Arabs and identity (1)

The first in a series of interviews with young Arabs in the diaspora, talking about their sense of identity, their thoughts on life in the west and feelings towards their homeland. 

First interview 
Second interview 
Third interview 

Originally published in Sharq magazine, May/April 2006.

Zahira Dahdul 

Age: 32 
Occupation: analyst 
Family status: married, with twin daughters aged two 
Country of origin: Palestine 
Nationality: American 
Current home: London 
Religion: Muslim

Her accent is unmistakable but it’s not Arab or Palestinian. Zahira Dahdul has lost count of the London cabbies who ask if she’s American.

“I say: ‘Yeah, I’m Palestinian-American’ and they say: ‘Oh, really?’ Then you get a million questions.

“I’ve had cab rides where we’ve stopped at the place where I’m going to and the driver has turned off the meter. They say; ‘Just five more minutes - I want to know this, this and this …’ and we’ve continued our discussion.

“If I’m not in the mood to talk so much I just say I’m American. But then they want to ask about the Iraq war.”

Zahira’s family came from a village near Ramallah. In the mid-1950s, sensing there was little prospect of bettering himself there, her father moved to Brazil - at first without his wife - and established a textile business.

Eventually the whole family settled in the United States where Zahira, the youngest of seven children, was born in 1974. Raised as an American citizen in California, she doesn’t recall how or when she first became conscious of her Palestinian identity; it was always there, she says - “We were the weird family on the block”.

But it was not just a matter of being different. She also became aware that her family’s anguish over events in the Middle East was not shared by the average American - especially when she graduated and started work for an investment bank in New York.

“The US media - particularly in New York because of the tabloids - are very, very anti-Arab,” she said. “They were anti-Palestinian before 9/11 and anti-Arab afterwards.

“I felt it was futile to even try to write to these papers. We were quite active before, and we tried to make a difference. During the intifada, before 9/11, there was more of a willingness to listen. ‘Listen’ meaning you might get a response to an email. After 9/11 it became harder to express yourself because you could understand why people were angry.”

Zahira herself witnessed the tragedy of the World Trade Center because she worked nearby.

“The building was connected to one of the towers and I was on the 27th floor. We were evacuated because a colleague had seen the explosion in the first tower. After running down the 27 floors and getting outside, we just stood there in shock  - hundreds of people watching. Then the second plane came and hit and we realised it could not have been an accident.

“There was very little information, no cellular service and there were lots of different rumours flying back and forth. Among them I remember hearing people say: ‘Goddam Arafat and those f---ing (that was the word they used) Palestinians’.”

In 2002, Zahira’s husband - a corporate lawyer - was offered a job in Britain and they moved to London.

“I feel much more at home here than in New York,” she said. “London is part of the world. New York is its own world.”

She has also noticed a “glaring” difference between the British and American media. “In Britain the media coverage, even Sky News, is better,” she said.

Perhaps because of that, she feels people in Britain are  better informed about Palestine. “They know where it is and what it’s about. If you say you’re Palestinian-American they understand.

“It’s refreshing. When I first moved here I was loving it. Every time I got into a cab I was thinking it’s hysterical that you can get into a political discussion with the driver. I’ve never had that kind of discussion in the States.

“There’s a lot of Arab cultural things that go on in London, too,” she said. “Opportunities that in New York weren’t so readily available. That’s another glaring difference.”

Zahira can foresee her twin daughters developing a Palestinian consciousness in London, just as she did in California.

“I think even if I don’t try it’s going to permeate through them. They’re two years old and the first song my husband taught them in Arabic was the Palestinian national anthem. It’s not a case of saying: ‘Oh, I want to teach them this song so they know about Palestine.’ It just happens. That’s why, as weak as we are in front of our enemies, we have something they can never take away from us.

“I have nieces and nephews, some that don’t speak Arabic, but they know everything that needs to be known about Palestine. Some have gone to Birzeit [the Palestinian university] to spend a year and learn more about it. So even if their parents didn’t consciously make sure that they know who they are and where they’re from, it permeates.”

Whether such dreams will lead anywhere is another matter. Zahira is far from optimistic about an end to the conflict with Israel in the near future.

“I think my daughters’ children will [still] be talking about this,” she said. “There’s really no hope. We’re just so far apart right now I don’t see how it’s going to get solved. I really don’t.

“It’s sad to say, but you have two unequal parties, The Israelis haven’t learned their lesson. If we were just going to cower and take what they dish out we would have done that 50 years ago - so unless they annihilate us, they have to deal with the fact that we’re there.”

Her feelings about the recent victory of Hamas in the Palestinian elections are mixed.

“Part of me was saying ‘Good!’ I don’t think Hamas won because it has this platform of destroying Israel, though of course that’s what the world is going to grasp onto. I think people voted for Hamas because we needed a change and it was not coming from anybody else. It was a protest vote against the corruption and the status quo.

“That’s my instant reaction. My other reaction is ‘Oh my God! Where is this going?’ and part of me worries about how it is going to affect society there. Every year when I go back society is moving closer and closer to religion. Before, Palestinian society was quite secular. But we’re powerless, so people are going to look to some kind of power [such as religion] to get them out of all this.”

Zahira’s consciousness of her Palestinian roots is stronger, in many ways, than her sense of belonging to a pan-Arab nation.

“I’m 50% American and 50% Palestinian,” she said. “For me, being Arab has more to do with the shared cultural values, the shared language, the way our families interact with each other, and the way our societies work than a nationalistic feeling about being Arab.

“My Lebanese friends, for example, have very similar family set-ups and cultural references. You can relate to one another because you understand it, but it’s not all positive.”

Among its good qualities, she appreciates the sense of security and belonging in Arab societies.

“Let’s say it you were on the street and somebody bothered you. You know in a second you’d have 50 people standing there ready to help you. Here, you can’t really say the same thing. I don’t mean that people in Britain will just look the other way, but in Palestine it’s a smaller society and people know who you are.”

Living in the west, though, she has seen the other side of the coin and recognises that Arab families can sometimes be overpowering. The family and its reputation come first and the desires of its members second.

“What attracts me to the British society and family structure is a respect for boundaries within your family unit - the respect for your individuality. The way you’re brought up in our culture is much more adhering to the family - the sense of responsibility towards family before your own wants and beliefs,” she said. “Here, you just do what you feel is right.”

In British and American society there is less need to conform for the sake of the family’s name or a belief that “this is the way things are done, so you should be doing it as well”.

Not that this has been a particular problem for Zahira herself. “I’m fortunate,” she said, “that I haven’t had to face a problem where I’ve had to choose between what I want to do for myself and what my family want for me.”

At home with her husband, Zahira uses a mixture of English and Arabic. She is trying to get her daughters to speak Arabic, “but it’s an uphill battle because it’s not my first language. My husband speaks to them in Arabic.”

On the whole, Zahira prefers English. “It’s just easier to say something in English than it is in Arabic. In Arabic you have to use three words for one in English.”

But there also times when English just won’t suffice.

“There are things that I have to use Arabic to express because there just isn’t the right phrase in English. It’s almost like every situation or emotion has a phrase to go with it. Arabic is so descriptive.

“If you want to describe a particular feeling or a particular situation … in Arabic there would always be a stronger way to say it. That’s where all the extra words come in - they give it the right punch.”

The ID test

After the interview we asked Zahira which of her various identities is most important to her. She numbered them in this order:

1=. Palestinian 
1=. American 
2. Woman 
3. Mother 
4. Wife 
5. Muslim 
6. Arab