Being an Arab is a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, being an Arab ensures having a beautiful language, a diverse religious community and never ending art, music and literature. On the other hand, being an Arab living in Europe or North America (or the Middle East) during the post-September 11th era is rather tricky; Muslim, and non-Muslim, Arabs are often labeled and treated based on a false prejudice that has been aided by biased media.
Prejudice is dangerous. It encourages ignorance and leads to violence, as seen in the case of the Chapel Hill murder; Craig Stephen Hicks, a forty-six year old strict atheist, shot and killed three innocent college students of Muslim Arab descent. This recent hate crime serves as an example of the violence directed at young Arabs and the indifference of Western media when such heinous actions are committed.
Yet, prejudice is not the only problem facing Arabs nowadays. The unstable and incredibly dangerous state of the Arab countries in the Middle East leaves millions of Arabs, such as myself, constantly afraid and worried. Similar to Iraq, the tragic fall of Syria to the Islamic State and another corrupt government, the Assad Government, resulted in the flee of millions of refugees to neighbouring countries where they were offered asylum, but who were then treated with hostility. Egypt has gone from a three-decade long corrupt leadership, to a short lived Islamic regime, to a military dictatorship. Lebanon still faces domestic conflict due to its politicians who use the method of ‘divide and rule,’ as the Palestinian-Israeli conflict reached a dead end.
During such times, where the Arab world seems to have gotten everything wrong, one should question the reasons behind the fall of these countries, the role foreign countries play in such a situation and the global community’s indifference.