Those Arabs. They don’t have much to be proud about. Do they have beautiful women? We wouldn’t know – they’ve got them hidden behind veils.
Have they invented anything new lately? Not much. They didn’t even invent suicide bombing — that was invented by the Tamil Tigers.
Who are their great writers? Well, they’ve got this poet Adonis, but I haven’t heard of a J.M. Coetzee or a Toni Morrison or an Orhan Pamuk (Turkish, not Arab) sprouting from their ranks.
Do they have a great moral leader — a Gandhi, a Mandela, a Dr. King, some luminary who’s made a significant difference in Arabia in the last 50 years? No. They had a bunch of Saudi princes who used to gamble oil fortunes away in Monte Carlo a few decades ago. That’s about it.
Do they have a great artist — an Andy Warhol or a Damien Hirst or an Anselm Kiefer? Nope.
Do they have wonderful governments, who make good laws, serve their people well, and establish ways to run their societies that we can learn something from? Er, no. They’ve got theocracies and dictators who lock their people up and buy everyone off with oil money. In fact, in some oil-rich Arab states, the Arabs don’t work: they import Indians to manage the country and Philippinos to do the work.
Do they make good cars, or design fine fashion, or produce famous wines, or create great cheeses, or stage excellent theater, or come up with beautiful furniture?
Persian carpets. That’s what they do. They haven’t been able to add one more product to this lineup of one for the last eight thousand years. Unless you want to count belly-dancing.
I’m trying to think of famous contemporary Arabs besides blowhard politicos like whoever the Americans have put in charge of Iraq these days, or ideologues like Bin-Laden — and the only one I can think of is that Saudi prince who invests in the West and is stinking rich.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Pescadero Bill
Personal attacks are not allowed, so I'm wondering if calling you a racist idiot is allowed.
btw: sending a letter of complaint to your advertisers and urging the whole of the blogsphere to do the same.
2 - John Guilfoil
I am wondering what the point of or reason for this article is.
And Persian carpets are not Arab. They're PERSIAN.
Walk into Iran and call someone an Arab. See what happens.
3 - Dave Nalle
Those Arabs. They don't have much to be proud about. Do they have beautiful women? We wouldn't know - they've got them hidden behind veils.
Not in Lebanon, and not in other parts of the Arab world or outside of the Arab world, historically. There are many remarkably good looking women from Arabia or of Arab descent. Ever heard of Shannon Elizabeth or Salma Hayek or Shakira? Those three alone pretty much establish Arab women as pretty damned good looking.
Have they invented anything new lately? Not much. They didn't even invent suicide bombing â€" that was invented by the Tamil Tigers.
They kind of have some credit in this department, having invented astronomy and our basic system of mathematics. Ever heard of Al Gebra? But if you want a modern contributor, are you aware that Steve Jobs is a first generation Arab-american?
Who are their great writers? Well, they've got this poet Adonis, but I haven't heard of a J.M. Coetzee or a Toni Morrison or an Orhan Pamuk (Turkish, not Arab) sprouting from their ranks.
Do you read Arabic? If not, how do you know if they have great writers and poets? And they certainly had them in the past. Are you familiar with Omar Khayyam? I'd hope so. Or more recently, perhaps Kahlil Gibran? For more authors, philosphers and policiticans check out the biography section on Salaam.
Do they have a great moral leader â€" a Gandhi, a Mandela, a Dr. King, some luminary who's made a significant difference in Arabia in the last 50 years? No. They had a bunch of Saudi princes who used to gamble oil fortunes away in Monte Carlo a few decades ago. That's about it.
Really? Check this article on Sufism and its modern influence. While there is no single dominant Sufi figure, the overall influence of the philosophy is very positive.
Do they have a great artist â€" an Andy Warhol or a Damien Hirst or an Anselm Kiefer? Nope.
Andy Warhol is a great artist? If you like Warhol maybe you'd like Dubai artist Najat Makki.
Do they make good cars, or design fine fashion, or produce famous wines, or create great cheeses, or stage excellent theater, or come up with beautiful furniture?
Actually, at one time Beirut was a center for fashion design, and interior designers are quite fond of north african furniture.
Persian carpets. That's what they do. They haven't been able to add one more product to this lineup of one for the last eight thousand years. Unless you want to count belly-dancing.
No, Persian carpets are NOT what they do. Persians are not Arabs.
