the arab world’s dirty secret: racism
My mom sent this to me after I told her about some issues I was having here with people being racist. I didnt read it; It usually takes me at least a month to read any forwards my mother sends me. She sends me things I need to be in the mood to read. Anyway, After I read this I started thinking of my time in Egypt and how I was treated. I remembered being yelled at when I walked down the street. I remember being teased by men yelling SUDAN………. then something in arabic followed my SUDAN…….. until I opened my mouth then everyone would try to figure out where I was really from. YES, I was treated better than a dark Sunaneese BUT that is ONLY becuase I have the “blue book”.
That American Passport is like the American Express card. DONT LEAVE HOME WITHOUT IT! If you are white no problem, but as a person of color it is a different story. They assume you are african and while I do nto think there is ANYTHING wrong with being from Africa; Arabs do and they will try to treat you like a third class citizen UNTIL they find out you are from america. YOU cant be an American from another place but a true American. YOU have to go through tthe song and dance
Where are you from….or the exact phrase is from where are you?
I am from the U.S
ok but where are your parents from
the US
ok but then your grand parents
the U.S.
ok your family before that
THE U.S.
They cant believe that sometime they will say no americans are all White. They will ask me how?
Those that know a little about America will believe me and I am the best thing since sliced bread from that moment on.
I will get total respect from that moment on
MY question is
WHY?????
Why does it matter that I am 100% American? Why do I get better treatment AFTER I go through the dance with you? WHY If you are MUSLIM and follow Islam does it matter?? I should be treated witht he same respect and given my rights no matter where I was born; I think somewhere along the line some people over here lost that idea or they were NEVER taught.
here is the story
The Arab World’s Dirty Secret: Racism
although it’s not that much of a secret…
By Mona Eltahawy
Al Arab
http://alarab.com.qa/details.php?docId=64741=345=15 <http://alarab.com.qa/details.php?docId=64741&issueNo=345&secId=15>
I was on my way home on the Cairo Metro, lost in thought as I listened to music when I noticed a young Egyptian taunting a Sudanese girl. She reached out and tried to grab the girl’s nose and mouth and laughed when the girl tried to brush her hand away.
The Sudanese girl looked to be Dinka, from southern Sudan and not the northern Sudanese who “look like us”. She looked black African and was obviously in distress.
I removed my headphones and asked the Egyptian woman “Why are you treating her like that?”
She exploded into a tornado of yelling, demanding to know why it was my business. I told her it was my business because as an Egyptian and as a Muslim who was riding the Metro, her behaviour was wrong and I would not stay silent about it. I knew she was Muslim because she wore a scarf.
I told her that the way she was treating the Sudanese girl made the scarf on her head meaningless. Her mother asked me why I didn’t cover my hair and I replied that I didn’t want to be a hypocrite like her and her daughter.
As distressing as I found that young woman’s behaviour, I was even more distressed that the other women in the Metro car with us watched passively and said nothing. They made no attempt to defend the Sudanese girl nor to defend me when I confronted the Egyptian woman.
After the Egyptian woman got off at her station, I asked the other women why they didn’t do anything. One woman said she stayed silent because the racist woman would’ve yelled at her and told her to mind her own business too. So what, I asked? If enough of the women had confronted her, she would have been outnumbered.
I apologized to the Sudanese girl for the Egyptian woman’s behaviour and she thanked me for defending her and told me “Egyptians are bad”. I could only imagine other times she’d been abused publicly.
We are a racist people in Egypt and we are in deep denial about it. On my Facebook page, I blamed racism for my Cairo Metro argument and an Egyptian man wrote to deny that we are racists and used as his proof a programme on Egyptian Radio featuring Sudanese songs and poetry!
That’s like a racist white American denying he’s a racist because he listens to rap and some of his best friends are black.
Our silence over racism in Egypt not only destroys the warmth and hospitality we our proud of as Egyptians, it has deadly consequences.
