Who is a Real Arab!

”I don’t understand your Arab culture.” 

is the phrase I overheard at a cafe as two men wearing Western clothes were discussing very animatedly in good cheer and laughing together occasionally. Then, so typically among good friends, they had the traditional argument about ’Let me pay the bill, I insist’. This set me thinking – who is an Arab?

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The stereotypical perception of an Arab in many countries is that an Arab is a Muslim, lives in the Middle East and is probably loaded with oil money. Unfortunately, another totally mistaken stereotype has started to become prevalent – the Arab terrorist. All these stereotypes are totally wrong.

What is the Definition of an Arab?

In Arab schoolbooks, the Arab world ranges from the Persian Gulf to the Atlantic Ocean and from Syria to Sudan in Africa. 

• It was only in the 19th and 20th century that Arab nationalism created this concept of an Arab world. 

Before that, people usually identified themselves with tribes or with political structures like the Ottoman Empire. Pre-Islamic Arabic as a language dates back to the 4th century.

There are three methods of classifying as an Arab.

1. Linguistic – If your first language is Arabic as for about 200 million people.
2. Geneological – If you can trace your ancestry to the original inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula.
3. Political - The League of Arab States or Jāmiʻat ad-Duwal al-ʻArabiyya has 339 million people living in 22 states. They define an Arab as “A person whose language is Arabic, who lives in an Arabic speaking country, who is the citizen of an Arab country, whose father is an Arab, and who is in sympathy with the aspirations of the Arabic speaking peoples.”

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How the Arabs See Themselves

Only 32% of the 4100 people surveyed in six Arab countries by Professor Shibley Telhami’s group at the University of Maryland saw themselves as Muslims or Arabs. 35% considered themselves primarily as citizens of their own country. Only 1% had the idea of being a world citizen.

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Compare the situation to 2010.

Not all Muslims are Arabs. Arabs are only 24% of the 1,4 billion Muslims in the world. 85% of the population in Morocco and 55% in Algeria are Berbers (Famous Berbers: Zinedine Zidane, Saint Augustine, Emperor Septimius Severus) who are non-Arabs.

Most of the people living in Egypt do not consider themselves Arabs.

• In Sudan, there are more than fifty ethnic groups and only half the population can speak Arabic.

Is Arab 'Identity' a matter of Language, Religion or Ethnicity?

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This is a very complicated question and there are many opinions when one considers that there are so many different nation states, religious sub-divisions and ethnic variety among the 'Arabs'.

Does language and history define national identity for the Arabs more than religion?

• There are many serious scholars, like Abu Khaldun Sati al Husari (1881-1967) the Syrian/Ottoman theoretician of Arab nationalism and author of A Day in Maysalun, who believes that language and not religion, economy and geography are important for the formation of nationalism. Language is "the heart and spirit of the nation," and history is its "memory and feeling." 
• The British-Lebanese historian Albert Hourani in his book, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, agrees by claiming that Arabs are "more conscious of their language than any people in the world." 

The contrary view, that religion does play a major role, also has qualified support.

• Abd al-Aziz Duri, the eminent Iraqi social historian says "Islam unified Arabs and provided them with a message, an ideological framework, and a state." He goes on to clarify the link between Islam and Arabism as being "were closely linked at first, but subsequently followed separate courses."

Are Arabs Antagonistic to Western Civilization?

Many people assume that Arab civilisation is eternally antagonistic to Western civilisation. The ridiculous stereotype of the Arab terrorist in the West and the equally mistaken notion of America as the ‘Great Satan’ among the Arabs do betray a history of armed conflict. From the Battle of Tours in 732 CE through the Crusades onwards there has been no love lost between the civilisations. 

Ironically, Islam has very much in common with the Judaic and Christian traditions in the form of common religious figures, customs and traditions. They are all children of Adam, Moses and Abraham. 

• Arabs were very instrumental in transmitting scientific knowledge from the Orient to the Occident in centuries past.
• It was the Arabs who brought the numerals and the zero. 
• Many words in the English and Spanish languages are from the Arabic. Most people drinking alcohol wouldn’t care to know that it is an Arabic word. 

On the other hand, a significant portion of the educated people in the Arab world dress in Western costumes, are proud to speak fluent English and educate their children in Western universities.

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How People Living in Arab Countries Use the Internet

The use of the Internet has started changing Arab societies politically, socially and economically as it has done in many other countries. 

It is perhaps to hasty to draw conclusions if frequency of Internet use has any positive correlation to political freedom and dissent threshold in these countries. But frequency of Internet use most certainly has a large impact on all aspects of life for people living in these countries, unless they are immune to commercial and other forms of propaganda. 

Things have changed a lot in Arab countries. In the days of Saddam Hussein, people who could afford getting Internet connection (frightfully expensive in those days) also needed to sign the following declaration.

• The subscription applicant must report any hostile website seen on the internet, even if it was seen by chance. The applicants must not copy or print any literature or photos that go against state policy or relate to the regime. Special inspectors teams must be allowed to search the applicant’s place of residence to examine any files saved on the applicant’s personal computer.

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Currently Saudi Arabia follows a very strict approach. Every single cybercafe must install hidden cameras and record the names and contact information of each customer. Actually, this is not that uncommon around the world, even in a country like Italy.

