You Are an Arab; Imagine That

"Why are Arabs always angry?" a reader recently asked me, in a message filled with sarcasm and thoughtlessness. I refrained from replying right a way, because he seemed little interested in listening. I couldn't help but wonder how he might feel if he himself was an Arab. So, I am writing back. 

Imagine for a moment that you are an Arab.

For years you watch Palestinians being slaughtered, their land invaded and reinvaded, and for years witnessing the United States government block any attempt to punish those who aggressed upon the people whom you call "my people".

Not only have the United States' vetoes at the United Nations Security Council suffocated any initiative to deploy even unarmed observers to provide badly needed protection for Palestinians, but, thanks to billions of annual US funds, Israel manages to expand illegal settlements and provide its army with the greatest killing machines of all time.

Your human rights are never brought up unless an outside power is using the subject to inflict political pressure on your ruler. You're worth a press release by a human rights group once every blue moon, a release that no one bothers to read. You simply matter to no one.

You are an Arab and have been watching Iraq being invaded under the pretext that it possesses weapons of mass destruction, enough to annihilate civilization, as we know it. You are gripped by fear, not fearing the harm of the alleged weapons, but the disastrous attack and occupation of a battered country, one that you often called the center of your civilization.

Then, since you are still an Arab, you watch giant multinational corporations flood Iraq, to buy and sell its oil without the consent of its people. In fact, you witness Israelis flooding the "center of your civilization", seeking cheap oil and demanding pipelines that would go through their ports.

Meanwhile, Israel still holds millions of your Palestinian brethren hostage to curfews and checkpoints amid the constant fears of endless deadly strikes and assassinations.

To your surprise, you learn that no weapons of mass destruction are even found in Iraq. You hear top American officials say that Saddam might have in fact destroyed his weapons prior to the invasion. You hear another say Iraq is swimming in oil. You knew it all along and were shunned when you tried to explain what you had discovered.

You watch thousands of right wing missionaries flooding the weakened Iraq, vowing to convert your people to a religion that is not theirs. Others call your prophet a "devil" and your religion "evil" and demand that your school curriculum change to fit the agenda of some think-tank 15,000 miles away from your home, alien to your culture, language and heritage.  

You learn of occupation soldiers mass raping your brothers and sisters in Iraq. The British daily mirror tells you that soldiers enjoyed themselves to the point that they took photos of raped men to commemorate the occasion, and were only uncovered by a chance.

You watch your people's history looted and set ablaze.

You cannot help but notice that American weapons were not only killing Iraqis, but Palestinians too. You learn that mostly American made weapons are the ones that claimed the lives of those Palestinian children you keep seeing on television.

You learned that the man who caused their death, Ariel Sharon has been granted a new title, "a man of peace" by President George Bush. You wonder if Bush realizes that Sharon's last nickname was the "Bucher of Beirut."

You try to escape. You invested in a small satellite dish and decide to watch mindless entertainment. To your surprise, you and your people are the hot topic for entertainment. In Hollywood, you are filthy, smelly, repulsive and backward. You deserve no respect. You are the bad "Ayrab", the devious womanizer whose death in the end of a movie must symbolize a happy ending. 

You try to once more escape, this time you run away from oppression, poverty and your bitter memories. You sneak into France, to Italy, to Spain, to Australia, to the US. You think your college degree will open doors for you. They are all sealed and you find your self handcuffed and "shipped" back.

You lose it one day, and escape to Tora Bora in Afghanistan with all the other "angry Arabs." They are all killed when a "war on terrorism" is declared. You find your way through Pakistani villages to your home country and there you are caught and tortured. Once you even cross the desert to Iraq. There you are killed. Your body is left on the road leading to Baghdad for days. 

Then your brother decides to chase after another destiny. He chooses another route for himself. He manages to live in the United States. He spends his nights writing letters to the editor expressing the rage you once felt. They are never published. He reflects on his feelings by keeping a journal filled with poetry, flags and pictures he draws of Palestinian children.

He hears US National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice threaten other countries in your region that they will be dealt with through a "made in America" solution.

Later that night, he watches a program aired by BBC called "Israel's Secret Weapons." The program says that Israel is the "world's sixth largest nuclear arsenal with small tactical nuclear weapons ... as well as medium-range nuclear missiles launchable from air, land or sea."

He also learns that Israel has undeclared biological and chemical capabilities and used an unknown gas against Palestinians in Gaza two years ago that sent hundreds of people to the hospital with severe convulsions.

No US official comments on the reports, except Mrs. Rice, who describes Israel as the United States' partner and exchanges friendly smiles and warm handshakes with those who developed such deadly agents when she is in Tel Aviv. Also, the overwhelming majority of the US Congress just finishes signing a letter to Bush demanding that he never pressure Israel.

Your brother writes a letter to the editor expressing his dismay, as he never did before. No one responds and the letter is never published. Instead, he resorts to his journal. He writes a poem filled with curses and angry phrases that didn't rhyme. 

I still cannot help but wonder: If you were an Arab, wouldn't you be angry?

Ramzy Baroud is the editor-in-chief of PalestineChronicle.com and the editor of the anthology entitled "Searching Jenin: Eyewitness Accounts of the Israeli Invasion," now available at: www.palestinebooks.com

To buy "Searching Jenin: Eyewitness Accounts of the Israeli Invasion"
CLICK HERE