I compiled a list of the top 10 misconceptions about Arabs for foreigners, in an attempt to dissect them and set the record straight. For most of these, I’ll be taking direct examples from Jordan – my country – since that’s the place I know most about, however, most of the points I make will likely apply (in one way or another) to other Arab countries as well.

10) Arabs live in tents, ride camels, and wear different clothes

Just because Native Americans used to live in teepees doesn’t mean they do now, its as simple as that. Arab tradition – dating from a few hundred years ago – revolves around utilizing camels for transportation and tents as an ideal way of living. That doesn’t mean that this applies now; we have technology as do others and thus have access to all resources that can improve our living conditions. Even outside the capital and main cities, Jordanian villages are far from the form that some people in the west imagine. If you were planning to visit an Arab state in hope of exploring an Aladdin-esque world, think again .

In desolate areas of the desert, we still have native tribal Jordanians who – by choice – decided to remain following their traditional Bedouin lifestyle. Even these people, though they might appear closest to the western image of Arabs, still blend in quite well if/when they need to visit the city for errands, etc.

9) Arabs are rich, own oil wells, and control the world

I WISH! I really do … First of all, I need to reiterate that some countries (like Jordan over here) have absolutely no oil. Second, lets take a look at the figure to the right:

This is a list of countries sorted by their GDP (Gross Domestic Product) per annum, courtesy of Wikipedia. It is quite clear what I’m trying to point out: in the top 25 GDP countries, only one Arab state exists: Saudi Arabia, with a rank of 25. The U.S., Italy, Mexico, Australia, Indonesia, and Norway, among many others, exceed Saudi Arabia. So, considering that the Arab country with the highest GDP is rather “average”, I guess that points out how we measure with other countries. You can check the full list, too.

To further emphasize my point, we may want to see the Gross Domestic Product per person and the rankings of countries accordingly. This list on Wikipedia shows this; when sorting all countries by Rank, we see that the United Arab Emirates is ranked 17-19, Saudi Arabia is ranked39-44, and all Arab countries have even lower ranks.

I’m not doing this to negatively describe the standards of livings in Arab states; a GDP per capita ranking of below 44 is still quite fine, but surely does not reflect that Arabs are – in any way – in financial control of the world.

8 ) Sunnis and Shiites are fighting because their beliefs differ

The Sunni and Shiite sects are more similar to one another than are Catholics and Protestants (fact). Different “varieties” of Islam aren’t causing any conflict in the region directly; all internal conflict we have is purely political.

The reason Westerners hear a lot about Shiites and Sunnis fighting is because many political parties often adopt certain religions (or religious schools of thought) as a marketing technique to encourage more people to join them.

For instance, the main difference between Hezbollah and the Future Current isn’t their religions, but rather their views on regional foreign policies, especially concerning how to treat Israel and how to approach the issue of “resistance of occupation”.

7) A veil is a proof of weakness and ignorance of women

I’m not a big fan of the veil, to be honest. But that’s just my opinion. Still, when seeing veiled women, I refuse to associate that with any type of ignorance. Women do not wear veils because the think they are inferior; it is simply a matter of their own beliefs, feeling that – by wearing a veil – they become more devoted to god.

Why is it that nuns are not viewed as weak, oppressed, and ignorant? We tell ourselves: sure, they chose a certain path of life and committed themselves to it. Why is it so hard to associate the same thought with a Muslim woman wearing the hijab? Its simply a personal choice, that anyone may or may not agree with. Like Queen Rania of Jordan states, don’t judge a woman by what is over her head, but rather what is in her head.

6) The Quran encourages ‘Terror’

Say what?! No it doesn’t! While I’m not Muslim to know everything about Islam, I know enough to know that this is a bunch of nonsense. Sure, we’ll have people quoting individual verses of the Quran and showing how these ‘encourage’ killing or manslaughter, but:

1. The Quran is really as gory as the Old Testament in the Bible. Descriptions of killing or slaughter are really in the same context (if not a more peaceful one).
2. All of these verses are taken out of context. All Islamic scholars agree that such verses are aimed at offenders, and specifically mentioned in the Quran to assure Muslims of ~600 AD that they are allowed to fight back against the offending polytheists at the time, who greatly oppressed Muslims at that time.

Furthermore, the concept of Jihad is also targeted at those who oppress Muslims directly; jihad is really more about defense: self defense, defense of one’s ‘dignity’, religion, and beliefs. It is not targeted at people of other religions or people who disagree with you.

So why does terror exist? Because certain groups decided that the best way to achieve their own goals was to employ religion to do so. They have their own extremist scholars who misinterpret the teachings of the Quran and try to spread such teachings and mislead young Muslims into thinking they are doing the right things. When targeting the right places: poor and uneducated (just like dangerous gangs form in the states), they can garner a lot of support.

5) All Arabs are Terrorists

Again: say what?! Arabs are not terrorists and do not need to be. Terrorist attacks occur in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the UK, India, and the U.S. alike. Terrorism doesn’t belong to a particular nation or a particular school of thought, it is a result of random groups, sticking with extremism to their own radical ideologies, and committing such ‘acts of terror’. I further explained the irrelevance between Islam (and on a winder scale, Arab culture) and terrorism.

4) Your leaders suppress your rights and force you into poverty

A couple of weeks ago, I was in a conversation about Jordan’s leaders and how they supposedly suppress the people. The talk was mainly regarding the Queen, but here is what he told my anyways:

When you’re a monarchy, you ARE stealing! You have imposed your rule on a country without a vote and without any reason other than to say “I’m better than you because I’m royalty”. And all the money spent on her clothes alone would benefit the poor in her country, and there are poor in Jordan. I can’t tolerate someone who lives off of the sweat of others preaching about giving.

