From: martillo@nero.clearpoint.com (Joachim Carlo Santos Martillo Ajami)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.arabic,talk.politics.mideast
Subject: Re: WHERE DO THE "Druzes" COME FROM?
Date: 24 Jan 93 20:35:30 GMT
Followup-To: soc.culture.arabic,talk.politics.mideast
Organization: Clearpoint Research Corp., Hopkinton Mass.


   From: 9999sc01@uhdvx3.dt.uh.edu (Alexandre Khalil)

   >In article <13JAN199301140252@uhdvx3.dt.uh.edu> Alexandre Khalil writes:

   Initially, Tsiel Ohayon wrote

   [TO]  Druzes are not Arabs! They are a sect of their own.

   to which I answered

   [AK] From the Oxford English Dictionary, concise edition, 1982, reprinted 
	1985:

.
.
.

   to which Tsiel answered:

   >la Alex,

   >I 100% agree with your last sentence, but does it make the Druze Arabs?

This lack of sophistication of this discussion could fill the Rose
Bowl.  Ethnic/national/racial/religious identity are products which
ethnic/national/racial/religious advocates market to the benefit of
the advocate.  These products are like Coca-Cola in that in general
only the seller gets any benefit from the sale.

National identity as expressed in secular liberal democratic
nationalist concepts only dates to the late 18th century.  It has been
a total disaster practically everywhere but in Great Britain (and the
Irish might argue the point).  The basis for secular liberal
democratic nationalism really does not exist in the Arab-Islamic world
but this lack of basis has not prevented Arab and European
intellectuals from babbling incoherently about nationalism in the
Arab-Islamic world.

Historically and within the Arab-Islamic world, different national
identities have often been marketed to the same "national subgroup."

For example, among Arab people:

Advocates have tried to market Pan-Arab, Lebanese, Phoenician and
Syrian national identities to some or all the people in Lebanon.

Advocates have tried to market Pan-Arab and Egyptian national identity
to some or all the people in Egypt.

Advocates have tried to market Pan-Arab, Syrian and Palestinian
identity to some or all the Arabic speaking people from Palestine.

Advocates really don't necessarily confine themselves to marketing
national identity.

Advocates of pan-Islamist and Marxist identity have at times done
quite well for themselves among Arab people.

Similar ideological advocates have marketed Zionist, German, French,
religionist, Italian, Marxist and Egyptian (one of the early
ideologists of Egyptian nationalism was Jewish) identities to Jewish
people with varying degrees of success.

In any case, not all these identities are necessarily in conflict at
all times.  The same advocate can even sell more than one identity.

Amin Husseini at times marketed both Islamist and Palestinian
nationalist identity.

Sampson Raphael Hirsch marketed simultaneously assimilation to German
national identity and Jewish religionist identity.

This simultaneous selling of multiple identities represents a basic
marketing principle.  It is generally easier to capture 2% in each of
two separate markets than to capture 4% of a single market.

   >Arabs are a race and Druzes are a sect that is all I was saying too. The 
   >question is, are the Druzes of Arab Race? The OED definition do not seem 
   >to provide the answer. I also guess the term sect which I used was poorly 
   >chosen, maybe "ethnical entity" would have been more appropriate.

     Yes, the term sect was an unfortunate choice.  

     In addition, though you could speak of an Arab race and place under this 
   appellation the members ot the tribes inhabiting the Arabic peninsula at the
   time of Mohammad and their descendants,  I will use a different definition.
   Modern days Arabs do not define themselves on the basis of race but 
   rather on cultural and linguistic grounds.  This is the definition that I 
   will use.

   [AK] Aside from that, I have yet to meet a Druse who would not identify 
   [AK] him/herself as an Arab.  I trust that I will eventually find one, 
   [AK] somewhere, who will then be the exception that makes the rule. :)

   >I guess you know all the Druzes :-).

     Probably not, just many.

   >Now bring me proof that Druzes are Arabs and I will lay my case to rest.

     Using the above mentionned definition, I stand by my claim: all Druzes 
   that I have met have identified themselves culturally and linguistically as
   Arabs.

And this is just one ideological criterion from one "patent-identity"
salesman, so to speak.  Some Druze have bought this identity, some
have not.  Just like some Arabic-speaking people have bought into
Pan-Islamism and some have not.

   >Tsiel

   alex



-- 
Joachim Carlo Santos Martillo Ajami

The article represents noone's opinions other than the author's.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.arabic