Job Discussion Forums

[redeyes]

I posted the same topic on the General ME Board, but since they are many knowledgable posters on the Saudi board, I thought I'd post the same here.

Ostensibly, it seems like a ludicrous question -- but it's one I'd like to ask people about.

So -- When is an Arab an Arab? And when is someone who has lived in the Middle East for thousands of years -- not an Arab and why not? Is "Arab" then, synonymous with "Muslim" in the ME?

The questions arises in my mind, because in my 20 years in EFL, I have taught many people from the Middle East of all three Abrahamic faiths and sometimes been surprised at who doesn't like the tag, "Arab" :

Now, let's start off from the premise that 3,000 years ago, the vast majority of people in those areas now called the Middle East, Levant or Gulf would have been either Jewish,heathen or pagans -- after the arrival of Christ's doctrine, then many of those same pagans and Jews in those same areas would have become Christian over the centuries, due to either social or economic or political pressures.

After that as we know after the time of Mohamed, there was a mass swelling of the numbers of Muslims who were excellent proselytisers and powerful conquerors. So, huge numbers of those who had been Jews, Pagans or Christians in those very same areas -- would have converted willingly as an economic, social move, or been compelled to convert by force.

However --- all the Middle Eastern Jews I have met from Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, without exception-- would never dream of calling themselves Arabs -- even though their ancestors too , feasibly may have been Muslims or Christians at some time in their history,and they are certainly from the same gene pool as their Muslim and Christian brethren ,having lived in the same areas for thousands of years.

Many of the Christians I know from the Middle East seem very uncomfortable indeed being called Arabs -- and many clearly see themselves and their history as something very distinct from the term "Arab." I know Lebanese Christians who take real offence at being called Arabs, even though they too are certainly from the same gene pool as their Muslim and Jewish brethren in the very same areas.

But of course, ALL the Muslims I have met from the Middle East, without fail, are happy to call themselves Arabs -- of course they are. Why would they want to deny such an obvious , self evident thing?

But -- between a hundred and five hundred years ago or more -- those very same Arab Muslims -- are highly likely to have been Jews, pagans or Christians who had been forced to convert.

You see my point? Why are Middle Eastern Jews and Christians so rejecting of the tag "Arab" -- whilst Muslims immediately accept it -- even if those very same Muslims who accept it as self evident had surely been from Jewish or Christian themselves a few hundred years ago?

So -- When is an Arab an Arab? And when,and why, is someone who has lived in the Middle East for thousands of years -- not an Arab? Is it a shifting defintion, depending on political flux and affiliation?

[trapezius]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab

[007]

[Cleopatra]

For all practical purposes, an "Arab" is someone who speaks Arabic as his or her first language. That's about all Arabs have in common, and given the huge differences between the various 'dialects' of Arabic, that really isn't saying much. Even a casual observer can see that an 'average' Saudi looks very different from, say, an 'average' Palestinian, and their lifestyles and general outlook are also very different.

[johnslat]

Well, here's what Wiki says:

"Arab" is defined independently of religious identity, and pre-dates the rise of Islam, with historically attested Arab Christian kingdoms and Arab Jews. The earliest documented use of the word "Arab" as defining a group of people dates from the 9th century BCE.[14] Islamized but non-Arabized peoples, and therefore the majority of the world's Muslims, do not form part of the Arab World but comprise what is the geographically larger and diverse Muslim World.
In the modern era, defining who is an Arab is done on the grounds of one or more of the following three criteria:
Genealogical: someone who can trace his or her ancestry to the tribes of Arabia - the original inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula - and the Syrian Desert. This definition covers fewer self-identified Arabs than not, and was the definition used in medieval times, for example by Ibn Khaldun.
Linguistic: someone whose first language, and by extension cultural expression, is Arabic, including any of its varieties. This definition covers more than 250 million people. Certain groups that fulfill this criterion reject this definition on the basis of genealogy, such an example may be seen in the identity of many Egyptians.[15][16]
Political: in the modern nationalist era, any person who is a citizen of a country where Arabic is either the national language or one of the official languages, and/or a citizen of a country which may simply be a member of the Arab League (thereby having Arabic as an official government language, even if not used by the majority of the population). This definition would cover over 300 million people. It may be the most contested definition as it is the most simplistic one. It would exclude the entire Arab diaspora, but include not only those genealogically Arabs (Gulf Arabs and others, such as Bedouins, where they may exist) and those Arabized-Arab-identified, but would also include Arabized non-Arab-identified groups (including many Lebanese and many Egyptians, both Christians and Muslims) and even non-Arabized ethnic minorities which have remained non-Arabic-speaking (such as the Berbers in Morocco, Kurds in Iraq, or the Somali majority of Arab League member Somalia).
The relative importance of these three factors is estimated differently by different groups and frequently disputed. Some combine aspects of each definition, as done by Habib Hassan Touma,[17] who defines an Arab "in the modern sense of the word", as "one who is a national of an Arab state, has command of the Arabic language, and possesses a fundamental knowledge of Arab tradition, that is, of the manners, customs, and political and social systems of the culture." Most people who consider themselves Arab do so based on the overlap of the political and linguistic definitions. Few people consider themselves Arab based on the political definition without the linguistic one; thus few Kurds and Berbers identify as Arab. But some do, for instance some Berbers also consider themselves Arab (v. e.g. Gellner, Ernest and Micaud, Charles, Eds. Arabs and Berbers: from tribe to nation in North Africa. Lexington: Lexington Books, 1972). Some religious minorities within the Middle East and North Africa who have Arabic or any of its varieties as their primary community language, such as Egyptian Copts, may not identify as Arabs.
The Arab League at its formation in 1946 defined Arab as "a person whose language is Arabic, who lives in an Arabic speaking country, who is in sympathy with the aspirations of the Arabic speaking peoples".
The relation of ʿarab and ʾaʿrāb is complicated further by the notion of "lost Arabs" al-ʿArab al-ba'ida mentioned in the Qur'an as punished for their disbelief. All contemporary Arabs were considered as descended from two ancestors, Qahtan and Adnan.
Versteegh (1997) is uncertain whether to ascribe this distinction to the memory of a real difference of origin of the two groups, but it is certain that the difference was strongly felt in early Islamic times. Even in Islamic Spain there was enmity between the Qays of the northern and the Kalb of the southern group. The so-called Himyarite language described by Al-Hamdani (died 946) appears to be a special case of language contact between the two groups, an originally north Arabic dialect spoken in the south, and influenced by Old South Arabian.
During the Muslim conquests of the seventh and eighth centuries, the Arabs forged an Arab Empire (under the Rashidun and Umayyads, and later the Abbasids) whose borders touched southern France in the west, China in the east, Asia Minor in the north, and the Sudan in the south. This was one of the largest land empires in history. In much of this area, the Arabs spread Islam and the Arabic language (the language of the Qur'an) through conversion and cultural assimilation. Many groups became known as "Arabs" through this process of Arabization rather than through descent. Thus, over time, the term Arab came to carry a broader meaning than the original ethnic term: cultural Arab vs. ethnic Arab. Arab nationalism declares that Arabs are united in a shared history, culture and language. A related ideology, Pan-Arabism, calls for all Arab lands to be united as one state. Arab nationalism has often competed for existence with regional nationalism in the Middle East, such as Lebanese and Egyptian."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab

And here's one gentleman's opinion:

"Khaled Bahaaeldin, 37, surgeon - Egyptian
�I believe that Arab identity is the product of a historical interaction among people sharing a geographically unpartitioned area.
This interaction comprises theological, cultural, linguistic and political components, each of which takes precedence in a particular historical era. But I have to stress that the �intra-actions� between Arabs have never been due to a singular component.
Indeed, the Arab inhabitants of the Middle East, despite the obvious chauvinisms, could claim communality with each other.�
I believe that the root of this identity lies also in values, religion, habits, attitudes etc. Also a certain unconditional love for a place that seems a little crazy at the best of times."

http://thearabexpats.com/2008/03/07/what-makes-an-arab-an-arab/

It would seem that this is one of those questions that can almost as many answers as the number of people whom you ask.

Regards,
John

[Gulezar]

"However --- all the Middle Eastern Jews I have met from Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, without exception-- would never dream of calling themselves Arabs"

and I have met Arab Jews from Yemen and Iraq who are quite proud of their "Arab" roots. Once they get in the melting pot of Israel, they tend to appreciate their own cultural background more.

[sheikh radlinrol]

I was in the Magic Kingdom during the 2002 World Cup. KSA were demolished 8-0 by Germany in their opening match. Our students told us that there were too many black men in the Saudi team. These men ''not Arabs'' we were assured. So, you might be eligible for the national soccer team but....

[Never Ceased To Be Amazed]

What? Saudis engaging in double standards???

Ironically enuf, I just mentioned this to my class with glee and was accused of not liking Saudi (which I don't!). I was in Japan when it happened and walked around with a smile glued on my face for at least a month. I remember, in Saudi, when, to get these "black men" to play for their team, Saudi offered them citizenship...what goes around comes around.

NCTBA

[Stephen Jones]

Ask the moderator to delete one of the threads, and pass the comments on t another forum. Double posting should be banned.

[redeyes]

cleo, just PM'd you.