What else but racism on Dec. 30, 2005 allowed hundreds of riot police to storm through a makeshift camp in central Cairo to clear it of 2,500 Sudanese refugees, trampling or beating to death 28 people, among them women and children?
What else but racism lies behind the bloody statistics at the Egyptian border with Israel where, since 2007, Egyptian guards have killed at least 33 migrants, many from Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region, including a pregnant woman and a 7-year-old girl?
The racism I saw on the Cairo Metro has an echo in the Arab world at large where the suffering in Darfur goes ignored for two main reasons – firstly because its victims are black people and we don’t about those with dark skins and secondly because those who are creating the misery in Darfur are not Americans or Israelis and we only pay attention when America and Israel are behaving badly.
International experts say that fighting in Darfur has so far killed 200,000 and driven 2.5 million from their homes and yet nobody cares in the Arab world.
My argument on the Cairo Metro was a also a reminder of our double standards. We love to cry “Islamophobia” when we talk about the way Muslim minorities are treated in the West and yet we never stop to consider how we treat minorities and the most vulnerable among us.
The U.S. television network ABC recently staged a scenario in which an actor worked in a bakery in Texas and refused to serve an actress dressed as a Muslim woman in a headscarf. The scene was an experiment to see if other customers would help the Muslim woman.
Thirteen customers defended her by yelling at the clerk, asking for the manager or walking out in disgust. Six customers supported the bigoted clerk and 22 looked away and did absolutely nothing.
I cried when I watched that episode and I wonder now which Egyptian television channel would dare to stage such an experiment? And which Arab television channel would dare to stage a programme which so boldly looks at our racism and confronts us with the question “what would you do?” as the ABC show did.
For those of us who move between different worlds – where one day we are a majority as I am as a Sunni Muslim in Egypt and another we are a minority as I am as a Muslim in America – it is clear that to defend the rights of a Sudanese girl on the Cairo Metro means to defend my right on the New York Subway.
We live in a world that is connected in unprecedented ways. And that connection now extends to rights. If we want our rights to be respected we must do the right thing, everywhere.
Copyright: Mona Eltahawy, 2008.
“Watch your thoughts, they become words. Watch your words, they become actions. Watch your actions, they become habits. Watch your habits, they become character. Watch your character, it becomes destiny.”
Hi Living Life. I know what you mean. I spent a few months in Egypt, and it’s strange. As an Australian, The Egyptians also loved me on the one hand – I was like a celebrity! But in another way they had a very racist attitude even to us. Any Westerner is considered sexually loose and promiscuous – if I so much as looked in the eyes of an Egyptian woman I was told they would take it as a sign of trying to get her into bed. And several times I accidentally glanced at a woman and saw her look hurriedly away – even though that wasn’t on my mind at all! It is worse for western women, who are also considered loose, and often harassed by Arab men. I heard about the racism towards Sudanese people in Egypt without experiencing it directly. But I met some lovely Sudanese people in Egypt while I was there.
But, despite all this, I don’t want to be racist myself by pointing the finger at others. I know my own nation has a big problem with racism, and in fact in some level it’s in us all. For some reason, on some level, we always divide ourselves and judge others who are different from us, based simply on superficial differences. We need definitely to watch our characters. And while in Egypt I also met many warm and friendly Egyptians.
I wouldn’t classify what Ryan describes viz a viz Australians as racism, more as ignorant stereotypes.
Livinglife, thanks for writing this post. Yes, Arabs are indeed extremely racist and I have personally experienced it, living in Syria. The irony however is that many of the Sudanese themselves are racist to give just one example Darfur is also partly about Arab Sudanese (or who claim to be Arab) Muslims against supposedly non-Arab Sudanese Muslim who they consider inferior.
The only way we can really deal with this is more education and campaigns against racism.
Anyway the Muslim world is in an abysmal state and has no one to blame but itself.
Yeah I agree with Faith Ryan. I think what you experienced was just from ignorance. You have to remember most Egyptians only know what they see on TV or what they haev heard from someone else. They are NOT well read or well traveled.
