I remember once writing in a note on facebook entitled "25 Things You Didn't Know About Me" that:
I get very pissed off when people ask me "So are you Syrian or Trinidadian?" It's very simple, my nationality is Trinidadian, my blood is Syrian and I'm proud to be both. To the Arabs: Just because you grew up in Saudi/Dubai or wherever and you don't consider yourself Saudi/Emerati because you are Palestinian, Egyptian or whatever doesn't apply to me too. I actually have a citizenship and I am immersed in my country's culture. To the Trinidadians: Just because you lost touch with your ancestral culture doesn't mean I should too. I eat Syrian food. I listen to Syrian music. I have family in Syria. I am Syrian too. Stop asking that bloody question and trying to justify my answer!Now, it really pisses me off that I have to restate my point again. What happened recently was that a few friends uttered the remark (not for the first time) that they don't consider me and "Arab." Why? I didn't dwelve deep enough with them to find out exactly why they categorize me in this sense, but I analyzed what their possible answers could be. Maybe I could be jumping the gun with the answers I came up with, but if you think about it too, what else could it be aside from my guesses which I'll share right now?!
My guess is - I'm not considered "Arab" by my Arab friends reason being that
- I didn't grow up in the Middle East
- I don't speak Arabic very fluently
- I'm extremely liberal, gay, patient, forgiving and shameless (mind you that these traits are sometimes hard to find in your common Arab, though I'm just stereotyping and being a bitch, but it's a rant, so bitching is the main course on tonight's menu!)
Funny enough, I have two friends who are Persian by blood, but grew up in Saudi, and they can speak Arabic better than most people I know. They personally don't consider themselves Arab, but my friends do. Wtf?!
In number 3 I bring up the gay thing not because I want to play victim card, but because one of these friends once said to me that most Arabs are cool with me being gay since I'm not an Arab in their eyes. If I were, then they'd be less friendly. Again... wtf? She didn't realize it, but that was a very offensive argument she brought to my attention.
In my birth country I get flack because of my Arab pride, and in front of Arabs I'm not an Arab. I'd like to point out once again, I'm very proud to have been born and raised as a Trinidadian. My parents made sure I was proud of my nationality, and they also gave the same effort to making sure I was proud to be a Syrian too. But, they never once warned me about the "half-breed" syndrome I'd face now in my life.
And yet... at the end of the day, I'm not considered an "Arab" to them. What a fucking cop-out. It's like watching a black man tell a next black man he's not black simply because he speaks like a white man.
It's not that I have an identity crisis. I have no problems identifying myself. I identify myself as a Trinidadian by nationality, Syrian by ethnicity, non-religious, one God believing spiritualist, who also happens to be a liberal gay young adult who loves the arts in all of its forms. I know who the fuck I am. Internally I am very diverse and I give praise to God for making me so beautiful and unique. So it's simply a piss off when someone wants to tell me who the fuck I am and cut off a piece of my diverse attributes and trash it because they have some kind of PhD in classifying people into categories. Because so many of them who are all studying Sciences and Business somehow have a MA in Anthropology and History have the balls to tell me who I am.
I know my friends meant no offense, and they might read this and if you are reading I repeat I KNOW you meant no offense. But just shut the fuck up next time please.
And I'm not going to apologize for not being fluent in Arabic enough because none of you are literate and articulate enough in English, so you have your own linguistic issues to sort.
God Bless.
I found this song to be very fitting for my post... enjoy!
Being Arab or not is only a matter of label mat . but just to clarify, i personally don't think you are arab just for the fact that my perception on the "term" Arab is stereotyped in a retarded way. You are too nice to be an arab, too open-minded to be an arab, too humble to be an arab, and too straight up to be one also.
I guess i just proved your point of what your friends consider you an Arab. But i think that all your friends are stereotyping the term "Arab" just like i do in a way or another.
To sum it up, Ur an Arab if you want to consider urself an arab. No one has the right to tell you otherwise, however, people can still be able to share their opinions on the term itself and relate it to you.
AND PS, U DANCE LIKE FIFI 3ABDO.. SO U R DEF. AN ARAB !