Dysfunction in the Arab American community, a plague that is hard to overcome

The biggest enemy of the empowerment of the Arab American community is the rivalries and jealousies that exist among several "leaders" who are more concerned with themselves than the community

By Ray Hanania

FREE/Arab Americans, Elections, Politics/Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024

There are more than 4.5 million Arabs and more than 7 million Muslims in America (Arabs are only 22 percent of all American Muslims). And yet, despite that number, which is significant because they are concentrated together in several areas of the country, we just can’t seem to overcome hurdles that hold us back.

Take Chicagoland, for example. I have been working with the Arab American community for more than 50 years, writing columns trying to promote their candidacies, helping them raise money for good causes, defending community members against racist and political attacks, and trying to get them to advance themselves.

It doesn’t work. First, I am a Christian Arab so a lot of Arabs don’t think I am important.

I follow a simple formula. The priority is to become the Best American you can be. And once you become the Best American, you can then do more to help the Arab community.

You need to LOVE this country more than you love your original homeland if you intend to ever help your own country succeed.

Sigmund Freud in a kiffeyeh (generated by Canva)

That is a simple premise adopted by everyone who chases success. It’s a lot like the advisory they give you on a commercial airplane: put your oxygen mask on first before you assist those around you who need help. You can’t help anybody if you are not a success.

Of course, that contradicts the fundamental premise that drives the Arab American community, which comes from a faraway land where dictators and tyrants have dominated our history, and where Democracy is a faint dream, far more of a dream than it is even becoming for mainstream Americans.

I say that as an Arab American myself, and with the knowledge that when someone or a group acknowledges their problems, they can better address and overcome those problems, and become better people. You can’t be successful if you refuse to see your own flaws. You have to look your troubles in the eye and change to become better and successful. Hiding problems is something Arab culture encourages, and it only tends to fuel your weaknesses.

(In some Arab communities while I was growing up, I would see families that were so ashamed of having a disabled child that when we visited, they put the child in the basement. They saw the disability as a shame. It was so horrible to witness. As a child, I was someone who had ADHD long before ADHD was even diagnosed by professional doctors. My parents never hid me away. They continued, instead, to push me to pursue an education.)

The first step in achieving success is to acknowledge your faults and failings and then correct them. Repair them. Improve and do better. Until you do that, you can’t be successful.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, America is on a fast track, running away from Democracy and embracing xenophobic ideologies that strengthen one on the basis of their political beliefs rather than strengthening the community as a whole. So I know this is a topic many non-Arab Americans can understand.

Arab Americans are just way ahead of that curve and Americans are following behind.

Arab Americans are used to stabbing themselves in the back because that is what they were taught in their homelands. People got ahead by climbing over the ambitions of rivals.

I often tell people that jealousy is the most popular motivation to get a lazy Arab to get up and do something. They see someone launch an ethnic Arab American newspaper and instead of helping them, they instead launch their own newspapers. That’s one reason why we see so many Arab American newspapers launched by people who have no experience in professional journalism. They don’t see journalism as a profession. They see a newspaper as a foundation for power and as a means of strengthening their own self-aggrandizement.

The Arabs have many proverbs, but one they hate to share is the one that describes them the best.

The Devil was giving a Frenchman, a German, and an Arab a tour of Hell. The Devil explained he put each ethnic group in their own “caves of suffering,” places where the sinners would be tossed into a vat of boiling oil.

In the first cave, the Devil showed how the French were thrown into a vat of boiling oil and he had his Devil’s Disciples standing along the edge using pitchforks to push the bad French people back down preventing them from rising out of their suffering.

In the second cave, the Devil showed how the Germans were thrown in a vat of boiling oil and again, had his Devil’s Disciples standing along the edge using pitchforks to push the bad German people back down preventing them from rising up out of their suffering.

When they got to the cave of boiling oil for the Arabs, the Arab getting the tour was surprised and smiled. There were no Devil’s Disciples standing on the edge with pitchforks preventing the Arabs in the vat of boiling oil from rising out of their sins. The Arab smiled and said, “We must be special.”

The Devil responded, “Yes. Your people are special. I don’t need to waste my disciples on you at all. I don’t need them standing on the edge of the vat with pitchforks to keep you from rising. The Arabs underneath do all the work themselves, pulling the other Arabs down on their own. I truly appreciate their dedication.”

This phenomenon, which I am sure applies to other ethnic nationals, although maybe not as severely as it does to Arabs, partly explains why in the Arab community every person wants to be a “President for Life” of their own organization. There is this need to be important. We have an idea to do good but we have no experience working as a team or as a community. So instead of working with the organizations that we already have, we decide to launch our own.

Part of the cause of this comes from severe victimization, aggravated by community dysfunction. We are victims of the worst kind. We become the easiest ethnic group to attack. Arabs have been in this country for centuries since the arrival of Christopher Columbus, and yet we are at the bottom of the totem poll when it comes to receiving benefits and recognition from this country. We get the basics but nothing near what other ethnic groups get or what we deserve.

Victims either fear confronting their oppressors or don’t believe they can overcome their oppressors. So, what do they do? They fight with themselves. They oppress themselves. It’s easier to pick on another victim than to stand up to the oppressor, as a community.

It breeds divisions.

Understanding all this might explain why we have so few Arab Americans in elected office in Illinois, or why we get little if any Federal or State tax grants to support our cultural needs; each year the state of Illinois awards millions in grants to other ethnic groups like Jews, Gays, Hispanics, Asians, Blacks, and so many others.

Because our voice is muted by inter-community rivalries, we can’t even stand up together to confront injustice. So we pander to the suffering of our community, blaming everyone else for our troubles instead of recognizing our troubles, confronting our troubles and overcoming our troubles.

We are also very emotional, too, and emotions tend to undermine strategic thinking. It drives us to extremes and it fuels our anger and suspicions about the motives of others.

All of this creates a situation which the good, smart members of the community duck below the radar screen so they won’t be seen or attacked, leaving the playing field to the extremists who generate followings by stoking the flames of emotions and anger and frustrations they help to foment.

Until we overcome many of these problems, Arab Americans will continue to be the tail wagging the dog in arguments, disorganized, far more powerless than we should be, and tearing each other down, because it’s easier. The hard way is to roll up our sleeves and work together as one strong voice.

As the Arab Freud in this community, I conclude, that until we recognize this flaw, we will never be more than the victims of other people’s agendas, pushed aside, marginalized and trampled. Trampled by ourselves and then trampled by everyone else.