In the Arab world, racism targets black Arabs, and non-Arab ethnic minorities such as sub-Saharan Africans, Berbers, the Saqaliba, Southeast Asians, Druze, Jews, Kurds, Copts, Assyrians, Persians, and South Asians living in Arab countries of the Middle East. Arab racism also targets the expat majority of the Arab states of the Persian Gulf coming from South Asian (Sri Lanka, Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh) groups as well as Black, European, and Asian groups that are Muslim.
Racism in the Arab world has been linked to notions of Arab supremacy, manifesting in various forms of discrimination against non-Arab communities. Historically, this has included the marginalization of groups such as the Berbers in North Africa, Kurds in the Middle East, and Black Africans, like Masalit and Dinka in countries, like Sudan.
The previously taboo topics of race and racism in the Arab world have been explored more since the rise of foreign, private, and independent media. In one example, Al-Jazeera's critical coverage of the Darfur crisis led to the arrest and conviction of its Khartoum bureau chief.Middle East report: Issues 234-235; Issues 237-241, Middle East Research & Information Project, 2005, p. 54, p 32 The Darfur conflict has been characterized by racially motivated violence, with reports indicating that Arab militias, such as Janjaweed, targeted non-Arab ethnic groups, leading to allegations of ethnic cleansing and genocide.
History
Medieval Arab attitudes to Black people varied over time and individual attitude, but tended to be negative. Though the Qur'an expresses no racial prejudice, ethnocentric prejudice towards black people is widely evident among medieval Arabs, for a variety of reasons: their extensive conquests and slave trade; the influence of Aristotelian ideas regarding slavery, which some Muslim philosophers directed towards Zanj and the influence of Judeo-Christian ideas regarding divisions among humankind. On the other hand, the Afro-Arab author Al-Jahiz, himself having a Zanj grandfather, wrote a book entitled Superiority of the Blacks to the Whites, and explained why the Zanj were black in terms of environmental determinism in the "On the Zanj" chapter of The Essays. By the 14th century, a significant number of slaves came from either West or Central Africa; Lewis argues that this led to the likes of Egyptian historian Al-Abshibi (1388–1446) writing that "[i]t is said that when the [black] slave is sated, he fornicates, when he is hungry, he steals."
Some charge that "ultra-Arabism and Jihadism have been responsible for widespread persecution and genocide." such Saddam's using chemical weapons and gas against the Kurds during the bombings of Halabja in northern Iraq. "The Kurds, a non-Arab people whose language belongs to the Iranian group, have suffered from persecution under the Baath of Iraq and Syria, especially since the departure of British and French forces in the late 1940s." (Kurds are also claiming rights in Iran and Turkey.) The Berbers, the pre-Arab native peoples of North Africa, have been victimized by the Arabs in North Africa.The Confrontation: Winning the War Against Future Jihad, p. 109, by W. Phares, Macmillan, 2009. , 978-0-230-61130-6 https://books.google.com/books?id=DTc2ACWFt18C&pg=PA109
There are historic racial divisions, racial and religious prejudices in Iraq, including on Kurds, on Shia and the Marsh Arabs.John Burns Q and A: Ending the War in Iraq – NYTimes.com Sep 29, 2009
Author draws parallel between Arab nationalism and Turkish nationalism, both were "likewise evolving into the "racial" stage, the ideal being a great "Pan-Arab" empire, embracing not merely the ethnically Arab peninsula-homeland, but also the regions of Mesopotamia, The Levant, Egypt, Tripoli, North Africa and the Sudan."The New World of Islam by Lothrop Stoddard, 2009, History, p. 201 , The Middle East, abstracts and index, Part 4 about "Jihadi Movements Worldwide: Abstracts & Documents", p. 1111, from Library Information and Research Service Published by Northumberland Press, 2004
A writer on the Durban conference regarding racism suggests: That stressing out that "Arabism is racism" would have been an interesting debating topic. Yet, he adds that "the OIC countries were very clever in how they deflected the slavery issue that could so easily have been turned on them with a vengeance."Out of step: life-story of a politician : politics and religion in a world at war by Jack Brian Bloom, Indiana University, p. 112
Some Muslim activists have also expressed that "Arabism is racism, pure and simple."Africa events, Volume 7, published by Dar es Salaam Ltd., 1991, p. 21 There was Sheikh Mustafa al-Maraghi, who in a famous 1938 essay dismissed the goal of [pan] Arab unity as racist.
Arab Muslim authors in "Arab-Iranian relations": Much ink has flowed on the issue of Arab nationalism. Some people believe it to be a racist movement, advocating the superiority of the Arabs.Arab-Iranian relations By Khair el-Din Haseeb, K. Haseeb, Markaz Dirāsāt al-Waḥdah al-Arabīyah, Beirut, Lebanon, published by Centre for Arab Unity Studies, 1998, p. 368
Ali A. Allawi, the former Iraqi Minister of Defense and Finance, envisioning a peaceful Iraq: "Arabism, racism and sectarianism – would be dethroned. Iraq would be at peace with itself and with its region."Ali A. Allawi, The occupation of Iraq: winning the war, losing the peace p. 438
In 1960's, the French Comite d' Action de Defense De- mocratique published a pamphlet titled Racism and Pan-Arabism, its introduction followed by an article by the well known French sociologist, anthropologist & political leader: Jackes Soustelle to fight against all kinds of racism, this was followed by a paper by Shlomo Friedrich on "Pan-Arabism: A New Racist Menace?" who offered a sharp critique of Nasser's book The Philosophy of the Revolution, and it terms it a mere pale imitation of Hitler's Mein Kampf.
