Concerns of the Arab Community in the UK
A letter submitted to the Commission for Racial Equality
By Dr Ismail Jalili, NABA's Chairman
December 2002
The followings sums up the concerns of the British Arab community:
(1) The main concern of the community is the lack of public and official recognition of the phenomenon of Anti-Arabism as a form of racism. Indeed, we would argue that Anti-Arabism is the last socially, politically and even theologically acceptable form of racism. Since two-thirds of British Arabs are professing Muslims, and given the overlap between anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hostility, recognition of
Islamaphobia goes a small part of
the way to addressing this problem, but this ignores the many Arab Christians in the UK, and the racist, rather than sectarian character of anti-Arabism.
(2)
The The practicalities of this discrimination manifest themselves through the media, the entertainment industry, through
political marginalisation by the Government and political parties, hate speech and in economic discrimination.
(3)
Examples of media anti-Arabism can be demonstrated by headlines from The Daily Star such as ‘Murdered by Arab scum’, from The Sun such as ‘Arab pigs out of Britain’, or comments by The Sunday Times such as ‘Johnny Arab’, all of which incite racial hostility towards Arabs, stereotyping them as alien and murderous.
(4) The common language shared by the UK and USA allows Hollywood films and TV series to be screened in Britain which frequently feature distorted views of Arabs as having values alien to the West, being terrorists or sexual predators bent on molesting blonde White women, examples of which are films such as The Siege, Executive Decision, True Lies, Rules of Engagement and series such as The West Wing. Rarely if ever
does Hollywood present films or series featuring Arabs in a positive light. Thus, anti-Arab racist propaganda is directed to millions of Britons in a way that extreme right wing and Ku Klux Klan material never does. The British population is left with the impression that Arabs possess only negative characteristics and are both a terrorist and sexual threat to Westerners.
(5)
Marginalization Accompanies hostility - There are no Arab Parliamentarians in any UK body, including Westminster. There are fewer than five local
councillors – all this despite the fact that Arabs first arrived in Britain in the 19th century, and in spite of the fact that they have many professional people of great ability in their ranks. This means that the specific concerns of Britain’s half-million strong
Arab citizens generally goes unheard and unrepresented in electoral structures such as the Houses of Parliament, regional assemblies, county councils, local councils and the European Parliament.
6) Part of this
marginalization is that the Government never consults with the British Arab community when circumstances would naturally suggest it. For example, when Yasser Arafat first made an official visit, the then Home Secretary Douglas Hurd invited leading British Jews to meet him, but not British Arabs. After the events of 9/11, Premier Blair invited members of the British Muslim community for a press conference, but
ignored British Arabs as an ethnic community. Central government bodies make no provision for the funding of the British Arab community.
(7) Local councils and the census office do not generally include the classification ‘Arab’ in their ethnic monitoring. This results in a failure to allocate resources such as community centres for local Arabs, specifically youth and women’s outreach, and lack of funding for local Arab communities in general. Another problem is that often race policy negatively influences Arabs, since they are neither ‘Black’ (In the
sense of sub-Saharan Africans or African-Caribbeans), nor ‘Asians’ (in the sense of being from the sub-continent). Even describing them as ‘people of colour’ does not help, since some Arabs are very fair-skinned.
(8) In terms of socio-economic racism, in addition to the usual discrimination suffered by communities of non-European origin, Arabs face special aggravating factors such as violence as a result of foreign policy issues, e.g. tensions with Iraq or the effects of 9/11. There is also the influence of inter-ethnic racism, i.e. conflicts with other minorities.
(9) The issue of increasing racism and racial discrimination in appointments over the last decade, largely prompted by media attacks on Arabs over past few decades which project Arabs as greedy rich gamblers, backward Muslims and, more recently, terrorists who need to be punished by the democratic peace loving West. With the increasing possibilities of war against the Arab World (the US has declared that the agenda is beyond
Iraq) and since 11th of September, Arabs have become the pariah of the world and have experienced bias in employment above that of other ethnic groups (too rich, do not need to work and compete with our boys, backward Muslims, etc). It is not only biased against by selections committees but in promotions and awards. The highest unemployment among professions is amongst Arabs as shown by recent studies. The NHS is one example. There are several thousands Arab doctors in the UK many who have been bullied and blocked from progressing to consultant levels. Amongst
those who have become consultants, many have suffered undermining and marginalisation. Unfortunately, the bodies representing the professions have an inherited bias towards Arabs, namely several of the Royal Colleges and BMA.
In the light of these points, our suggestions are as follows:
(1)
The CRE should commission and publish a report on Anti-Arabism in Britain, and actively campaign against concrete forms of anti-Arab racial discrimination, both in terms of ‘hate speech’ and socio-economic factors. It should be made clear that anti-Arabism is as unacceptable as racism against Blacks, Jews and Asians.
(2)
As part of the latter, the CRE should advise the media on the sensitivities of anti-Arabism, encouraging positive articles
about Arabs, and prosecute papers and broadcasters when they engage in anti-Arabism.
(3) The CRE should encourage the Board of Censors to suggest changes to films that may incite anti-Arabism, failing which such films or TV series should be denied access to the UK. A code of conduct on the issue would be a useful tool to guide cinema chains, video firms and TV stations on the issue.
(4)
Political parties should be encouraged to select British Arabs as candidates at all levels. An immediate and easy course of action would be the raising of at least five British Arabs to the peerage by 2004, enabling them to represent the community in the House of Lords. The Government should also provide funding for national Arab organisations in the UK.
(5)
At times of tension in the Middle East, consultation between the Government and the British Arab community should be immediate, genuine and comprehensive.
(6)
All local government bodies should immediately introduce ethnic monitoring and classification, and consultation with Arab representatives should be regular.
(7) Funding for British Arab community centres, long neglected, should be implemented immediately as an emergency measure.
(8)
To assist this process, we suggest regular high-level consultations between the CRE and British Arab representatives, and with the Home and Foreign Offices. British Arabs should be actively encouraged to seek employment with the CRE.
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