To which I replied:

As a person who knows enough about his surroundings, I know what is going on. Now we can argue about how the system of leadership actually occurred, but the undeniable facts are: the king (and queen) are popular, they are benefiting the country, the money they make is not from the taxes, it is from their own business ventures, etc. etc. We have an elected parliament like everyone else does. We have a voice like everyone else does. Do we have poverty? sure. But its the same as any other country who has poverty. And no one criticizes Bush, McCain or Obama for selling their suits or giving away their campaign money for the poor (not enough, at least). I don’t criticize them either, because I know one thing: the money they got, they worked for and earned, they didn’t steal it. Just because in Jordan they’re called a King and a Queen doesn’t mean: a) they are the government, and b) they steal.

And it would be great if you check out Queen Rania’s “giving” efforts. She (as an individuals) have been improving schools all over Jordan, making international women’s rights campaigns, and is part of many other organizations all over the world and supports them (Seeds of Peace being an important one of them). What about our king (the man who actually IS the monarch)? Well, he personally donated blood to Gaza [not the biggest thing he did, but shows that they ARE involved in giving], started the “Dignified Housing for Dignified Lives” Initiative to provide FREE or VERY CHEAP housing for the poor, and regularly donates sums of money to those serving in the army, or working people, or other demographics.

I don’t see anything wrong with this. And if you ask me where would Jordan be this time if it wasn’t for the monarchy we have, we would be in conflict like every other neighboring country, we would have internal issues, a segregated population, few investments, and a poor status of living.

So I hope that’d be an answer to the generalized misconception as well. Note that other Arab leaders are also active in similar ways. Are some corrupt? Yes, sure we have some. But these have the same chance of being in the Arab word than in anywhere else around.

3) You do not treat your women well (Or: Your women are not given enough rights)

To make sure my reply is centralized and organized, here are the main areas that people often accuse Arabs of being abusive to their women:

1. Honor crimes are acceptable;
2. Domestic violence is acceptable;
3. Women are socially viewed as a weaker counterpart;
4. Women are not allowed to be viable members of society.

So first, to reply to the first two points regarding honor crimes and domestic violence.

I have to clear up some facts about honor crimes:

• Honor crimes in Jordan exist as offenses against both male and female
• Honor crimes exist everywhere around the world

Regardless of these two points, of course, we must agree that the mere existence of honor crimes is wrong.

The reality of the matter is, honor crimes rarely go unpunished recently. Our courts are very active in convicting anyone known to have committed “honor crime” against someone else. But it is true that in the past (about 19 years ago), honor crimes did go unpunished. Why is that? Contrary to popular belief it has nothing to do with sexism in the Jordanian legislation but something else.

You see, many countries’ judicial systems discuss “temporary insanity”, and those deemed to be ‘temporarily insane’ at the time of a wrongdoing are cleared of any punishment. Similarly, the Jordanian constitution contains something called (نزعة غضب) that can be translated as “a rage surge” or “an anger surge” and is virtually identical to the concept of temporary insanity. In the past, Jordanian judges cleared charges or made them ‘lighter’ based on this, because the murderer uses such plea in court. I said that honor crimes occur for both men and women, but unfortunately men are angrier and more aggressive by nature, and thus more honor crimes exist against women in Jordan.

In recent years (about 15 years ago), Jordanian journalists started to publically talk about and criticize the existence of honor crimes and that they go unpunished (freedom of expression, we have that too!), and since then, many nationwide initiatives were launched to combat that. In recent years, the number of honor killings have dropped dramatically, and those that do occur are punished severely.

As for “3.”, the best way to show that women are socially respected is to also disprove “4.” and se how women are encouraged viable members of society.

We have female judges, cab drivers, construction workers, driving instructors, plumbers, doctors, surgeons, and pilots. We have equality at the workplace too; for instance, Orange Telecom, a cell phone provider in Jordan (now purchased by Orange, previously called MobileCom) has a woman CEO.

We have women ministers too: the minister of Tourism and the minister of social-something are women, from the top of my head. We also have women members of the parliament. And women can vote and campaign.

Unfortunately, not all Arab countries have the same degree of women’s rights. But I know one that all Arab states do have in common: progress in women’s rights issues.

2) Arabs do not value their lives (Or: Arabs value land over life)

It seems to be a recurring fad (especially for Israelis) to view Arabs and Palestinians as individuals with a weird prioritization, where land – among other things – is valued greater than their lives.

Land and other insignificant things are never valued for an Arab more than his or her life. True, many Arabs value causes more than their lives and decide to ‘sacrifice’ for the sake of a certain cause, but that exists in all humanity and can be witnessed again and again in the history of the world.

Palestinians who blow themselves up do not:

1. Do it because they think freeing land is more valuable than their lives
2. Do it because their hate of Israelis overcome their love of their lives

But rather, they do it as a result of continued suppression, deteriorating living conditions, occupation, and psychological suffering. Because of such conditions, Palestinians feel they already lost their lives and do whatever they do as a way of acting out.

Surely none of us can appreciate the amount of mental strain and pressure that one can go through living their entire lifetime under occupation and oppression, but we should try to understand that actions taken by such individuals – as radical as they might seem to us – are the only option they perceive. Instead of labeling these as terrorists and potential terrorists and bombing them all in an airstrike, how about actually alleviating the suffering of these people, perhaps something good might come out of them?

1) Human Rights are Severely Violated in Arab Countries

They are not.  Arab states might not be the perfect place for human rights, but we have no major human rights violations. Freedom of speech, expression, religion, transportation, and having an appropriate status of living – among others – are entitled to Arab citizens as they are entitled to anyone else.

With that in mind, I will agree that some civil rights in some countries still need work.