two until I shared it with a colleague. If the real world reflected life in the academy, a non-condemnatory approach would make sense, for professional people -we hope - would not hold Arab Americans and Muslims responsible for Osama bin Laden's crimes simply because they happen to be Arabs or Muslims.

However, bigots are not necessarily academics trained in Middle East studies, and thus the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) and other Arab American and Muslim organizations must issue statements seeking to alleviate any racist reactions. They must do what they can to avoid brutish acts such as those in Arizona and other parts of the country where perpetrators failed to distinguish between a Sikh, a Pakistani, and an Arab. (The ultimate expression of their ignorance was not their ethnic confusion, but their underlying racism.) Until racism disappears fully in this society, we commend and encourage mainstream Arab and Muslim organizations to keep speaking and, yes, condemning the crimes of September 11.

Another opinion about the role of Arab Americans, what they should and should not do, what they are or are not responsible for, came from New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. "side from the somewhat condescending tone of his articles (he appears to have appointed himself speech writer for all Middle Eastern leaders), some of what he wrote after the events made sense. Following comments from President Bush and New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, he reiterated that Arab Americans are not part of the problem of terrorism. A long list of leaders, journalists, intellectuals, and civil rights organizations have agreed and warned against taking revenge on Arabs and Muslims. Friedman went beyond this, however, adding that Arab Americans could be part of the healing process and perhaps even a solution to the underlying problem by telling the Arab world that America is not what bin Laden and his ilk present it to be. Friedman implied that these Arab American envoys should present a good snapshot of the country in which they have made a home.

Of course, I cannot argue when Friedman says that Arab Americans are not part of the problem of terrorism, but he stands on shaky ground when he suggests that a new Arab American discourse would have influenced the deadly course taken by radical Islamist groups - though, admittedly, one cannot be sure about the importance Arabs abroad attribute to what Arab Americans say and write. Whether or not Arab Americans are able to influence events abroad, a new discourse - or rather a rethinking of our ideas, tactics, and strategies - is in order for the good of the country and future generations. Perhaps we would have found less need to condemn the attacks of September 11, less need to make our allegiances clear, had Arab Americans started this long overdue rethinking process earlier.

A discussion involving Arab American intellectuals, artists, and literary figures, as well as Arab American organizations, should explore the relationship we have developed over the years with both homes: the region from which we came and this country. Some of us have retained an allegiance not only to places we left behind, with their memories and relatives, but to a particular discourse consisting of theories, assumptions, and explanations.

One area that deserves attention is the personal relationship we have with the Arab world beyond a sentimental solidarity. It is to me that tribal and family ties strongly influence many Arab Americans, intellectuals and ordinary individuals alike, for they fear that if they expressed their dissent, parents and relatives in their countries of origin would be in danger. I recall these fears being expressed when I was a graduate student and afterwards, and frankly, as a student of Arab politics, I fully understand this concern and consider these Arab Americans to be additional victims of Arab regimes. We must face the question of cost, but how can we balance the legitimate fear of Arab dictatorships retaliating against an elderly father with telling the truth regarding what we feel about politics in our two homes? At least we can correct the fact that most Americans are not even aware that their fellow Americans of Arab descent ever face such a terrible dilemma.

Ideology is a second area of concern here. Many Arab American intellectuals and activists show blind solidarity with the discourse of the Arab world. I will not presume to identify a single cause for this trend other than suggesting a descriptive term: ideological blindness. This seems especially appropriate when many fail even to assess the damage some of these ideologies have brought to one Arab country after another. Some Arab Americans have used ideology as most authoritarian and totalitarian regimes do - to control and insure conformity.

The fact that the Arab American community lacks genuine political and ideological plurality is a result of the ideological dominance of countries from Iraq and Syria to Saudi Arabia, a dominance facilitated by some of these intellectuals, or rather by professional intellectuals who are ready to defend and justify any position taken by the Arab states. How many of these intellectuals came out denouncing Iraq's use of chemical weapons against the Kurds, or Saddam Hussein's role in maintaining the sanctions against the Iraqi people? Only a few, with the rest prevented, perhaps, by their Arab nationalist zeal, from denouncing Iraq as the supposed "champion" of Arab nationalism.

This issue is not as simple as either denouncing or not denouncing Saddam Hussein's criminal behavior; it is important rather in terms of communicating with the society in which we live and work as professionals. While the rest of the world condemned Iraq's use of biological weapons against the Kurds, many Arab Americans kept silent or diverted the discussion to the fact that Israel has nuclear weapons, as if implying that they would sleep peacefully when Saddam develops his own. What does this ideological blindness say to future generations of Arab Americans? How will they gain a critical understanding of the Arab world and a humanist approach to solving its problems?

Members of this group have even forgotten that they do live in a secular society and that presenting issues in religious terms is divisive because disagreements are presented in terms of "right" and "wrong," that is, in absolutes. While freedom of religion is guaranteed, this need not be a ticket to politicizing religion or to accusing those who profess differing views on Islam of apostasy or blasphemy. Characterizing others' views as anti-religious, and thus demonizing them, hardly encourages a society in which we want to live.

A third area is the strategy and tactics of Arab American organizations. Some of these organizations efforts are noteworthy, especially those of the ADC. However, the practice that some of these organizations have begun of lobbying for Arab governments as part of their functions, at the expense of their civil rights activities, is quite alarming. Given the public's distrust of the lobbies, it is not likely to forgive a civil-rights organization for becoming a lobbyist for foreign governments. Moreover, this increasingly "attractive" activity has precluded some of these organizations from establishing alliances with other civil-rights organizations genuinely interested in the civil liberties of all ethnic groups. Is it not ironic that some Arab Americans were more attracted to conservative and reactionary groups on the common ground of being anti-Israeli, and thus avoided cooperation with genuine organizations whose main focus is to combat the backlash we witnessed after the terrorist attacks. The defenders of these organizations would argue that financial crises, as well as declining membership lists, have made them receptive to contributions from Arab countries. Nonetheless, the leadership has failed to address the immediate needs of the community in order to protect it from stereotypes and outright racism.

Once again, I doubt that major improvements in the attitudes and policies of Arab Americans would have deterred the likes of bin Laden from resorting to terrorism. What I am sure of is that they would make for a better understanding of the Arab-American experience, as well as instilling a greater appreciation of our own diversity - a diversity which is healthy. Most importantly, these changes in perspective and practice would contribute toward a better socialization of future generations of Arab Americans, enabling them to think, speak and write openly, freeing them from the fetters of the past.

This article appeared in Vol. 7, no. 36 (Summer 2001).
Copyright © 2001 by Al Jadid