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Arabism


Is it that troublesome to let people claim their national heritage by some other nations! Today my Persian co-worker smashed down the Arab nationalistic existence. His claim for US, ARAB is that we are a combination of different cultures and we belong to different ancient civilizations such as the Phoenicians and Babylon?etc. He said there is no such thing as Arab nation, and Arabs are people of the desert, and basically Bedouin!
How did he come to this conclusion while Arabs share the same history, language, and land! Is our situation that bad for some to think since we are not united then we are a lost identity?
 

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Login to find out (June 25, 2005 at 6:28pm)
It is true that the Arabs of today are a mixed of many civilizations, but so what? That's what makes things even more interresting as you go from one Arabic country to the other. Many Scholars consider an Arab to be one who SPEAKS Arabic and not necessarily coming from the pure Arabic Semetic race... Nationailities and ethnic backgrounds should not be items of pride anyway because none of us had anything to do with the choice of her/his ethnicity..
In all cases your Persian friend is just JEALOUS T3mah! :-)
 
Login to find out (June 24, 2005 at 4:49pm)
and yes, one must use the same standard on even pasta. has the carb family not suffered enough with the atkins craze? i will not apply a double standard to women, nor to the rice/wheat food group.
 
Login to find out (June 24, 2005 at 4:48pm)
what im trying to say is that your persian friend is neglecting the fact that every modern nation has genetic influences from multiple ancient civilizations. your friend must be consistent and apply the same stringent interpretation of heritage and nationalism to other groups of people and similarly deny their existance.
 
Login to find out (June 23, 2005 at 5:15pm)
no one tell my mom, she'll be pissed
 
Login to find out (June 23, 2005 at 5:15pm)
if arabs don't exist what am i supposed to be? i've been living a lie!!! what happens now? do i disapear in a puff of logic? will that squeaky door i oiled yesterday start squeaking again? Who's been feeding my hamsters all this time?? poor philphil and Layla! are they starving to death??? or wait! maybe i never bought them! but then where is that smell coming from?? and how did all that hamster poop get in the cage?
 
Login to find out (June 23, 2005 at 12:43pm)
Hum???
 
Login to find out (June 23, 2005 at 11:58am)
your friend is absolutely right. arabs dont exist; they are only a compilation of distinct groups. it is also true though that there is no such thing as an englishman; they are simply a combination of the saxons, the britons, the anglos and others. there is also no such thing as an italian, only visigoths, ostrogoths, and romans. there is certainly no such thing as an american, only irish, english (see above), italians, africans, and native indians. of course, there is no such thing as an american indian, only cherokee's, comanchee's, sioux, and seminoles.

you know, there isnt even such a thing as spaghetti. there is only tomato sauce, pasta, and spices. but then there is no such thing as pasta either, only carbohydrate chains--which themselves dont exist, being made up of carbon and hydrogen atoms.....
 
Login to find out (June 14, 2005 at 4:37am)
I'd remind him how the arabs were nothing until the Prophet s.a.w. came along, and smashed his "furs" into the ground , them and their fireworshipping ways baby, WOOO. ;)
 
Login to find out (June 14, 2005 at 1:54am)
fine i admit it, i'm an angry arab... sheesh.... some stereotypes are just so dead on. ah well.... someone call a jihad and point me towards the nearest infedil.....
 
Login to find out (June 14, 2005 at 1:50am)
the palestinians are kept purposely without land and power. after 50+ years, the nations use us solely as pawns in order to maintain their hold on power over their own people. They talk big about rights and arab solidarity and all that smoke and mirrors whenever their people get riled up about being so abused by thier own rulers. our misery is used against others, and we are kept as this permanent underclass by the rulers of other nations because it serves their purpose. 50+ years in an arab country and still we are denied the rights the yanks give us, even though we speak the same language, hold on to the same traditions and share the same history. We are their pawns. We owe them no gratitude, we owe them no favor, and we owe them no fealty. All we get from them is abuse and exploitation. after 50+ years there is absolutely no excuse for any Palestinains to be a refugee without lands and rights. how dare they expect anything from us. Remember in the frist gulf war saddam and his token missles into tel Aviv had all the palestinians singing his praises? we where his puppets, masterfully played to gain him popular support in the arab world. and we took to the music and danced to his tune expertly. I don't like being used, but that seems to be our assigned fate for now. our leaders are our worst enemies, it would be a mistake to forget that.
 
Login to find out (June 13, 2005 at 11:56pm)
Plato, Palestinian refugees will always be powerless without a land, this is reality. Those who live in non-Arabic countries have the chance to live at the price of assimilating into the other culture/life/rules...etc.
Nidalio, I agree not all Persians think that way, if they did then that is a real pity.
 
