*EPF314 04/24/2002
Arab-American Writers Discuss Efforts to Fight Prejudice
(Symposium on Arab Novel held at Georgetown University) (750)

By Phillip Kurata
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- A prominent Arab-American writer, Gregory Orfalea, said the Arab-American novelist feels a sense of mission to refute anti-Arab stereotypes that have arisen in the United States following the September 11 terrorist attacks.

"The Arab-American novelist has indeed a mission beyond the normal," Orfalea said at a recent symposium, The Arab Novel, Visions of Social Reality, held at Georgetown University in Washington.

"He is giving birth to images of humanness ... in a world where people of Arab origin are seen as one rung down the evolutionary ladder. The closer he gets to what is real, the closer he gets to justice and redemption," Orfalea said.

Orfalea said American writers such as Leon Uris, James Michener and Ken Follett have created negative stereotypes of Arabs in their stories. Orfalea said the gifted novelist has a different aim.

"The novelist's aim is revelation, the ultimately clarity of the real. The stereotype's aim is to blur. Stereotypers shoot for anger and often achieve it. The gifted novelist aims for love, or at least understanding," Orfalea said.

Orfalea said since the September 11 events, he has found a publisher to reissue his book, Before the Flames: A Quest for the History of Arab-Americans. His recently completed novel, A Good Man in Gomarrah, is being prepared for publication.

Orfalea said the outburst of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim prejudice following September 11 triggered feelings in outrage among Arab-American writers.

"I think all of us have been just so stirred up ... so set upon and upset and frustrated and angry and mortified," Orfalea said. "Is this what we're being identified with? The collapse of two huge buildings in New York and the death of thousands of people? Is this what we have to answer for?"

The Bush administration has stressed repeatedly that the campaign against terrorism is not directed against Arabs or Muslims. The president and Attorney General John Ashcroft have vowed vigorous prosecution and strong punishment for hate crimes.

The federal government, state governments and faith-based organizations across the United States have taken actions to show solidarity with Arab-Americans and American Muslims and demonstrate that they are part of the fabric of American society.

Two other Arab-American writers, Elmaz Abinader and Diana Abu-Jaber, also appeared at the same symposium and spoke of their struggles to speak out for social justice on behalf of Arab-Americans.

"I'm taking the opportunity that they [magazine and newspaper editors] are providing me because I know my voice will get out there, and people will recognize my work as valuable," Abinader said. "My value as an American and as a writer was the value that I could be an activist by writing."

She said she is drawing attention to anti-Arab discrimination in the same way that Jewish writers have written of injustice done to the Jews.

Elmaz Abinader is the author of the books, In the Country of My Dreams and The Children of the Roojme, a Family's Journey from Lebanon, and she teaches creative writing at Mills College in California.

Abu-Jaber, the author of the novel Arabian Jazz, and the writer-in-residence at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon, said she has been contacted by a number of publications, including the New York Times, for op-ed pieces and essays dealing with the social climate surrounding the war on terror. After submitting the requested pieces, she said some editors responded to her that they were not comfortable with what she had written.

Abu-Jaber said many American publications are interested in "getting some representation from Arab-Americans but not really wanting to hear the full truth." She warned that there is a danger for Arab-American writers "of being manipulated or used."

Orfalea, Abinader and Abu-Jaber were among the 140 writers and literary scholars from universities in the United States and the Middle East who participated in the symposium.

The symposium was organized by the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies of Georgetown University in Washington and was held for three days in mid-April.

Jane D. McAuliffe, dean of Georgetown College, Georgetown University, said the symposium was held at a critical time when greater understanding of the Arab world is needed in the United States. "What better way is there to understand a foreign culture than through its novels," she said.

(The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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