Racism in the Middle East region has several different forms, some that have existed for centuries, and some that have been intensified as a result of colonisation. I would argue that this is because the definition of racism in the Middle East region differs from that of other regions, especially the west because it’s not limited to the black and white race, but just about any socially constructed race, of which there are many in the region.Β In the Middle East, mainly the Arab world, even though in one ethnicity people may have different skin colours, they are still considered one race. This has given way for racism to emerge and mutate in various ways.
While race in many parts of the world focuses on the colour of someone’s skin, in this region and specifically the Arab world, racism and race are not limited to skin colour. The reason for this is because race is often confused with ethnicity, where people of a specific ethnicity have been grouped together as one separate race because of other similarities that range from physical features like body shape to cultural factors like language, accent, tribe, etc. Moreover, in Arabic, the word ΨΉΩΨ΅Ψ±ΩΨ© (‘unsuriyah) can mean racism, or any sort of prejudice including prejudice towards other ethnicities or tribes. Thus, both race and racism have different meanings in the region.
This has led to racism and prejudice between several different groups such as but definitely not limited to; Arabs and Turks, Arabs and Persians, Shamis (the Levant) and Khaleejis (the Gulf), North Africans and Shamis, North Africans and Khaleejis. These are some examples of clashes between groups in the MENA region. When examining them closely, we can see that a lot of them are based on their understanding of race. Both the Turks and the Arabs seem to be very proud of their ethnicity, culture, and history, thus both groups believe that they are superior. A lot of Arabs believe that Turks look down on them as barbaric nomads, and a lot of Turks do actually hold that belief to this day, accompanied by Turks labelling themselves as white Europeans (while still being proud of being Turk) so they are just as superior as the Europeans commonly believed they were. This goes back to the Western view on race, which is that it is based on skin colour.
One of my personal experiences, when I was in Turkey years ago, illustrates this. In 2016, my family and I went to Istanbul, Turkey, and it was just my parents and me. My mom is quite pale, which is where I get my paleness from, while my dad has darker tanned skin. We were in a mall and this Turkish lady at a cosmetics shop starts speaking to my mom and I in Turkish so we told and gestured to her that we do not speak Turkish, and so she understood and started to speak to us in English. A few minutes later my dad came, and when she understood that he was my dad she said “Wow this your dad? He is very dark, it is good you look like your mom.”. She then tried to sell him some skin lightening cream which he politely declined. After that whole experience was over, besides the obvious racism of her looking down on my dad for being “very dark” and then offering him skin lightening cream, I realised that the reason she started speaking to my mom and I in Turkish is because she equated us being pale white to us being Turks. When I came back home and told some of my friends and family what happened, the ones who have gone to Turkey before said that they have experienced this form of racism as well.Β This example of larger conflicts between two different ethnicities that are based on race can be translated into smaller examples of racism within the same group, since as Arabs we faced this Turkey, then many non-white Turks probably go through this a lot more causing racist conflicts between Turks themselves.
The former example of racism is based on the idea that race is connected to skin colour only, however as previously mentioned, there are other forms of racism in the region that are not based on skin colour and one case demonstrating this is the racial conflict between Arabs and Persians. Historically, Arabs and Persians have never really liked each other with each side claiming that they are superior. So when some Arabs migrated to Persia around the 16th century, the Persians did not welcome them, and thus they were segregated in specific areas in Iran. This led to them forming their own culture and even their own dialect of Persian, both of which were influenced by their Arab origins. Around two centuries later in the 19th century, many of the Arab-Persians (also called Huwala) left Iran back to the Arabian peninsula. Iran’s Reza Shah treated them even worse, and so by the 1930s, most of them left Iran. Persians often looked down on them because of their Arab ancestry, and when they arrived in the Arabian Gulf, they noticed that the Arabs also looked down on them but it was for being Persian. Racism against Arab-Persians is very common and often unspoken about, as many Arab-Persians have tried to let go of their ancestry and assimilate into the dominant culture in their regions, whether be it the Arabian Gulf or Iran. Since this form of racism isn’t really based on skin colour, it wasn’t that hard for them to assimilate, because what made them stand out wasn’t their physical features (or at least for the most part it wasn’t but there are cases of people looking either ‘too Persian’ or too ‘Arab), it was mostly their family names, their family’s culture, and their accents when speaking either Arabic or Farsi. So the larger conflict between Arabs and Persians manifested itself into smaller forms of racism against Arabs who have Persian ancestry and Persians who have Arab ancestry.
This week’s discussion about racism in the Middle East has shown me that racism in the region still exists because of our society’s grip on certain races being superior that they are unwilling to let go of. As portrayed in this blog post, people in the region like to identify where people are ‘originally’ from, just to stereotype and Other them. They tend to hold on to a certain idea of what a perfect or ideal “Arab” or “Turk” or “Persian” is, and when you don’t meet those expectations, you are immediately seen as an outsider. When the real question shouldn’t be about someone’s ethnic origin, rather we should question what exactly is an Arab? A Turk? A Persian? There doesn’t seem to be an exact and simple answer.