Login to find out (June 10, 2005 at 6:30am)
from what i understand people have tried time and time again to rid ourselves of these atrocious rulers. But they land on the reformers with both feet. Thats why we have so many political prisoners in jail. In Jordan they massacared Palestinians after we tried to build a life out of the refugee camps where they'd herded us. Their make believe king took this as a threat to his artificial rule and sent in his armies. We tried, we Got slaughtered. Balck September. sure there is more to it. but reality remains a harsh reminder. Palestinians still live in refugee camps, still politically powerless. and we depend on Aid for the most basic necessity of life. It is a fiction to say that these nations could not have absorbed the Palestinians into their own populations, improving the state of their country by creating villiges and cities of self-sustaining people, rather than welfare dependant slums. and Improving the lives of the refugees, by giving them a chance at a real life. In the US, we are relatively well off, In Venezuela, Columbia, Argentina, we live well, and our precense helps their local economies. All the Palestinians need is a chance, and the Arab governments and their autocratic rulers continously deny us that. One day, guarenteed. The Sun Always rises, Maintain last forever, but the reigns always fall. InshAllah.
 
Login to find out (June 9, 2005 at 9:10pm)
oh, and that last comment includes the iranians too of course ;-)
 
Login to find out (June 9, 2005 at 9:09pm)
The Arab problem is not our goverments. It's this : "Because Allah will never change the grace which He hath bestowed on a people until they change what is in their (own) souls: and verily Allah is He Who heareth and knoweth (all things)." We LOVE to complain about all things. I've yet to see any one of us do anything about it. Our governments are awful yes, but that's because we are that way too.
 
Login to find out (June 9, 2005 at 6:43pm)
I agree with Plato that many horror stories were heard about the Arab governments and how they abused their guests and their own people. Kuwait won?t give a Jordanian or a Palestinian a Visa to work or visit without a serious ?wasta,? supposedly because the people?s (Palestine & Jordan) support to Saddam. And no Palestinian/Jordanian ever fired a round on Kuwaiti soil (at least not up to my knowledge). The US has to protect itself from outside danger, I don?t think you can blame them for that. No one is kicking you out of here, no one is collecting us to put us in camps, you still get to go to work or school, and life went on. Yah, it is a little harder, but no where near impossible. As for the Iranian guy?T3mah, I wouldn?t worry about it. I?m gonna go on a limb here :) but I think that most of the Arab countries are in much better shape than Iran, and our people are in much better shape with their own governments/countries than he is with his.

The fact still stands that there is no one Arab nation. We are many sovereign countries that make their own decisions. Inshalla one day we can have something like the European Union, or the (hold your breath) United States. If not for anything, for the economic power that many countries could bring in to the people. That many united countries and economies could be an economic power house that could manipulate world wide foreign policy. Food for thought?I will do everyone favor and shut up now :)
 
Login to find out (June 9, 2005 at 2:20pm)
A government, any governments only reason for being is to work for the benefit of those they represent, their own people. US foreign policy is based on screwing the little guy, yes. but that little guy is not a US citizen, so the government owes them nothing. I don't like it, and more and more their domestic policy favors screwing the little guy in favor of the big guy, and as that shift occurs, this country will have more and more detractors, internally and externally. but Arab governments are almost exclusivly concerned with maintaining the power of the government at the cost of the people. They all deserve to fall, they did not earn the right to rule, we have no tradition divine rulers. If the government is not working for the people, the government should be removed in favor of a more just system. And God forbid anyone starts signing the praises of the Saudi monarchy and how well they treat their subjects, if iranians became happy about that, then they deserve no better than the return of their Shah.
 
Login to find out (June 9, 2005 at 2:14pm)
Our governments suck, they are corrupt and work often against their own people's best interest. The US government is corrupt, but less so, it's govenrment is constantly working against other people's best interest, and now, increasingly against the best interest of its owm population. Yes it screwed us, screwed us bad, in fact, the US is the same puppeteer that controls and supports our own strickingly bad rulers. but they offer alot to their own poeple, freedom of religion, opportunity to advance, relatively little institutionalized racism. Iranians aren't any more blind than me or you, they see what one country does for it's own people, and what another country does, they can make a qualitative decision as to which country deserves to be emmulated, and which despised.
 
Login to find out (June 9, 2005 at 2:10pm)
people, i'm not saying america is the best thing since maklooba, it's hypocritical, prone to aggresive wars, and is the cause of a significant chunk of worldwide misery. Fares said that Iranians aren't fans of arab countries, i said neither am I, but if we want them to be fans of our countries we need something worthwhile to offer as a nation, rather than bemoan the fact that they don't like us. America, which, to the carign of many, is liked, not because of it's bad things, but because of it's good ones. freedoms, relatively representative government, somewhat transparent federal and state function, rare secret police, and only occasional imprisonment and death for holding unpopular political beliefs. People like that, if we want people to like our countries, we need to have something worthwhile to offer, rather than just complain that we are dispised.
 
Login to find out (June 9, 2005 at 1:51pm)
All very good points plato but I think you need to go further back in history for the sake of this conversation. It's this great nation that helped (if not directly then indirectly) make you and you're family into refugees in the first place. They also helped make the arab nations what they are now. Lets keep this in mind before we start the 'god bless America' chant. Unfortunately this country has two identities. It's free and just 'interior' (The constitution and the bill of rights) and oppressive and Imperialist exterior (foreign policy). A lot of arabs have been victims of our great nations foreign policy only to end up happy within it's borders and laws. Sounds kinda like submission don't you think?
 
Login to find out (June 8, 2005 at 4:26pm)
these iranians grow more weary of the US, but the arab nations must become worthy of friendship, loyalty, trust, and admiration, the rest of the world will not give these things free of charge. nor should they