This year I and my guests introduced you to the Arabic language, Arab history and culture, and the contemporary Arab world, as well as the religion of Islam.   Most Americans don't know much about any of these things, and I  hope if you've been watching you learned something you didn't know before.

Why study Arabic?  First of all, it's a wonderful, interesting language.  Language defines who we are, and is the system we use for ordering our world.  When you study another language, you also learn about other peoples and they way they view the world.  Arabic is very different from English, and because of this, studying Arabic is itself a way of viewing the world differently.

There are some 250 million native speakers of Arabic, in an area of the world that is politically and economically very important to the United States.  This year we learned a bit about some of these Arab countries in North Africa and the Middle East.

Furthermore, approximately one-fifth the world's population is Muslim--some 1.2 billion people--and for Muslims worldwide the Arabic language is an integral part of their religion and daily lives.  I hope you learned a lot about Islam this year as well...

The Islamic and Arab culture (often referred to as "Arabo-Islamic") is a rich heritage for everyone in the world to appreciate.  We should not forget the many contributions Arabs and Muslims have made to world culture over the course of 1500 years, including the influence of this Arab culture on our own Western culture; everything from the numbers and mathematics we use to the coffee we drink.

Let's talk about the Arabs in America.  Many have been here for generations, while others arrived only last year.   There are nearly 3 million Arab-Americans in the USA--about half of whom are Muslim and half are Christian.   In addition there are more than 4 million non-Arab Muslims in America--Islam is the fastest growing religion in America.  Most Arabs and Muslims live in the largest cities in America:  New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit and Philly.

Few people realize the contributions Arab-Americans have made to American society and culture.  If I ask you to name one famous Arab-American, I'll bet you can't think of any.  There are a lot more than you might think...but they often seem to be a bit shy about mentioning it.  This has a lot to do with negative stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims in the news, in the movies and on TV, so Arab-Americans in general have found it safer to maintain a low profile.  Sometimes they have even found it necessary to change their names in order to fit in.  In fact, Arabs and Muslims in America today are subject to discrimination and stereotyping....The media can say things about them that they cannot get away with saying about Blacks or Italians or Jews or Hispanics.  One need only to look at the editorial cartoons in one's local daily newspaper to see that this is true.  I  hope that our program has helped to dispel some of the many myths that many Americans believe about Arabs and Muslims.  One thing  I can tell you is that Arab-Americans, including the guests we've had on the show, are proud to be American, and proud to be Arab.

The following organizations are dedicated to educating the public about Arab-American and Muslim issues, and combating discrimination against them:

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
The Arab-American Institute
The Council on American-Islamic Relations
 

Some famous Arab-Americans include:

Politics
Ralph Nader--Consumer advocate, and the first Arab-American presidential candidate
Spencer Abraham --Secretary of Energy and former Senator from Michigan
Donna Shalala--Secretary of Health and Human Services under President Clinton, and the first Arab-American to hold a cabinet position
George Mitchell--Former Senator from Maine, U. S. negotiator of Northern Ireland peace accords, now Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiator.
John Sununu--Former Governor of New Hampshire and White House Chief of Staff under President Reagan
Not to mention several other members of Congress...

Sports
Doug Flutie--Football great and Heisman Trophy winner.
Rony Seikaly - Center for the New Jersey Nets--"The Pride of Lebanon"  and definitely the tallest Arab I've ever seen...
Former UCLA basketball coach Jim Harrick

Business
Jacques Nasser--President of Ford Motor Company
And too many others to mention...