OpenNetInitiative (ONI) reports that Saudi Arabia's 'filtering' centres on the following:

• pornography 86%
• gambling 93%
• religious conversion 41%
• sites which provide tools and methods to circumvent filters 41%

What Saudi Arabia seems to care less about are

• Israel 2%
• religion 1%
• alcohol 1%
• politics 3%
• gay and lesbian issues 11%

Wonder why the Saudi high concern with pornography is not visible in the gay and lesbian arena (86% -vs- 11%)? 

• Is it because they think that such matters are harmless and let them do it or
• They do it in any case so why bother or
• The incidence of gay sexual behaviour (but not identity) is so common that there is no point in making a noise
• What could men do with men and women do with women? - Is there a trace of Queen Victoria's supposed attitude that "Women do not do such things!" (actually it is a myth, she never said it)

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Suggestions for further reading:

• John Hayes, ed., The Genius of Arab Civilization: Source of Renaissance (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1983). Well-illustrated chapters on historic Arab contributions to the arts and sciences.
• Arab World and Islamic Resources
• Islamic Studies Resources

What is Social? How is the term "social" understood?

What is social? – a pesky student piped up this question at a Masters level lecture on social policy at a prestigious university. The lecturer was dumbfounded and responded angrily

 “How dare you make such silly questions. This is basic stuff. Go and check the definition from a book.”

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“Stupid” questions are often the most valuable ones. By questioning even fundamental assumptions occasionally, we manage to make quantum leaps in knowledge.

Different ways of understanding Social

Try to look up the word social from any textbook on Sociology. 

For example in Sociology: by Anthony Giddens (6th Ed.2009), in the index, the word social is always qualified. As such social is not listed, though there are lots of words like social change, social interaction, social mobility etc.

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Sociology is defined as the scientific study of human life, social groups, whole societies and the human world as such. Here social structure is a concept. The social context of our lives is seen to be structured or patterned rather than being random assortments of haphazard events. Here we are still using the concept social to define itself.

One way to understand social is to contrast it with the individual. 

What happens inside your head is in the individual domain, what happens outside your head, in the interplay with other individuals is in the social domain. One of the most famous of these usages is Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s (1712-1778) “Social contract”, which claims that an individual is under an implicit contract to conform to the “general will” in return for the benefits of belonging to society.

Many parents, educators and law enforcement understand social by contrasting it with “anti-social behaviour”. Social behaviour considers the needs, interests and intentions of other people while anti-social behaviour like vandalism or terrorism does not.

Screenshot of Mumbai terrorist from news media

Karl Marx (1818-1883) defines humans as social beings, who cannot survive and meet their needs without social association and must enter into relations of production ‘independent of their will’.

A zoologist makes no difference between humans and other animals and defines social as 

“Living in communities consisting of males, females, and neuters, as do ants and most bees.“

In areas dominated by religions like Hinduism and Buddhism, where reincarnation is a core belief, the strict dividing line between human society and nature with animals disappears. People believe that a human being can be reborn as an animal living in the forest. In Hinduism life ideally has four phases: Brahmachari (student), Grihasta (Householder) Vanaprasta (forest dweller or Hermit in semi retirement) and Sannyasi (the renounced one in full retirement). So animals also belong to the social dimension.

How different cultures use the word social

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• In British slang: social refers to social security benefit. “My husband hates going down to the social to sign on.”
• In American slang: What’s your social? Means ‘What’s your social security number?’
• In the Canadian Prairies it is a dance, held often also to raise money for a young couple about to be married.

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Etymology:

"Characterized by friendliness or geniality," also "allied, associated," from M.Fr. social (14th century.), from L. socialis "united, living with others," from socius "companion," probably originally "follower," and related to sequi "to follow."

Is there a uniform concept of social inclusion?

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Hunter-gatherers like the San people from Namibia, who live exactly like they have done for the past 10 000 years have social, economic and gender equality but ‘social’ is defined on the basis of kinship and band/tribe membership. They have no full time leaders, politicians or artists and no concept of privacy or property. 

Do they understand ‘social’ in the same way by contrasting individual with tribe or band?

What exactly is the social and who can belong is always a matter of contention. 

• Are men and women allowed on equal terms, are immigrants given the same jobs, equal pay and status? 
• What happens to people who differ from ‘norms’? 
• Can people who conform to every single norm but are attracted to their same sex, function as priests, teachers or judges? – These are very hot contemporary topics and the degree of acceptance tends to ebb and flow across epochs.

The concept of ‘social’ inclusion varies among cultures and time periods. In ancient Athens, citizenship was reserved for male Athenians (if both parents were Athenians). Women and slaves could never get it.

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Among the Native Americans and Canadian First Nations, the Two-spirits (previously Berdache) were people who mixed gender roles. The Berdache dressed and functioned as both. Some of these also had the most prestigious positions in their societies: 

• ceremonial roles among the Cheyenne
• foretelling the future for the Winnebago and Ogala Lakotans 
• ritual functions for the Sun Dance among the Crow, Hidatsa and Ogala Lakotans.

“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires. “

William Arthur Ward.

Understanding social inclusion through social conflict

The great Arab Tunisian scholar Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) in his six-volume work The Muqaddimah (Introduction) criticises historical descriptive approaches and advocates a new science of social organisation. His central concept is  asabiyyah or group feeling and how groups or societies with strong asabiyyah dominate others with weak asabiyyah. 

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So, getting back to the teacher’s reactions to the ‘stupid’ question, could we imagine that the lecturer’s reaction was meant to inspire students to learn to use library resources for their research? 

You would be tempted to say "Yes, but..!"

My wise research supervisor once told me that good butt muscles are as important as brains, patience and method for success in research.