"As long as normative American political behavior is stigmatized as
anathema, political normalcy for Arab Americans, as a community, will
remain a distant dream. Self-imposed marginalization will persist. And
self-defeating Arab Americans will continue to regard "normalization"
not as a goal, but as the most damning of invectives." Hussein Ibish
Arab Americans Need Political Normalization
The Daily Beast (Opinion)
November 12, 2012 - 12:00am
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/11/12/arab-americans-need-political-normalization.html
Following the recent election, and noting the growing influence of
nontraditional power blocs such as Latinos, Arab Americans have again
raised the question of how they can become politically empowered. There
is only one answer: become politically "normal" Americans.
This seems simultaneously a provocative and absurdly facile response.
Who wants to be "abnormal?" The initial reaction might be outrage: in
what way are you suggesting we're not "normal Americans?" But for many
Arab Americans, especially as a collectivity, becoming politically
"normal"—successfully acculturated to and invested in the American
political system—is easy to endorse in theory but exceptionally
difficult to accomplish in practice.
Normalization means accepting that the system is open to all. There
are no laws preventing effective participation, and no candidates who
aren't responsive to the normal levers of influence: votes, money, time
and advocacy. But there is a self-defeating delusion prevalent among
many Arab Americans that they are uniquely excluded. Some identify
anti-Arab racism or Islamophobia as insurmountable barriers. Others say
our opponents are so powerful that we cannot be heard.
Moreover, the community is badly divided along numerous axes. Many
Arab Americans have imported political allegiances from the Middle East.
They identify primarily with organizations or constituencies in
Lebanon, Syria, Iraq or Palestine, rather than those here in the United
States, and formulate their policies accordingly. As my friend and
colleague Ziad Asali, President of the American Task Force on Palestine,
has pointed out, this is the equivalent of running into the middle of a
football game waving a tennis racket and expecting to affect the
outcome.Many Arab Americans left the Middle East precisely to get away from politics, where it has been a terrain of oppression, corruption and, above all, defeat...READ MORE
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