Reaction to Readings for 2/6

I found the readings this week (The Minority of Suspicion: Arab Americans and Arab Children’s Literature) to be very informative- giving a good general overview of the Arab culture/Arab American culture. However, there was one thing that sort of struck me as akward when I was reading the articles: “The vast majority of Muslims are in South Asia, Malaysia, and Indonesia. At the same time, there are significant Arab populations of Christians, Melokites, Maronites, Jews, Druze, and Copts residing in the Middle East” (Al-Hazza and Lucking p 95). “However, the Arab world includes sizable populations of Arab Christians, Egyptian Copts, Maronites, Druze and Melokites” (Al-Hazza p 103). These statements are not wrong, but I feel that they are worded in a way that could lead to misconceptions. I feel that when one reads these sentences they could form the belief that the listed religions are different when in fact some of them do not hold different beliefs. Someone who is Maronite or Melokite is Christian. The Catholic Church (which is Christian) has 7 rites to it, and two of these rites are Maronite and Melokite. Someone who is an Egyptian Copt is also a Christian. I felt that the way this sentence was worded, made it seem like Maronite, Melokite and Copt was different from Christian because Jews and Druze are not Christian, and are included on this list. Most Melokites come from either Syria or Lebanon, and most Maronites come from Lebanon, but they are both Christian/Catholic. Druze is not Muslim or Christian, but the beliefs are close to that of someone who practices Islam. Many Druze reside in the mountains of Lebanon, bordering Syria and Israel. If the author was going to list Maronite, Copts and Melokite in this list after “Arab Christians,” then Orthodox (which is Christian) would have also been appropriate to list as would Chaldean and many other branches of Christianity. Just thought I would use this space to try and clarify any possible misconceptions!
I thought Nye’s Habibi was a fun read and was based on many factual cultural practices, but I also think it included some stereotypes about dress, religion etc. Coming from an Arab family/Arab-American family, I thought she did a wonderful job of capturing the general feeling of family values in the Middle East. When I was reading parts of the book, I could image in my mind the same family get-togethers that were described- overall I thought it was a really cute book even though there were some stereotypes!