I was recently talking with a close Arab friend of mine, who is also Lebanese Syrian, about the atrocities being committed by Israel against the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Among the different things we discussed, he mentioned something that didn’t sit well at all with me. He said
“The Arab people need to stop fighting amongst each other. They need to learn how to band together.”
When I asked him to clarify what he meant by this, he gave me the example of what amounts to different religious groups fighting and bickering over difference. Fights between Sunni and Shiia Muslims, between Muslims and Catholics, Christians, between Arabs from different countries etc.
But these are all things I have heard before, things that some Black people say about their own communities in the West. And what is that but internalized white supremacy and colonialism, “The reason these people aren’t succeeding is because they don’t know how to work together”. It can’t be because they have been subjugated over decades, their countries and resources pilfered and invaded by European and Western imperial powers, their innocents slaughtered, their governments bought and used as pawns to further the interests of the West. No, it has to be because they lack the know how to start and finish a group project.
Nevermind that it is a hallmark of Capitalism to place individual blame for systemic problems, whether that blame is on a specific person or a particular group of people. It all sounds the same “The reason you are failing is because of you. Because you don’t want it bad enough, and aren’t working hard enough”.
But this kind of internalized hatred and loathing for one’s own is much more related to the fact that marginalized people and communities are still suffering the injustices of colonialism, that were brought down upon our ancestors. How can we even begin to organize when we are trying to figure out rules that were made to benefit a certain class and race of people, while actively shutting others out? How can we work to build generational wealth when so many of us have been displaced by war? How can we hope to build positive and nurturing relationships with family and friends when we are bogged down by the trauma of war and poverty?
When we are constantly struggling to survive and operate on mechanisms that lock us into fear circuit then much if not all of our actions are concerned with the short term. I’ve had enough conversations with friends and family members who survived war, live in poverty and struggle with both mental and physical illnesses, to know better. We are so caught up and concerned with how to make it through the day, through the week, through the month, to realistically plan for the future.
And of course this doesn’t apply to all of us. Some were lucky, and they were able to strike while the iron was hot. Some, but not many at all. It just so happens that those who are well off also have a close proximity to whiteness. Whether it’s the color of their skin, or the social circles they keep, they are usually people who have had to suppress or turn their backs on aspects of our culture that make us who we are. Otherwise known as sellouts.
Sellouts, with their proximity to whiteness, are very quiet about the struggles of their brethren. And because of their luck they’ve also bought into the idea of meritocracy, “If I can do it then so can you! And if you’re doing it then it’s because you’re not working hard enough”. What a load of crap.
The funny thing about it is how this message spreads, not just among the sellouts, but among other white people. Since sellouts will typically hang in close proximity to other “successful” white people, they are seen as those “model minorities”, another myth. But a myth that gets promoted on the basis of shady anecdotal evidence. Where everybody in that circle is convincing themselves and each other of the other myth of meritocracy.
And I’m not saying, by any means, that hard work isn’t important! Or that Arabs, like many other people, don’t have work to do. But this whole bullshit idea that we’re just not pulling ourselves up hard enough by our bootstraps is so god damn toxic, naive, and just plain stupid. It ignores and flat out denies the nuance needed to understand systemic issues that actively and violently make it difficult for us to connect and rise up.
Look at what happened with the Arab Spring, which had the potential of being such a strong turning point for so many of us. It was quickly squashed, quite violently, by Arab governments living on the dime of the west. Control your people or we will control them for you. We will even supply you with the weapons to squash any uprising and resistance, so that we can keep operating business as usual.
Capitalism NEEDS a vast oppressed class of people, BIPOC of course, upon which to stand, because without us it would crumble. As a bargain, some will be allowed to climb the ranks, in order to keep up the myth of meritocracy and the model minority. But for the majority, it’s dangling that carrot in front us like donkeys. Keep working hard, keep trying, and the reason you’re not succeeding to organize and get ahead…well that’s because you’re just not working hard enough, and you don’t want it bad enough.
In the mean time until Arabs stop fighting among each other, the Empire says, we will continue to bomb your countries, pilfer your resources, buy out and threaten your governments, deny your visas, and keep you gasping for air, while we parade the facade of civilized nations.