HOW MANY?
Percentages can serve well as guide lines, although it may be unwise to accept them as definite numbers.
Right now,we are concerned with the number of Arab Americans in our culture. It is related to the fact that we are being subjected to undue stress from an element of that group and we are using some strange figures on which to base our actions.
Much depends, of course, on who's figure we deem to be accurate. I doubt seriously if most Americans would take the count which might be gleaned from studies of our own census information, considering the accusations which remain so current concerning the true number of citizens in the nation.
If, for the sake of having somewhere from which to start, we accept the figures currently being made available by the Arab American Institute, in Washington,D.C. Provides some interesting figures concerning the religious backgrounds of the Arabic peoples in the United States.
Our present way of thinking is to simplify it all by assuming that all Arabic people in America are Muslims.Not so. Only twenty-three per-cent of the Arabic people in America are listed as being Muslim.
The largest religious group among Arabs in the United States is, by far, those of the Catholic faith. That figure is set at forty-two percent of the total. One must be careful, however, to point out that such a figure includes not only those of Roman Catholic background, but also those of two factions of considerable numbers among Arabic peoples world-wide. Some are of the Melkite division while others are Marmonites, depending on their backgrounds of either of Lebanonese or Syrian social and religious mores. They are not, of necessity, to be considered as a Catholic unit, but together, they constitute the largest religious influence among Arabic peoples in the United States.
There is also another twenty-three per cent group - those who belong to the Eastern or Orthodox faith which is of Greek tradition. They are about equal in number, then, to the total Muslims population. Also to be considered is a group of Protestants totally about twelve per cent.
It would seem wise to keep these figures in mind when we are trying to decide what we really think about the the present situations existing between the United States and certain Arabic states, groups and factions.
Many, no doubt, of those are here through choice and a with a sincere wish to live in freedom. Let's be very careful about those at whom we wave “big sticks”.
A.L.M. January 18, 2003 [c530wds]
