October 15, 2008 – 10:16 am
Most Arab Americans I know resent the United State’s intimate relationship with Israel and the adverse affect it has on Palestinians. Most Arab Americans I know (myself included) are voting for Barack Obama.
It’s not that we have forgotten Obama’s AIPAC blunder or that we disregard Biden’s outspoken support of Israel. It’s that unlike Senator McCain, Obama’s campaign does not thrive off of the fear-mongering and finger-pointing shamelessly practiced by the Republican campaign. As proof, take the latest McCain ad which falsely accuses Obama of lying about his relationship with “terrorist Bill Ayers.”
Yet too many Arab Americans still associate with the GOP. And this association may prove disastrous for our future as citizens and members of society.
Along with American Muslims, Arab Americans suffered the consequences of the politics of fear; with increased terror alerts came a decrease in their civil liberties, a blow to their reputation (both at work or in social groups), and sometimes even threats to their personal safety. The fact that Obama does not rely on the played-out terrorist card should be reason enough for Arab Americans to support him.
Here is another:
Last month, the Clarion Fund, a supposedly non-profit organization funded by a $400,000 dollar grant from a “secret donor”, paid 70 newspapers in 14 of America’s swing states to distribute their DVD, “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West.” Read More »
Today I received two emails from a friend. Together they make for an interesting commentary on the divided psyche of the American-Egyptian community.
The first is a flyer for an event sponsored by The Egyptian American Medical Society, Egyptian American Professional Society, Egyptian American Business Association, Egyptian American Group, and the American Muslim Union.
I laud the efforts made by the community to form organizations that seek to enrich our lives in the United States of America. It makes me proud to be an American-Egyptian. One of the greatest privileges we enjoy in this country is the freedom to participate in civic life without government interference. It is a privilege we should never take for granted and always jealously guard.
Yet my pleasure at seeing such civic engagement was tempered by a factual error in the email. You see the event is intended to honor the Ambassador Sherif el Kholy who happens to be a nice man. The only problem is that as far as I can tell he is not the Ambassador. Nabil Fahmy is the Egyptian Ambassador to the United States.
This minor detail matters immensely. As an American-Egyptian I fret that our propensity to use titles that glorify figures of authority has been carried to our adopted country. Has this mindset, I asked myself, already become entrenched in our civic organizations here in the United States? Didn’t many of us come to the United States and achieve our success as immigrants precisely because we believed in America as a meritocracy?
Why use a title that hasn’t been earned? Read More »
January 5, 2006 – 12:16 pm
The recent events that set La Belle France ablaze are rooted in its colonial past; a past full of shame and mortification. The French, who still hold a remarkable sway over their ex-colonies, are conducting their little secret colonial war in Ivory Coast without a peep from the rest of the West which delights in disciplining and punishing at will anyone who does not toe the line: Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan.
This time, though, the unrest comes from within La Métropole : the immigrant who has been languishing to find the stable strikes back with a vengeance. Although it remains doubtful, his late revolt may force Maman Fouance to take a hard look at herself in the mirror and face up to its anti-Semitic, xenophobic, and racist past and present. Beleaguered and sandwiched between Germany to the East, Great Britain and the US to the West, the country that used to be the envy of the world can hardly breathe today. Read More »