I'm trying to think of famous contemporary Arabs besides blowhard politicos like whoever the Americans have put in charge of Iraq these days, or ideologues like Bin-Laden â€" and the only one I can think of is that Saudi prince who invests in the West and is stinking rich.
You may be having some trouble with this because a lot of their best and brightest have moved to the west and often changed their names.
Have they got a Michael Jackson or a Bruce Springsteen? Maybe they do, but he's not trying to sell his records all over the world, is he? An isolated lot, those Arabs.
You can buy music from all the top Arab musicians on Amazon and some of them do quite well there. And actually, they DO have Michael Jackson. He lives in the UAE now and good riddance.
And how about the great Arab-American musicians. Ever heard of Dick Dale (actually, you probably haven't, but you should have). Maybe you've heard of Frank Zappa or Shakira?
To get really shallow, have they got a famous international film star?
You did mention Omar Sharif. I'll add academy award winner F. Murray Abraham, the hot actresses I've already mentioned and Tony Shaloub.
Heck, I'm trying, I'm really trying to think of great Arabs. Or great things they've done. Or great achievements.
Not terribly damned hard, I'd say. By the numbers they've probably contributed as much to the arts and literature as any other ethnic group. And remember, Arabs as a group are a much smaller population than the entire population of Islam.
Dave
4 - Dave Nalle
Personal attacks are not allowed, so I'm wondering if calling you a racist idiot is allowed.
Well, when it's supported by direct evidence like this article it might get a pass.
btw: sending a letter of complaint to your advertisers and urging the whole of the blogsphere to do the same.
They're not HIS advertisers. This is a group blog - rather like a magazine. The advertisers advertise on blogcritics and have no association with the content.
As for the article, he's amazingly ignorant, but I'm not sure he's actually being racist. He's just trying to make a point about the degeneration of Arab culture into the mob mentality, and though I think much of what he says is idiotic, the basic point he ultimately makes is a good one.
Dave
5 - Jamie Farr
For an ignorant prick, you sure are verbose.
6 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Boy, Adam;
The Arabs did us all a huge turn by providing and atmosphere that allowed for the development of chemistry and mathematics, not to mention preserving the science of the Greeks. One of the most revered of Jewish scholars, Maimonides, wrote his texts in Arabic, the language spoken in Spain, Yemen, Egypt, and Israel at the time.
Maybe a pretty face or a best selling author is more important to you than what the Arabs contributed to civilization, but I'll take the scholarly development over the pretty face any day of the week.
They have had their butts kicked all over the place by the decline of their civilization, and it is a damned shame that the Wahhabis have poisoned Islam the way they have.
But they do not deserve the drivel that you have written about them.
The first thing you need to learn about an enemy is respect. That will keep you alive. In time, you may be able to turn that enemy into a friend.
7 - Hello
yuore wrong as always ADAMN ASH
8 - Nancy
Not to mention the art, architecture, jewelry - heck, even the food. Arabs were also key to the entire western civ spice trade. As for great historical figures, there's Saladin (altho he may actually be ethnic Kurdish), and then there's one Muhammad, aka The Prophet; considering he has had profound influence on a couple billion folks thru the centuries, I'd say he qualifies, no?
9 - Apollo
Maybe Adam should take time to read the Book he has recommended with this post.
plus he has made some mistakes too. The zero and the Modern numeral system was invented by the Indians and the Arabs themselves acknowledged it by calling them as Hindu numerals. Since it reached the west through the Arabs it came to be known there as Arabic numerals.
The Gunpowder, compass etc... all reached the West via the Arab world.
Ok now they have lost their glory but that is not reason enough to imply that they are capable of nothing. perhaps they could well make it again.
10 - Abdul Alhazred
I wrote the Necronomicon, you wrote a misinformed blog. Who's great now?
11 - Dave Nalle
Well, you're a fictional character and he's a real person. That gives you a bit of an edge.
Dave
12 - Adam Ash
Just trying to amuse, folks, that's all. Maybe it should've been listed as satire.
But the Arabs are, let's face it, going through their Dark Ages. Until they reach an Enlightenment of some sort, we'll have to face up to the fact that we're dealing with a lot of dysfunctional societies. And if poor Lebanon hadn't gotten bombed by the Israelis, they were looking well on their way to becoming a role model for the rest of the Arabs.
