Rebranding ourselves as “Arabs” in the new Trump era
Why Arabs need to reinforce their identification as “Arabs” rather than as Muslims in the new era of President Donald Trump. Branding ourselves as Arabs will also help us fight the religious extremists and counter the rising anti-Muslim fears in the West and in the United States
Arab News Thursday November 17, 2016
By Ray Hanania
It’s time for the Arab World and Arab people to rebrand themselves in the era of newly elected President Donald Trump if we expect to see our issues addressed fairly.
Arabs can sit back and let events overtake us the way they always do. Or, we can become active and do what needs to be done that we haven’t done so far.
What can we do? We need a new Arab Spring, one driven by people with a clear, unified and achievable goal.
We need to replace emotion with reason, effective communications messaging, and goals that are more clearly defined to build bridges, not create obstacles with the West.
Arabs need to stop allowing others to define us. We need to define ourselves. And we have to answer a very important question: Are we “Muslim,” or are we “Arab?”
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Ray Hanania is an award winning political and humor columnist who analyzes American and Middle East politics, and life in general. He is an author of several books.
Hanania covered Chicago Politics and Chicago City Hall from 1976 through 1992 at the Daily Southtown and the Chicago Sun-Times. He began writing in 1975 publishing The Middle Eastern Voice newspaper in Chicago (1975-1977). He later published “The National Arab American Times” newspaper (2004-2007).
Hanania writes weekly columns on Middle East and American Arab issues as Special US Correspondent for the Arab News ArabNews.com, at TheArabDailyNews.com, and at SuburbanChicagoland.com. He has published weekly columns in the Jerusalem Post newspaper, YNetNews.com, Newsday, the Orlando Sentinel, Houston Chronical, and Arlington Heights Daily Herald.
Hanania is the recipient of four (4) Chicago Headline Club “Peter Lisagor Awards” for Column writing. In November 2006, he was named “Best Ethnic American Columnist” by the New American Media. In 2009, Hanania received the prestigious Sigma Delta Chi Award for Writing from the Society of Professional Journalists. He is the recipient of the MT Mehdi Courage in Journalism Award. He was honored for his writing skills with two (2) Chicago Stick-o-Type awards from the Chicago Newspaper Guild. In 1990, Hanania was nominated by the Chicago Sun-Times editors for a Pulitzer Prize for his four-part series on the Palestinian Intifada.
His writings have also been honored by two national Awards from ADC for his writing, and from the National Arab American Journalists Association.
Hanania is the US Special Correspondent for the Arab News Newspaper, covering Middle East and Arab American issues. He writes for the Southwest News newspaper group writing on mainstream American issues.
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