My American Neighbor? Bayan M. AL Momani
"My Arab neighbor," to go back in history to talk about how Americans observed Arabs, as being a collective term to refer Arabs coming from any Arab country. Usually Muslims are also considered Arabs as one American, visiting Jordan, once told me. The country is "Iran" which has its own ethnic and religious identity that is not related to Arab-Islamic world. The relationship between the two parts of the world, "East" and "West", goes way back in time. Each one of them observed and judged each other differently. Immigrants from the Middle East began arriving to America in the late 19 th century. Some came to escape religious persecution in the Ottoman Empire, but some came for economic opportunity to build a better life. But at that time, the typical Arab immigrant was young, male, single, and Christian. Over time, Arab immigrants saved money and invested it in small businesses. Arab Americans settled in cities and established communities, which included churches, clubs societies and publications. While they spoke Arabic, these early immigrants did not identify as Arabs. All the immigrants from the Middle East came with passports and identification papers issued by the Ottoman Empire. The terms "Turk" and "Syrian" were used interchangeably. 1 When someone reads about the history of Arab immigrants, or any reference, Arabs at that time were referred to as Syrians or Lebanese mostly after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire but not Arabs. The story goes on, in the history of Arab stories, during the First World War immigration from the Middle East dropped, but a second wave of migration began in the 1920s. The second wave of immigrants was different than the first in that it contained a significant number of Muslims. Immigrants in the 1950s and 1960s were about 70 percent Muslim and came from across the Middle East. 2 Greater ethnic and political consciousness of the late 1960s and early 1970s became institutionalized in the 1970s and 1980s and created several Arab American organization. These organizations would promote an accurate and positive image of Arab Americans and protect the rights of Arab Americans. These functions became increasingly necessary mostly as there are well organized media campaigns to link Arab Americans with terrorism which made them stereotyped and suspect to many Americans. 3 Arabs are also prejudiced in their own countries by the "other". If one keeps on reading history, he will find facts that exemplify this idea. William L. Cleveland's A History of the Modern East is an interesting book that gives a thorough and detailed history of the region in a very appealing and smooth way. Information can be easily found because of the organization of the book where each era is in a separate chapter. While reading one senses the effort made by the writer to stay unbiased, but in some places one finds him lenient in giving the whole picture. 1
Arab America Stories, History. W.K.Kellogg foundation, major funding for Arab stories. 2 same source. 3 same source.
In part two- The Beginnings of the Era of Transportation, Cleveland talks about Britain's occupation of Egypt, Britain occupied Egypt for the first half of the twentieth century in order to safeguard the Suez Canal, to restore Egypt's political and financial stability. It was an imperial competition Britain prevented France from occupying it first. Cromer presided over the occupation and had absolute authority; Cromer's attitude toward non-western, non-Christian peoples was typical of many British officials in the Victorian era. Convinced of the innate superiority of western civilization, Cromer believed that "Orientals" could never improve their lot until they had mastered the ways of the west, and for this they required a long apprenticeship under the enlightened tutelage of "advanced" countries like Great Britain.4 Because Cromer was opposed to the development of any local industrial base that might offer competition to the British textile industry, he sought to increase Egypt's revenue by expanding its agricultural production. Cromer authorized certain improvements that brought about a substantial rise in Egypt's agricultural output, especially cotton which remained the main source of revenue. In terms of Egypt's international financial standing, Cromer's policies must be considered a success. In many areas of social development his policies were regressive, which was mostly true in the field of education. 5 The book, to any reader, is based on citing historical events rather than events associated with attitudes. The British side of the story of its occupation of Egypt is clear by Arthur James Belfour lecturing the House of Commons on "the problems with which we have to deal in Egypt." Balfour put the question "what rights have you to take up these airs of superiority with regard to people whom you choose to call Orientals?" "I take up no attitude of superiority. But I ask who has even the most superficial knowledge of history, if they will look in the face the facts with which a British statesman has to deal when he is put in a position of supremacy over great races like the inhabitants of Egypt and countries in the East. You may look through the whole history of the Orientals in what is called broadly, speaking, the East, and you never find traces of self-government. All their great centuries have been passed under despotisms, under absolute government. Conqueror has succeeded conqueror; one domination has followed another; but never in all the revolutions of fate and fortune have you seen one of those nations of its motion establish what we, from a western point of view, call self-government. We are in Egypt not merely for the sake of the Egyptians, though we are there for their sake, we are also there for the sake of Europe."6 This kind of attitude can be a key to apprehend past, present, future, Western actions or policies when it comes to Orientals. Edward Said says that it is quite common to hear high officials in Washington and elsewhere speak of changing the map of the Middle East, as if ancient societies and myriad peoples can be shaken up like so many peanuts in a jar. He continues that his argument in his book Orientalism is that history is made by men and women, just as it can also be unmade and rewritten, always with various silences and elisions, always with shapes imposed and disfigurements tolerated, so that "our" East, "our" Orient becomes "ours" to possess and direct. There has been so massive and calculatedly aggressive an attack on the contemporary societies of the Arab and Muslims for their backwardness, lack of democracy, and abrogation of women's rights that we
4 William L. Cleveland. A History of the Modern Middle East, Third edition. P. 104. 5 A History of the Modern Middle East. P. 104-5. 6 Edward Said. Orientalism. 25th anniversary edition. P. 31-2-3.
simply forget that such notions as modernity, enlightenment, and democracy are simple and agreed upon concepts that either one does or does not find. 7 Said comes to a conclusion that there is a profound difference between the will to understand for purposes of coexistence and humanistic enlargement of horizons, and the will to dominate for the purposes of control and external enlargement of horizons, and the will to dominate for the purposes of control and external dominion.