Entertainers
Paul Anka--Famous singer
Danny Thomas, and his daughter Marlo - Both actors
Tiny Tim--Singer, whose real name was Herbert Khaury
Frank Zappa--Rock 'n' Roll genius
Tiffany--Famous pop star
Paula Abdul--Famous pop star
Casey Kasem--Radio star, founder of "American Top 40" and the original voice of "Scooby Doo."
Jamie Farr--Actor, known for his starring role in "M.A.S.H"
Kathy Najimy--TV and movie star
Salma Hayek--Lebanese-Mexican-American actress
Tony Shalhoub--Actor, star of the movie "The Big Night"
F. Murray Abraham--Oscar winner for the movie "Amadeus"....the "F" stands for "Farid."
Wendy Malick--TV actress
Many behind-the-scenes people, writers, directors and others in Hollywood

Scientists, Educators, Doctors
Dr. Michael DeBakey--Pioneering heart doctor
Dr. Ahmed Zewail won the Nobel prize for Chemistry in 1999, and Dr. Elias Corey won it in 1990  (2 of them !!!)
Dr. Farouk el-Baz, an Egyptian-American, worked at NASA planning
the Apollo moon landings.
Christa McAuliffe--The teacher who died in Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1983
Jack Shaheen--Commentator for CBS news
David Adamany--President of Temple University

I could go on, but you might want to check out the whole list.  You can it in the document "Arab-Americans:  Making a Difference," authored by Casey Kasem himself.  It is at the Arab American Institute's website:  http://www.aaiusa.org/about_arab_americans.htm#Casey Kasems Brochure

To learn more about Arab-Americans and the Arab-American experience, visit the
Arab-American Institute website at:  http://www.aaiusa.org/about_arab_americans.htm
 

We had a great year on "Maraba"--we met so many interesting people this year.  Over the past year we had guests from Libya, Tunisia, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Sudan, and Egypt.  We learned a bit about these countries and why these people came to live in the United States.  This was a great opportunity for me to learn more about the Muslim and Arab communities here in Philadelphia and I hope you did too.  This year, we learned about how Arab-Americans right here in Philadelphia celebrate Christian and Islamic religious holidays both here and in the countries they came from.   Our guests talked to us about Christmas and Easter, and about Ramadan, the ajj, and other Islamic holidays, as well as the Qur'an.

There are close to 100,000 Muslims in the Delaware valley area, and also about 30,000 Arab Americans, both Christian and Muslim.  Not to mention many Arabic-speaking Jews, Jews from Arab countries like Yemen and Tunisia who now live here.
These people are your neighbors here in Philadelphia:  Some have been here for generations, some arrived last year.  We learned about some of their experiences when we went to the Balch Institute of Ethnic Studies to see the "Ahlan wa Sahlan" exhibit about Arab-Americans there.

And of course I hope you learned some Arabic, how to begin to talk to your Arab neighbors and how to read Arabic...including all the Arabic you see in Philadelphia.  Phildelphia is a wonderful cosmopolitan city.  When you walk down the street, you hear people speaking a dozen languages, Arabic among them.  Arabic is all around you when you walk around Philly.  Whether you live in North, Northeast, South, West, Mt. Airy or Center City,  you probably can't go far without seeing Arabic on a shop sign--after all, the Arabic alphabet is the second most widely used after the Latin alphabet we use for English.  You see Arabic on the mosques, on the Middle Eastern restaurants, on the alal butcher shops and products in supermarkets, and on ordinary shops and stores everywhere in Philadelphia.  Hopefully now you can read and understand what you see in Arabic, and also understand and appreciate your Arab and Muslim neighbors a bit better.

Thanks to everyone who helped out on the show this year:   Our guests, our crew, the volunteers, everyone who lent items for the show, and especially Mary Martin at the Middle East Center, Willie and Mario, Sean and Michael from Drexel, Rob and Aaron from Northeast High School, Abdul Rahim of ICPIC, Meredith, and Habiba Dance Studios.  And of course the U.S. Department of Education.

Remember, parents, contact your child's teacher about signing their class up to participate in Marhaba next year.

Again, you can email us over the summer with any questions you have at marhaba@ccat.sas.upenn.edu

Have a great summer!   Atamanaa lakum ayf jamiil !!