Schumann APSA draft 2005
America by making experiences accessible through translation, on the one hand, and by
transferring these experiences through dialogue, on the other.
The experience of Al-Hewâr Center is, above all, an experiment on a small scale of what
needs to be done on a large scale throughout the Arab world: to work for coordination;
and to believe in the right of others to think and believe as they wish and to look for the
commonalities among people of differing opinions.
5. The Arab Diaspora between ‘Arabism’, Islam, and American Society
The Arab diaspora in the United States – like other diaspora communities in the world – is not
just characterized by its unilateral bonds to its former homelands but rather by the way the
community balances its twofold attachments to its homelands and its host society, at the same
time. As it was argued above, the Arab-American community articulates itself as a distinct
group which is linked to both of these sides by a discourse that emphasizes communalities and
particularities. This articulation is based on a complex process of linguistic and cultural
translation, while the discourse itself revolves around questions of identity and belonging. The
general framework of this diasporic discourse, I would argue, is set up by three key concepts:
Arabism, Islam, and the experience of being part of the broader American society. All of
these concepts can be used to signify differences as well as to transcend boundaries. In other
words, they can express exclusive identities just as they are able to establish connections. The
following section will analyze the functioning of this triangle more thoroughly.
The connection between Islam and Arabism, as was already pointed out before, is at the
center of Al-Hewâr’s self-declared identity, since the magazine aims primarily at the
reconciliation between the two. Nevertheless, the discourse on this topic – articulated mainly
in Arabic – is rather theoretical and widely detached from the realities and problems of the
diaspora community. The articles which refer to this topic differ in style and length, but not in
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Editorial: “Al-Hewâr Center Continues Serving the Community and the Goal of Open Dialogue,” in Al-Hewâr
10 (April/May 1999), no. 56, 3.
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Convention