Ethnocentrism According to Dr. Michael Penn:
Forms Some of the persecuted victims of racism and discrimination in the Arab world include: Sub-Saharan Africans in Egypt,Racism The Arab world's dirty secret, Mona Eltahawy, New_York_Times, December 10, 2008 including on Eritreans, and oppressing Darfurian refugees, Algeria, Mauritania – fighting off racist policies in these countries,The Journal of international studies, Volumes 30-31 By Sophia University. Institute of International Relations p. 31Africa insight, Volumes 23-24, 1993, p. 45 in Iraq where blacks face racism, Kurds in Syria and in Iraq,Autonomy, sovereignty, and self-determination: the accommodation of conflicting rights, Hurst Hannum – 1996, p. 198 Geographical abstracts: Human geography, Volume 14, Issues 5-8, published by Elsevier/Geo Abstracts 2002, p. 852 Copts,Minorities in the Middle East: a history of struggle and self-expression by Mordechai Nisan, pp 143–144 it worsened with the empowerment of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt Al-Akhdam in Yemen,Social exclusion: rhetoric, reality, responses, Gerry Rodgers, Charles G. Gore, José B. Figueiredo, International Institute for Labour Studies, United Nations Development Programme – Business & Economics, p. 181 as well as slaves who fight the stigma of their status as 'slaves' in impoverished Yemen, Persians' historic struggle against the 'Arab supremacy,'Race and slavery in the Middle East: an historical enquiry by Bernard Lewis p. 32 https://books.google.com/books?id=WdjvedBeMHYC&pg=PA32 Berbers in North Africa (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya ), South Asians and Southeast Asians (migrant workers and maids in the Gulf Arab nations), Jews (see: Antisemitism in the Arab world, in a 2009 PEW poll, 90% of the Middle East were found to view Jews unfavorably). Although slavery was officially abolished in 1981, a 2012 CNN report suggested that 10% to 20% of the Mauritanian population was enslaved with a correlation with skin color – darker-skinned Mauritanians were often enslaved by lighter-skinned.
Anti-Black racism
Xenophobia
Anti-Kurdish racism
Antisemitism
Anti-Berber racism
Accusations against specific Arab governments Iraq
According to a statement by Fred Halliday, the Ba'athists in Iraq were inspired by Sati' al-Husri and with rhetoric tinged with pan-Arabism and anti-Iranian sentiment. In the decade and a half after the Ba'ath party came to power, up to 200,000 Feyli Kurds were expelled from Iraq. In claiming to be "defenders of Arabism", Halliday asserts the Ba'ath promoted a myth of Persian migrants and communities in the Persian Gulf region to be comparable to "Zionists" settling Palestine.
Mauritania
According to Holly Burkhalter of Human Rights Watch, in a statement made in testimony before the Congress of the United States, "It is fair to say that the Mauritanian government practices undeclared apartheid and severely discriminates on the basis of race."Yambo Ouologuem: postcolonial writer, Islamic militant, Christopher Wise, Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1999, p. 4.
Sudan
Beginning in 1991, elders of the Zaghawa people of Sudan complained that they were victims of an intensifying Arab apartheid campaign.Hilde F. Johnson, Waging Peace in Sudan: The Inside Story of the Negotiations That Ended, Trans Pacific Press, 2011, p. 38. Vukoni Lupa Lasaga has accused the Sudanese government of "deftly manipulat(ing) Arab solidarity" to carry out policies of apartheid and ethnic cleansing against non-Arabs in Darfur.Vukoni Lupa Lasaga "The slow, violent death of apartheid in Sudan," 19 September 2006, Norwegian Council for Africa. Alan Dershowitz has pointed to Sudan as an example of a government that deserves the appellation "apartheid",Alan Dershowitz, The Case Against Israel's Enemies: Exposing Jimmy Carter and Others Who Stand in the Way of Peace, John Wiley and Sons, 2009, p. 24. and former Canadian Minister of Justice Irwin Cotler has also criticized Sudan in similar terms.Hubert Bauch "Ex-minister speaks out against Sudan's al-Bashir" Montreal Gazette, march 6, 2009.
Egypt
Black Egyptian President Anwar Sadat faced insults of not looking "Egyptian enough" and "Nasser's black poodle". An Egyptian Nubian soccer player Shikabala stopped playing football for some time due to racist slurs by rival Egyptian fans during a game. A group was shouting out "Shikabala" while pointing a black dog wearing the number 10, which was Zamalek football shirt. Mona Eltahawy, the Egyptian journalist, found a deep-seated anti-black racism in her country, mainly against Sudanese, Nubian or other darker-skinned people.
According to the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), Sub-Saharan immigrants to Egypt often face physical violence and verbal abuse at the hands of the general public and law enforcement officials. Refugees from Sudan are especially targeted, with racial slurs like "oonga boonga" and "samara" (meaning "black") constituting the most typical insults. The EIPR attributes the violence and abuse to both a lack of government efforts at disseminating information, raising awareness and dispelling myths with regard to the economic contributions made by the newcomers, and stereotyping on the part of the Egyptian media. Black women are also targets of sexual harassment. As a remedy, the EIPR recommends that the Egyptian government "should intensify and accelerate efforts to combat racist xenophobic views towards migrant workers, especially those of Sub-Saharan origin, and to promote awareness of their positive contribution to society. The government should train all personnel working in the field of criminal justice and law enforcement officials in the spirit of respect for human rights and non-discrimination on ethnic or racial grounds."