Orientalism offers a rich profound material that analyses the Western or American view of the "other" the Islamic world, in order to present examples of such case like those experts on Arab and Islamic world" who helped the American hawks think about such preposterous phenomena as the Arab mind and centuries-old Islamic decline that only American power could reverse." So to learn about if nowadays such prejudiced attitude is still practiced, one finds that things are getting worse when it comes to Muslims or Arabs. HUFFPOST RELIGION showed that Americans believe law enforcement is justified in using profiling tactics against Muslim-Americans and Arab-Americans. This was shown in a survey conducted by Zogby analytics, Arab American institute. Attitudes turned for the worse since 2010, this is due to recent news headlines associated with Muslims, ongoing civil war in Syria, the rise of ISIS, the abduction of Nigerian schoolgirls by the Islamists group Boko Haram, and the 2012 terrorist attack on a U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya. The poll found a growing number of Americans doubt that Muslim-Americans or ArabAmericans would be able to perform in a government post without their ethnicity or religion affecting their work. The results differed by political party. Still there are several Muslim-American groups dedicated to changing the negative perception of Islam, and have encouraged Muslims to pursue more public engagement, both within the federal government and individual communities. 8 Sometimes when anyone watches the news would say "who can blame them for having such attitude against Muslims?", but it is never the case when non-Muslim perform any act of violence or terror. Things are "getting worse" means they were not good in the first place. Today, bookstores in the United States are filled with shabby screeds bearing screaming headlines about Islam and terror, Islam exposed, the Arab threat, and the Muslim menace, all of them written by political polemicist pretending to knowledge imparted to them and others by experts who have supposedly penetrated to the heart of these strange Oriental peoples over there who have been such a terrible thorn in "our" flesh. 9 Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Door, this is what the people of the united Methodist church call for, which simply shows that there are American who oppose demagoguery, manipulation, and image making to label Arabs and Muslims in a negative way.10 Labelling is the main issue in the case of Arabs and Muslims. Any individual action by an American or a Westerner is individual, but it is different when he is an Arab or Muslim the labelling of "Islamic terrorists" become clear based on ethnicity and religion.
7 Orientalism. Preface. 8 Americans' Attitudes Toward Muslims And Arabs Are Getting Worse, HUFFPOST RELIGION. 9 Orientalism, preface. 10 Prejudice against Muslims and Arabs in the USA. The People of the United Methodist Church.
Today in the United States of America there are approximately 3 million persons who are adherents of Islam. Arab Americans, both Christian and Muslim, constitute a growing number of persons in the American population. These persons are suffering the effects of a particularly virulent prejudice too often aided by statements and images in the media and by rhetoric from some of the highest political leadership. Arab American organization offices, mosques, and Islamic centers have been bombed and torched. Leaders of these communities have been murdered and questionable uses of law have been utilized to stifle the rights of association and freedom of expression. 11 To have such strong words stated by the United Methodist Church shows unbiased attitude toward another religion and that United States is known for being a melting pot that can never acknowledge discrimination, isolation of any kind and accept it. But it seems in the Arab-Muslim case it is long way to go just to change this negative labelling. When an American thinks of visiting Jordan one advice is to check "My American Neighbor."12 This TV program helps American to understand "grumpy Jordanians" who are being labelled by almost everyone for being so; I guess this is better than being called terrorists. "My American Neighbor" reflects an open minded attitude though it is done individually by an American, Brett Weer. "I fill my days in Amman trying to make people laugh, break down stereotypes;" "every week I have Jordanians say, "why are you here?! There's nothing to do!" Well, I beg to differ." "Amman is an amazing city. I'm amazed that Jordanians manage to be so friendly despite how difficult life can be for many of them. Westerners say Arabs don't smile but I disagree- you just can't see it through the moustache."13 The program was about Weer's constant mistakes in the Arab context, and his aim is to try to get rid of some the insane pain and anger in this crazy world. The thoughts that come into the mind while watching this individual attempt "My American Neighbor" are open mind, open heart from both, Jordanians working on the show and Brett Weer.
11 The People of the United Methodist Church. 12" Ten things to expect in Jordan." By Charlotte Sheridan. AMIDEAST Education abroad Jordan correspondant. 13 BeAmman. Brett Weer: An American Comedian Living in Amman.