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resist, don't enlist!

by nadia abou-karr

“Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on Brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights? No I’m not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end. I have been warned that to take such a stand would cost me millions of dollars. But I have said it once and I will say it again. The real enemy of my people is here. I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality. If I thought the war was going to bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people they wouldn’t have to draft me, I’d join tomorrow,” Muhammad Ali once said.

I’m disturbed by the gratuitous military recruiting targeted to Arab Americans. Arab American-centric media outlets print solicitations promising big dollars for Arabic speakers. I am bombarded with these misleading, exploitative ads on TV, in the movie theater, and now in my Arab American media? Our Arab street festivals are swarming with the same military recruiters who already have unbridled access to students in the high schools, passing out free pens and t-shirts to young people in hopes that they’ll enlist. Unlike the recruiters I encountered when I was a high school student (who were all white), these recruiters are clearly Arabs, with Arab names and sometimes Arab accents.

Am I the only one who thinks it’s abusive and unfair for Arabs to advocate service in the American military to other Arabs? Are our lives worth so little that we should sacrifice them in service of a government that has institutionalized discrimination against us, in order to perpetuate the same type of war and imperialism that brought many of our ancestors here?

More importantly, are there so few rich Arab Americans setting up endowments and scholarship funds for low income Arab American youth that our youth feel they have no other choice but to enlist if they want to have any chance at the trifecta (doctor, lawyer, engineer) of Arab American success?


With all the pressure put on young Arab Americans, regardless of economic status, to achieve high educational goals, enlisting in the military might seem incredibly appealing to those of us with few other financing options. Why not increase the options? Contrary to the stereotype, we are not all rich sheikhs with oil wells back home; many of us have grown up on free school lunches and government cheese. We are all Arab Americans, still part of the same community, and we can all contribute in different ways. As Eduardo Bonilla-Silva wrote in Racism Without Racists:

We all must participate in the new movement and contribute in whatever way we can. Some will provide expertise, others money, others time, and others will craft and participate in the actions required to advance the new politics of change. We all need to regain the energy we seem to have lost, drop the pessimism that has filled our souls, and get over the individualism and materialism that has eaten so many of us from within. Our participation in this movement is a must. We cannot remain as spectators of the racial game being played before our own eyes in America.

Multiple generations of Arab Americans have attempted to squeak past unnoticed, changing our names and passing for non-Arab, serving in the military and pledging allegiance to American nationalism and striving to move up in the racial hierarchy at the expense of our relationships with other people of color. These are different times and different generations, and they require different solutions. We must do all we can to increase our options for survival beyond total assimilation and acceptance of American patriotic values that demand our subordinance. We are all different, with different values and lifestyles, but one thing I am certain of is that aiding the US government tear our homelands apart will not make any of us free.

"I ain’t going no 10,000 miles to help murder and kill other poor people. If I want to die, I’ll die right here, right now, fightin’ you, if I want to die. You my enemy, not no Chinese, no Vietcong, no Japanese. You my opposer when I want freedom. You my opposer when I want justice. You my opposer when I want equality. Want me to go somewhere and fight for you? You won’t even stand up for me right here in America, for my rights and my religious beliefs. You won’t even stand up for my right here at home." -Muhammad Ali

Food for thought: Remember those 6 Arabs kicked off of that American Airlines flight in the Editors’ note?

They were linguistic specialists working for the government.


Nadia Abou-Karr is an artist and writer based in Detroit, Michigan. Check www.nadiaaboukarr.com for more info.