Let’s banish the term ‘Arab world’. What does it mean anyway?

American University of Beirut

Neheda Barakat, in tghe Guardian, writes “With conflicts raging on in Syria, Palestine, Yemen and Iraq and a diaphanous calm in the rest of the Middle East, the language we use in covering this region is not only hindering our understanding of the issues, but it is also misguiding strategic policies. As a journalist covering international events, I have witnessed the narrative covering the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) recede to a thin crescent of one pan-ethnic group, primarily because they speak a dialect of Arabic. At the last count, 35 dialects of the Arabic language are spoken across the two regions.”

“In a recent discussion one person, referring to Iranians, used the term “Arab speakers”. I wanted to ask whether they were Dolby Digital or Stereo. Instead I pointed out that Iran’s language is Farsi. The BBC has an “Arab affairs” editor and it is not alone. Fellow journalists who are “internationalists” themselves make that mistake; politicians, commentators and academics as well. This language does nothing to inform and only perpetuates a phantom identity of “Arabs” and the “Arab world”. Both terms are widely used as blanket coverage of the populace in the MENA that displaces the indigeneity of “Arab” into a single basket that mashes 22 countries with a population of 381 million. (read more)