11-17-16 Rebranding ourselves as Arabs in the Trump-era

Rebranding ourselves as “Arabs” in the new Trump era

Why Arabs need to reinforce their identification as "Arabs" rather than as Muslims in the new era of President Donald Trump. Branding ourselves as Arabs will also help us fight the religious extremists and counter the rising anti-Muslim fears in the West and in the United States 

Arab News Thursday November 17, 2016

By Ray Hanania

It’s time for the Arab World and Arab people to rebrand themselves in the era of newly elected President Donald Trump if we expect to see our issues addressed fairly.

Arabs can sit back and let events overtake us the way they always do. Or, we can become active and do what needs to be done that we haven’t done so far.

What can we do? We need a new Arab Spring, one driven by people with a clear, unified and achievable goal.

We need to replace emotion with reason, effective communications messaging, and goals that are more clearly defined to build bridges, not create obstacles with the West.

Arabs need to stop allowing others to define us. We need to define ourselves. And we have to answer a very important question: Are we “Muslim,” or are we “Arab?”

Click here to read the column at the Arab News

This is Ray Hanania’s column commentary Podcast … Hanania’s columns are published each week in newspapers throughout the United States and in the Middle East.

He writes on American politics and life in Chicagoland every week in the Des Plaines Valley News, Southwest News-Herald, The Regional News, and the Reporter Newspapers.

Hanania also writes a weekly column every Thursday for the Arab News at www.ArabNews.com. And, writes news and features for his website at TheArabDailyNews.com and for the Daily Hookah at www.TheDailyHookah.com.

An award winning former Chicago City Hall reporter named Best Ethnic Columnist by the New America Media, and recipient of the Sigma Delta Chi award for writing, Hanania is of Palestinian Arab heritage. 

You can reach him and share your opinions and thoughts by emailing him at rghanania@gmail.com. All his columns are archived at RayHanania.com.

This podcast is available at Podbean.com and also for free subscription on iTunes.

(An award winning former Chicago City Hall reporter and columnist. American Palestinian Arab, Hanania writes a weekly column for the Arab News at www.ArabNews.com. He also writes each week for several mainstream American newspapers on American politics and life in Chicagoland. Reach him at rghanania@gmail.com.)