thanks for your input. No, I was not aware of Gulf Arabs being cruel toward other Arabs, too... I suppose it is a case of racism AND classism. Sad.

Not true. you are talking however about irreligious Arabs, and anyone without piety would say/do that and even more. Rich Gulf Arabs (the impious among them) looks down on ALL OTHER ARABS, ok??? But you guys don't know that. They even forbid their women to marry from non-Gulf Arabs; the so-called "Islam inspired" constitution of Saudi Arabia itself (YES, the CONSTITUTION) has a clause there clearly stating a prohibition on their women marrying non-Saudis or other Arabs. It's all class-based, really; they think such Arabs would want to go after the privileges a Saudi citizen gets, that they'll use their Saudi wives to become Saudis themselves, etc etc, and we all know that such measures are taken by countries with weak economies, which can barely accommodate for its own citizens, and not like to look around for more of them..because that will be more of a burden on their economies (which are full of corruption and looting). Arabs wouldn't mock a non-Arab for anything. The only time when a religious Arab would tell a religious non-Arab that 'Arabness' is a factor of superiority of the Arab..is when Arabic is employed to gain more knowledge of Islam, period. If a non-Arab learns Arabic, according to a HADITH, he himself is considered 'Arab'!!! An Arabic-speaker is Arab!! The blood in our veins, all of us, is similar; have you not read about the latest discoveries in that regard? Scientists couldn't even find differences between a man in China and one from Europe..in that newly found human 'genom' map (and I'm sure I misspelled that word; I'm not into biology :s). We all go back to Adam and Eve (Hawwaa), and closer than that..we all go back to one of Noah's 3 sons, and I may shock you with this but..even the Indian 'race' is a Semitic race!! Allah says: {And we made his descendents those remaining } (37:77), and I find this explaining the striking resemblance of so many Indians and Pakistanis to the Gulf-Arabs more than many other Arabs (in whose blood there are mixtures of Crusader, Turkish, Kurdish, Armenian and such blood).

I havent had much interaction with arabs as such. But, from what I know, they have class-based or rather clan-based society. Denigrating other cultures is sort of a defensive mechanism. You can see that in other cultures as well. Europeans have done that. So, I guess this has more to do with exposure to cosmopolitan culture than a general malaise for a particular people. My two cents. :)

yes i totally agree! Arabs feel that they are the "original" muslims, since Islam originated in Arabia and the Prophet was Arab, and the language of the Qur'an is Arabic.

LP is right though; in some instances Arabs do frown on us desis and have an "N" word for us. Still we Indians are sometimes such a passive lot that we never get proactive and always wait for something and then react. We are also pretty good and moaning and groaning aren't we LP? );

LP, I think most of what you see happens in the ME as part of a very unhealthy class distinction. The Arab friends I have here are very different and the experience that I had last night with the Arab friends that I made was a very different event altogether. Generalizing statements such as this are no different than what the Arabs who are prejudice are doing.

I understand your frustrations but I don't think that we can lump all ethnic groups under one heading.