Why I Hate Being an Arab

The self-hating Arab, it’s both a real thing for a lot of angry frustrated people and an overused cliché. First, let me dispel any myths surrounding the origin of this condition. Some suggest that our negative perception of ourselves and our Arab identity and culture is informed by Western propaganda pumped into our developing brains at a very young age through the all-powerful Hollywood entertainment machine and through slanted news media rapportage. This couldn’t be further from the truth. The well informed and aware Arab, the well-educated bi-or-tri-lingual Arab is not that gullible, at least our electorates never elected an Arab version of Donald Trump! We are far from easy to fool or trick into believing bad things about our culture and national identity. We are the experts on that subject and our hatred and derision for all things Arab are based on observable facts over a long period of time.

Let us begin by exploring the roots of the Arab identity: the Arabic language is a language spread far and wide by warriors of Islam, a new religion that emerged around the seventh century anno-domini. The firmly held beliefs of this new faith’s adherents and fighters made them extremely effective at sweeping away old worn out empires in the region and expanding their own proto-empire until the Arabic language became both widely spoken and a firmly entrenched scholarly language from Iberia to the Hindu Kush. Outside of the Arabian Peninsula, however, there are few people whose antecedents were formerly part of a Muslim Empire that can claim to belong to this singular, well defined Arab identity. In fact, recent conflicts in the Levant have shown how rich and diverse our region really is, with obscure ancient languages still spoken in certain pockets and communities still practicing religions considered blasphemous by the mainstream.

For many in our region, Arabic is the language of State, before that it was the language of empire, but above all it remains the language of Muslims, the language in which ‘their’ Holy book is written and the language of their conquering armies. As a Christian who converted to atheism, this blanket singular image of the Arab as just one thing is both offensive to me but also, if we were to be honest about it, true to some extent. The nationalist movements of the early twentieth century in the Arabic speaking provinces of the defunct Ottoman Empire tried to weave together a single national identity and create a single political structure, an Arabic speaking regional power if you will. They failed at that over ambitious plan, in fact, building a two-lane road bridge made of tooth picks over the Grand Canyon would have been a less ambitious undertaking!

There are of course well-defined similarities between the micro cultures of Levantine communities, from Palestine to Lebanon, Jordan to Syria and Iraq, but even among this smaller grouping of Arabic speakers there are significant differences that make any form of political union sheer folly. And yet the dream of union and great military success continues to infect our thinking and we continue to carry with us the heavy burden of the unfulfilled, the unhappy and frustrated, unable as we are to achieve the unrealistic expectations established by the Arab nationalist narrative, to become real Arab supermen! All we are left with is a sense of shame of being yet another generation that has failed to achieve our full potential.

In the 70s political play ‘Kassak ya Watan’, the dialogue between Duraid Laham’s character and his dead father’s spirit speaking from the beyond, is exactly how many middle age Arabs feel today about themselves: “My son, after all this time I feel embarrassed to ask about the Palestinian issue, I assume that you returned the land to its people,” the father’s dead spirit booms out from on high, to which Laham’s character replies: “You’re right father… is this a question to ask after 25 years of struggle!” The audience erupts in applause.

I’m sorry, but this is an awful burden to carry with us and pass on to the next generation, it’s a terrible feeling to want to and feel ready to achieve the ambitions outlined by the great, now long dead, Arab nationalist dreamers, to liberate Historic Palestine, create a perfect Arab union, reestablish an Arab renaissance, but also to know deep down how impossible this mission really is! Failure, repeated and persistent failure over decades, begins to define a nation before long and we are not even that, not a nation, but pseudo independent States held together by authoritarian regimes. We are a lost people; our only real connections are geographic and linguistic in addition to a lot of made up stuff and inflated tales of past glories. So, for what it’s worth, I hate being an Arab and I want out.