This post is occasioned by a recent exchange between a lady participant at one of John Mc Cain’s town hall meetings. The lady asked if Barack Obama was an Arab. Several pundits have suggested that she actually meant to ask whether he is a Muslim. Anyway, John assured her that Barack was a “decent, family man”. My little knowledge of logic at least does not permit me to go from. “Barack is not an Arab”, and “Barack is a decent family man” to jump to therefore, “Arabs are not decent or family people”. However, many people could easily make that inference, I am not accusing McCain for sending such a message, as usual he just blurted out his response.
So who are Arabs? I asked my daughter, who is quite knowledgeable on such subjects, and she said descendants of Ishmael. The conventional wisdom is that Arabs are descendants of Ishmael. However, Ishmael lived about 1800 years BC, or 3800 years ago. In that span of time his progeny could certainly spread throughout the world, and identifying if one is an ancestor of Ishmael, would be virtually impossible. Maybe you are an Arab! I don’t know what the science of DNA is capable of (it wasn’t too successful in the OJ case!), but not having Ishmael’s DNA makes the use of such scientific wizardry mute. It is because of this problem – tracing the ancestory - that the definition of an Arab has changed. Currently(?) an Arab is considered a descendant of nomadic tribes that lived in the northern areas of the Arabian peninsula. This places the start of a new concept for what defines an Arab at around 700 AD. But the same problem still exists. How do you determine of you are an ancestor of the tribes of northern Arabia? Therefore, an even more current test for determining if you are an Arab consists of meeting one of three criteria. (a) Genealogical, basically the test of the previously mentioned definition, again this criteria is hard to apply for the very reason mentioned above. (b) Linguistic, are you a citizen of a country that uses the Arabic language as the official language, or is Arabic the language commonly used in the country. Religion is not a criterion that determines who is an Arab, but it is generally regarded that Egyptian Copts, even though the language of Egypt is Arabic are not considered Arabs. Other Egyptians are considered Arabs. (c) Cultural, does a person identify with the culture that is associated with being an Arab. Of these three criteria the one that is most definitive is the linguistic one, and the one in making a determination in most cases.
So, is Barack Obama an Arab? His mother was born in Kansas. Kansasans don’t speak Arabic, so he doesn’t qualify on the maternal side. His father was a Kenyan. The official language of Kenya is Swahili or English. Again, he doesn’t qualify on the paternal side. Sorry madam, he ain’t.
3 comments:
I wondered about the logic of that comment too, but I don't imagine that logic is the forte of his questioner. And the whole discussion reminds me that ethnicity is for the most part a social construction.
I have several ideas about McCain's rejoinder. This all happened during the time his campaign was getting a lot of guff about the negative, in fact scurilous, content of his ads. He may have wanted to distance himself from that posture. so his immediate response was "he is decent, etc.", not realizing
that some could incorrectly infer that Arabs are not decent. Had he paused a moment before giving his
answer, he might have said. "Madam, your question leaves the impression that being an Arab is anunwholesome thing. Let me assure you that both Barack Obama and Arabs, generally, are decent .....".
Another, less than charitable interpretation, may be that John himself has no use for Arabs and his
answer reflected that feeling.
Interestingly, Colin Powell in the comments he made after endorsing Obama said being a Muslim did not disqualify a person from being president of the USA. That what America is all about.
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