Schumann APSA draft 2005
1. Introduction: Diaspora, Language and Translation
In the December 1999 issue of the Arab-American magazine al-Hewâr, the Houston based
physician and community activist Dr. Abdel Kader Fustok described the need for dialogue
among members of his diaspora as follows:
If individuals were to commit to participate in dialogue and sustain it over a period of
time, they would have a coherent movement of thought, not only at the conscious level that
we all recognize, but more importantly at the tacit level, the unspoken level which cannot
be described. If we think together in a coherent way, it would have tremendous power.
Statements about the link between power and communication are common place in
publications of the Arab-American community in the United States for several reasons. As a
minority, Arab-Americans and Muslim Americans feel that their culture, heritage and religion
are misrepresented in American mass media. Therefore, they think about ways to influence
the public sphere of their receiving country in order to correct this false image. As a diaspora
community, many of them feel a strong emotional and political attachment to their former
homelands. As a result, they seek to build channels of communication in order to preserve
their links to their homelands and, at the same time, they try to influence the foreign policies
of their host country in favor of them (e.g. Sheffer). Finally, in order to reach equal rights as
citizens, acceptance as a minority, and political gains in favor of their homelands, Arab-
Americans feel the need to overcome their inner diversity by building a community based on
a common identity, and collective goals and interests. Also this objective, of course, requires
a shared public space where these ideas can be expressed and debated.
In other words, Arab-Americans like other diaspora communities consider public
communication as crucial to the “empowerment” of their community (for whatever reason or
purpose). In so doing, it is the predicament of the Arab diaspora to be situated at the margins
of two national public spheres, i.e. of the American host country and the Arab homelands,
1
Dr. Abdel Kader Fustok: “A Monologue about Dialogue,” in al-Hewâr 11 (Dec. 1999), no. 3, 6f [my
emphasis].
2
Convention