I have been writing for 40 years now and have received my share of criticism over this period of time but I developed a skin thick enough not to be bothered by most of it. However, once in a while I would receive a criticism that is so visceral, I stop long enough to ask what was in my piece that touched a raw nerve in these people? It happened over the past few days that I received this kind of criticism in response to the posting of my Saint Patrick's Day piece two articles ago.
To my surprise, most of the criticism centered around the way that I supposedly tarnished the image of the Jew. Those who leveled the criticism admitted that the article was not inflammatory or virulent in any apparent sense but they said that the tone and the plot I used to tell the story were so insidious they could only reinforce the stereotypes that will serve to harm the image of the Jew.
I thought to myself it is funny they should say this because it is what I said about some of the articles I used to read in the Toronto Globe and Mail. I have not been a regular reader of that paper for a quarter century now for several reasons, one of them being that some of the articles they ran were offensive to me. The articles were written according to a formula I found to be contrived and their content offended me as a Canadian of Arab descent.
There was never a claim that the Globe and Mail articles were written by a journalist or by one and the same contributor. In fact, each article was signed by a different professional such as a doctor or an architect but the style and the formula they followed said that they were all written by one writer or at most a handful of closely knit like-minded writers.
The stories that these articles told were always about a Jewish professional who happened to find himself working with an Arab of the same profession. Both men enjoyed the relationship and benefited from it because in the end everything turned out all right. But this happy ending resulted despite the fact that from the beginning of the article to the end of it, every anti-Arab stereotype came into play and was played up to the hilt. In fact, the potential existed all along for something to go wrong but never fear, the Jew was here and he managed to prevent any damage from occurring, a damage that the clumsy Arab novice might have caused by his mere presence.
In story after story the moral was that when the Jew is made to tutor the Arab, everything turns out okay. Consequently, the World must be made to understand this reality and must agree to appoint Israel master tutor over the Arab Middle East. If a scheme like this can be worked out and implemented in that troubled part of the World, the fortunes of Planet Earth will turn around and the whole World will turn into the honky dory place we all wish to see it become. And the divine promise to mankind for a paradise on Earth will have at long last been fulfilled.
Now, aside from the conclusion which is a never ending fantasy of the Jewish Establishment, this style of writing works when the premise underlying it is true. But when the premise is a false one, the article becomes offensive and it backfires. This happens because the first time you read an article like this you are inclined to believe it. In this case one good Jew encountering one clumsy Arab is a plot that is entirely in the realm of the possibilities. But when you see the same plot used over and over again, and when you see it written under different names, you realize that the stories are fake and they are nothing but a reflection of the publication that carries them.
The people who objected to my Saint Patrick's Day article did not suggest I contrived it because it was a single story written under my name and not several stories written under different pseudonyms. Some of these people knew exactly what I was talking about because they lived in the part of Montreal I described or because they know someone who lives there now and whom they visit regularly.
Instead, the critics accused me of wearing goggles that distorted my view of the Jewish character. And why is that? Because they said that the plot I used to animate the characters put too much emphasis on the stereotypes that were attributed to Jews over the centuries, among these were treachery, selfishness and avarice.
Even though I was acutely aware that the Jewish Establishment hated Arab writers such as myself to such an extent that they blacklisted us and threatened those who would give us a break, I was surprised by the intensity of the objections raised against this one article. I reflected long and hard as to the reason why this happened and I came up with the following.
The stories of past centuries which were written to describe the White mobs that lynched their fellow Black citizens in the United States often spoke of the White fears of the Black man. In fact, there was very little physical aggression that the Blacks could inflict on the Whites and thus, what the Whites really feared was the potential for competition from the Blacks.
One possible area of competition which was often written about was the myth of the Black man's super virility as compared to the White man's. But what is barely mentioned in the literature is the fact that a well dressed Black man sparked as much fear in some White men as anything else.
These were the insecure White men who relied on their clothes to project their own importance to the World. As they saw the thing, a Black man who dressed well unwittingly or deliberately neutralized the advantage they thought they had over Blacks and over other Whites. And this rendered a well dressed innocent Black man as susceptible to being lynched as a convicted criminal. In the mind of these deranged Whites, it was a crime for a Black man to dress well, a crime so horrible he was summarily executed without a trial - fair or unfair.
It looks to me now that what I did with the Saint Patrick's day article was to demonstrate to the Jewish Establishment that the Arabs have discovered the formula which worked so well for the Zionist propaganda machine. And the Zionists must have concluded that the Arabs will now be in a position to neutralize the advantage they had to compete in the court of public opinion.
The Jewish Establishment must have also concluded that in consequence of this, the Arabs will increasingly beat the Jews where it counts the most. Like the Black men of yesteryears, the Arabs of today will be able to wear the mantle of the subtle and sophisticated journalists that the Jews have worn and monopolized all this time.
They must be having nightmares about Arabs eclipsing the Jews and dominating the profession like the Jews have done for decades. And since the Zionists have religiously believed that by divine decree there is never a place for two because there is only a place for one, the Jews will be displaced by the rising Arabs. And horror of horrors, the Toronto Globe and Mail may even start to publish something intelligent and pro-Arab once in a while.
But the reality was that I stumbled on the formula by accident because I had a true story to tell. Now that I know about it and have used it in a context that is favorable to the Arabs, it will be foolish of me to use it in a contrived situation or teach someone how to do this.
In fact, the difference between the Arabs and the Jews is that the Arabs are always reluctant to use the power they have while the Jews bluff their way to success by pretending they possess the power they don't have and thus manage to intimidate the faint hearted.
When members of the Jewish Establishment saw me wear the fancy clothes of a literary style they thought they had monopolized, they reacted with typical insecurity and went into a fit of rage. As they did with everyone who challenged their supremacy, those they summarily executed without a trial on the tree they call anti-Semitism, they tried to organize a mob that would conduct the journalistic lynching of me and my article. And I suspect it will not be the last time they do so.
Welcome to the World of quack democracy Jewish style.