• RadioFreeArabia@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    language of the enemy

    what have we done to him? I hate him even more than I did before reading this.

    Edit: I didn’t expect my comment to track. I may as well take this opportunity to post a Chrisitan Arab’s perspective on Arabic

    Consider a language spoken by Christians for more than fifteen hundred years. Its early masters composed exquisite poetry, pioneering a tradition that still flourishes today. Many of the great works of Christian thought were composed in this language; many of the most significant texts of philosophy, medicine, and astronomy were preserved in it. The Bible could be read in it for centuries before it could be read in English, French, German, or Spanish. Today it is spoken and written across Europe and North America, as well as Asia and Africa; it features prominently in modern political thought and advocacy. I am speaking, of course, of Arabic.

    https://www.firstthings.com/article/2024/08/arabic-a-christian-language

    • thesporkeffect@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I think it’s the most beautiful and elegant looking writing system, as someone who can neither read nor speak it.

      • voracitude@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        It is also true that “many” Westerners are more enlightened than that, but the ones that aren’t always shout the loudest.

        • explodicle@sh.itjust.works
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          3 months ago

          There are both many racist westerners and many enlightened ones.

          Beware the hazard of minimizing how many of our countrymen are extremely racist. It’s more prevalent than you might think. We know exactly what Elon is saying because we all know an asshole like that.

        • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          The thing about many is that many people can think one thing while many can think otherwise. The fact that I still get thanked by Arab strangers for treating them like people indicates that it wasn’t some tiny minority of westerners. From what I’ve heard from Arabs and people mistaken for Arabs (such as Iranians and Muslim desi folks) a loud and significant minority were/are actively racist towards Arabs that was significantly larger during the early 00s. But also there’s a lot of passive racism, stuff like assuming Arabs don’t want to be friends, neighbors, or colleagues. Stuff like assuming Arabs’ views on various things.

        • volodya_ilich@lemm.ee
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          3 months ago

          I’m sorry to disappoint you but a sizeable proportion of westerners in my humble experience are racist towards Arabs and Muslims. It’s literally the core of the platform under which the extreme right wing thrives in Europe