Unfortunately even the one democracy in the Middle East, Israel, is not all that that much of a role model, although the Arabs can learn a lot from Israel's entrepreneurship, vitality, universities, educational standards, regard for women, and general cultural openness to the rest of the world -- but not from its militarism.
13 - pleasexcusetheinteruption12
ugh
14 - jack e. jett
let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.
(not the guy who arrested mel gibson)
jej
15 - Adam Ash
I've been thinking hard about being called a racist, and yes, I think the charge is correct as far as my rant went.
But it's interesting to think why that is. If I'd called the Arabs a bunch of sexist, fundamentalist, totalitarian, anti-Semitic, loony suicide bombers, would people call me racist?
"Racist" applies because I called the Arabs culturally underdeveloped. Seems you can accuse people of many things, but if you attack their culture, you're racist.
As it is, I think the world would've been a culturally poorer place without the Arabs, but I also think they're at a crossroads and have to work harder at joining the rest of the world, checking up what other cultures are up to (fewer books get translated by Arabs in a decade than the Portuguese do in a year), and stop being anti-modernist -- if they don't want to be mired in a stultification.
16 - Matthew T. Sussman
Those dirty Phoenicians. What have they done for us lately?
17 - r
I know where this is going. This is the "Jews are superior to Arabs therefore they can steal Arab land and enslave the Middle East" argument that I see again and again and again. They go on about how humanity owes so, so much to the Jews and so, so little to the Arabs so we owe the Jews some Arab land.
Interesting that these Arabs who supposedly produce nothing of value have their countries demolished by Israel or on Israel's orders. It seems that Israel doesn't like seeing any kind of prosperity or production out of Arab countries at all. Israel has this insane mentality, perhaps captured in a quote such as "We must destroy them because one day in a million years, they might destroy us". Israel is a cancer, always was and it is proud of its role. Israel is a criminally insane country that ought to be restrained as such and not have its insanity pandered to again and again.
The victims of the maniac are always blamed because "you should know better than to annoy the maniac". It's about time that something is done about the maniac, isn't it.
18 - Martin Lav
General John Abizad
Casey Kasam
Paul Anka
Danny Thomas
Doug Flutie
Barney Miller ???(thought he was, but maybe not)
Jacque Nasser (Ford Motor Co.)
Ralph Nadar
19 - DrPat
Perhaps a distinction should have been made between the cultural group, the religious sects and the racial sub-group.
However ill-presented, though, it does contain a kernel of justified wonder that the region's former wealth of ideas and inventions seems to have declined in proportion as Islam has been accepted.
20 - Martin Lav
No not really, only in proportion to the development of their oil reserves and subsequent wealth distribution disruption as a result of the West.
21 - A. H. in Pittsburgh
As a jew, I grew up believing in the superiority of my religion/ethnic group. We drained the swamps and made the desert bloom etc. However, now I know that artists, writers and movie stars, the markers of wealth and culture are dependent on the stability that comes from good governance. The lack of this artifact has very little to do with ethnicity.
I also used to believe that we Jews were rightous and did no wrong. It was the for the Christians and Muslims to act like animals while they ground us underfoot for centuries. I now understand that repressive behavior is a conditioned response many societies have to power. Israel does brutilize the Palestinians and Lebonese and probabily anyone else if it came to it. It makes me sad to think that we have already forgotten how much it hurts to get kicked.
But if Israel is a "maniac" then its because of the psychological torture inflicted by the rabid hatrid from the sea of hostile Arab neighbors. From the moment of its foundation, Israel has been under consistant pressure to defend itself and if her enemies had even for a moment the power to destroy her, it would have already been done (by destroy I mean the end of a Jewish state). I invite anyone to tell me that I'm wrong. Blaming Israel as the sole agressor isnt just plain wrong, its also counter productive since this unilateral anger only re-inforces Israel's perceived desperation and paranioa, leading to more maniac behavior.
Aside.
Despite all that has gone on since intifada II, I believe peace is still within reach. We've regressed some but things have been worse. We are missing strong leadership and some of that good governance to make that final leap.
22 - troll
Martin - the centuries of oppression of Arabs under the Ottoman Empire had little to do with oil or the West
troll
23 - Victor Plenty
That can't be right. The West is the source of all evil, e.g., Miracle Whip.
Q.E.D.
24 - troll
Victor - I have it on good authority that the newly discovered secret writings of Archimedes is in fact an early recipe for MW
troll
25 - Clavos
Didn't he use it to lubricate the screw?