Muslim organizations are slowly and steadily stripping Arab Christians of their rights to speak on behalf of “Arab” issues. The conflicts are no longer secular. They are religious. Many Muslims, in fact, who are secular, are also being intimidated into obsequious silence by the religious extremists who dominate many of the discussions.
by Ray Hanania
Excerpted from Arabisto.com
American Arabs are consumed with the Middle East's many conflicts, especially the conflict between Israel the brutal occupier and the occupied Palestinians. It's an important issue. But the Middle East conflict often attracts more attention than others that are just as important, including issues that are even more threatening to American Arabs. Here is a little harsh reality that we need to address if we ever intend to move beyond the purgatory we now live.
We have the usual problems of divisions between Muslims and Christians that are taboo and we are forbidden to discuss. Verboten. Haram. Whatever you want to call it but Arab Muslims and Arab Christians really don’t get along. But thankfully, I guess, the conflict is the Middle East is so bad that we often feel embarrassed to speak about those challenges that separate us. We come together to hate or cry or oppose, but not to improve ourselves.
As a consequence, Muslim organizations are slowly and steadily stripping Arab Christians of their rights to speak on behalf of “Arab” issues. The conflicts are no longer secular. They are religious. Many Muslims, in fact, who are secular, are also being intimidated into obsequious silence by the religious extremists who dominate many of the discussions.
All you have to do is look at any of the vast array of conferences and events held at any given time in the American Arab community. If it isn’t about bashing Israel or raising money (guilty American Arab gilt) for the Palestinians, the talk focuses on “Christian Zionism,” or the headlock that AIPAC – the Israeli organization that many Arabs envy for its power – has on almost all of our Congressmen and women. One Congresswoman, Jane Hartmann, doesn’t even pretend. She’s just a “political pimp” for a foreign country.
The conferences focus on the past, rarely on the future. They complain and object but rarely offer solutions. They bemoan the situation but rarely suggest how the situation can be changed. Changed realistically. Most want the American Arab community to return back to 1920 when Palestine, for example, had hope of becoming an independent Arab country where Jews, Christians and Muslims could live together in piece. Well, not really together. Christians lived among Christians. Jews lived among Jews. And Muslims lived among Muslims. But it is nice to pretend we all got along, I guess.
Pretending in the American Arab community is so much easier that addressing the reality.
And the reality of the American Arab community is horrible.
Our community is oftentimes among the largest segment of crime. In areas of the United States where American Arabs are congregated, we make up a large share of those who are arrested.
Every week, the newspapers in Chicago are filled with police reports, and almost always, as many as 20 percent involve American Arabs. Adults. Citizens. Immigrants. And even our children who have found it convenient to live in-between the two worlds of their distant parents (who live in America physically but are mentally still living in a tent back home) and in the harsh reality of an hateful, anti-Arab American where they are singled out, picked on and harassed in school classrooms, in the school yard and even at their parttime jobs. ... Read the full article here.