An Entire Post to Nona

Hey Nona, my response to you exceeded Blogger's alloted word-count for the comments thread; so there you go, you've earned yourself an entire post; don't you feel special? ;)

Anyhoo, just for the record, I wasn’t dwelling on anything and there isn’t much resentment in any facet of my life, professional, social, or otherwise. My abrasive style stems from exasperation, not resentment. Actually, save for shaky semantics, I don’t think there is much in terms of substance that I disagree with you on. I am a firm believer in elective and self-defined identities in their sublime anglo-french interpretations (and as such, I am completely with it when Palestinian, Jordanian, and other Levantine and Middle Eastern Christians and Jews flaunt their Arabness; whether real, imagined, fabricated, or constructed. By the same token, I object in the strongest terms to the sloppy and politically motivated inclusion of all Middle Eastern and Levantine Christians--and others as well--under the dubious label “Arab.” )

All I was doing in this post (and all I do in this blog) is point out the hypocrisy and sanctimony of “Others” in describing and dictating the history of other “Others” (the other “Others” in my case happen to be the Lebanese, and at times Lebanon’s Christians, as in my view they were the ones who brought modern Lebanon into being, and they are the ones most often targeted by thuggish possessive Arabists and their Western sympathizers.)

Pour en revenir à nos moutons, what I was doing in this post was simply marvel at how the exodus and marginalization of Middle Eastern Christians (and other non-Arab and non-Muslim minorities as well), 14 centuries in the making, is somehow attributed to the 11th century (delayed and defensive) Crusades, Israel, and often to those very indigenous wicked Christians and minorities themselves, rather than face and recognize the undeniable truth of the 7th Century Arab-Muslim conquest. And you don't have to take my word for this, Nona, read below, from the Brill Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics, under the heading Ethnicity and Language:

“Before the movement of the Arabs out of Arabia and across the Levant, Mesopotamia, and North Africa, the area now [mistakenly and misleadingly, lnh] called the “Arab world” had hosted many other cultures, including the Sumerians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Phoenicians, Ancient Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans [ahem, that’s Greeks and Romans, no less, lnh]. Before the arrival of Islam, it had seen the birth of Judaism and Christianity. The legacies of these pre-Islamic peoples and cultures did not all simply disappear with the advent of the Muslim Arabs.”

Let me repeat that last sentence, Nona, “The legacies of these pre-Islamic peoples and cultures did not all simply disappear with the advent of the Muslim Arabs.”

Now, I’m not arguing that some Levantine Christians do not view themselves as Arabs; as I agreed with you earlier, many do, and that’s their own prerogative, and I am not prescribing an identity for them other than the one they recognize for themselves and desribe (and even flaunt) to others. All I’m saying is that those who reject their imputed “Arabness” and hark back to pre-Arab ancestors (that is, the Copts, Maronites, Chaldaeans, Syriacs, others, and yes some--not all, some--Jordanian and Palestinian Christians) should not be dismissed or denigrated or marginalized or accused of treachery and disloyalty to Arabs (that is, تخوين, something most Lebanese Maronites are accused of. The funny thing that I often ask in this case is “how/why
should I be perceived to be “disloyal” to Arabism, if I'm not an Arab to begin with?" But anyway, that's another issue altogether; again, revenons à nos moutons.)

I appreciate the fact that you do not fall into the category of thuggish totalitarian Arabists, who argue that one is an Arab regardless of whether or not they recognize that putative Arabness (something I talk about at great length and ad nauseam in this blog.) I also respect the fact that you seem to find the Renanian identité elective (and some minorities’ harking back to pre-Arab progenitors) to be a reasonable impulse. However, that is not the traditional knee-jerk reductive Arabist view, and you’ll have to forgive my lashing out every so often at misleading Arabists and their Western sympathizers and facilitators when they use faulty semantics on that subject.... Your attitude, noble as it is, is belied by the Arabists’ different “truths”; “truths” incapable of recognizing the MIddle East’s diversity and the “non-Arabness” of the “Other.” For the rest, again, I don’t think there is much I can honestly disagree with you on, except perhaps, and again, that’s an issue of semantics not substance, that Arabists do paint Arabism and Arabness as an ethnicity, not merely a linguistic identity. (btw, the whole issue of language and what constitutes “the Arabic language” is another can of worms that, I'm sure, you and I will have much to disagree on, but again, this blog treats this at some length, and I suspect you know what I'm talking about.)

For now, allow me to leave with another priceless snippet from the Brill Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics:

If the Arab invasions are viewed as a flood arising in Arabia and engulfing the regions from Spain to the Indus, then in parts of these regions the floodwaters bearing Arabic and Islam seem to have entirely submerged what was there before, while other parts were not covered at all, forming islands. In still other places there was a mingling of the floodwaters with lakes or rivers already present, so that the boundaries between the two became fluid. Finally, in some places the floodwaters eventually receded so that lands once under water re-emerged, possibly showing residual effects of the flood. Some peoples of the region resisted the forces of Arabicization, Islamicization, or both; even among those who underwent both these processes, this was not always accompanied by a total abandonment of their earlier culture. Thus, there are still pockets across the Arab world using languages other than Arabic and practicing religions other than Islam, and there are still groups convinced that their ancestors belonged to a people different from those of their neighbors. The extent to which the various groups assert their distinctiveness may vary over time and in relation to circumstances, and individuals may also feel allegiance to more than one group, so that it may be necessary to recognize overlapping identities rather than ones that are wholly incompatible. Our concern here is with the relevance of language to these identities.