Yeah I know Sudan has its own mess with them. It is sad!!!! However, it does not make it right to mistreat them. I know u didnt say It did I am just saying.
and HUGE YUP this Muslim world is ina horrible state and we haev no one to blame but ourselves.
I look at the arabs here and they are running, jumping, and killing themselves to try to be as much like NON Muslims and they possibly can while still yelling and screaming about how horrible the west is. HUH??????????
Allah has blessed these people with all this money and what do they use it for. Have they forgotten that every fill, Dirham, QR, SR and Kd they spend they will be held accountable for??? When I see them use this money to use and abuse other Muslim it just makes me sick.
when I see them not use it on good it drives me crazy.
I see here that the Quran schools are mostly all closed down becuase they Nationals do not send their kids….These things were filled up by student but they where Americans. Egyptians and other non Nationals. So since it was government funded they closed them down becuase their own people do not feel the need to use them
They send their kids to the english tutor they get horse back riding lessons, they go shopping for all the latest LV and prada.
These things are more important to them than ISLAM. Why and how can anythign be more important than your child learning the QURAN?????????
when Muslims start running towards Allah, swt then maybe Islam will be practiced in the true form and we wont see all the madness we see today.
when Muslims start running towards Allah, swt then maybe Islam will be practiced in the true form and we wont see all the madness we see today.
ALLAHU AKBAR! ALLAHU AKBAR! ALLAHU AKBAR!
Salaams Sis:
Ameen!
What is sad is that they don’t perceive themselves as racist. They are offended at the suggestion. Go figure!
Well, “some” of them … I know some lovely Arabs who fear Allah (swt) and the Last Day who are not racist!
There are some great Arabs. I will never make a blanket statement and say ALL of anything is a certain way. I can just talk about what”I” see and have experienced and since at the moment I am living in the “Arab” world I talk about them.
what does swt mean?
Ryan, here is the answer to ur question.
SUBHANAHU WA TA’ALA This is an expression that Muslims use whenever the name of Allah is pronounced or written. The meaning of this expression is: “Allah is pure of having partners and He is exalted from having a son.” Muslims believe that Allah is the only God, the Creator of the Universe. He does not have partners or children. Sometimes Muslims use other expressions when the name of Allah is written or pronounced. Some of which are: “‘Azza Wa Jall”: He is the Mighty and the Majestic; “Jalla Jalaluh”: He is the exalted Majestic. S.W.T. These letters are abbreviations for the words of “Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala”.
You are spot on when you said they are not well read, this is the problem really the lack of education. The “where are you from” question leads to a misunderstanding in that Arabs want to know your lineage and expect you to name some African country because you are black, by saying you are American i am sure many think you are just a passport holder who lived there for a while. To appreciate the value of money and wealth you would have to have worked for it regardless of your faith.
Real Talk! And it’s not only true for Egypt but unfortunately many other “Muslim” countries. Imperialized much?
A lot of people from South Asia serve as basically, “slaves” of some Arab countries. But even the South Asian countries are very racist against black people..and not only black people but the dark skinned of their own kind as well.
Astaghfirullah.
May Allah save us from such stupidity.
Salams all,
I am sorry to say I’ve seen this as well, from some of the people in the Immigrant communities HERE. As far as Egypt is concerned, I’ve never been there myself, but I remember a sister I used to know, who is Black, who I think used to teach school there, or something. I think when she was there, it may have been better off,anyway, she blended in and was more accepted, but some of the Whites who went there, were treated as “loose”. I also remember a story of someone who went to another Arabic-speaking country, who wore the Niqab, or whatever they call the kind of veil that conceals the eyes–it slipped down, and the person who ran the shop saw that the person had blue eyes, and started saying all kinds of nasty things to her in Arabic, which she spoke fluently. We have to come out of whatever complacency we have, and realize that while racism doesn’t exist in Islam per se, there’s plenty of it among some of the Muslims.