Remembering the AAUG.

• Author: Moughrabi, Fouad
• Position: Association of Arab-American University Graduates - Organization overview

MY FIRST ENCOUNTER WITH THE Association of Arab-American University Graduates occurred in November 1974 in Cleveland, Ohio. I went there, based on a hunch that this would be the best forum where I could become involved in Arab-American affairs in order to work for the rights of the Palestinian people. Only two names were familiar to me at the time, namely Ibrahim Abu-Lughod and Edward Said who clearly represented the kind of scholar activist I was aspiring to be.

At that convention, I met both and heard them speak. Edward gave a paper based on his ongoing work that was later to culminate in Orientalism, a book that completely revolutionized the whole field of Middle East studies, if not other area studies as well. I was awe struck by the brilliance of both men. I must say, that over the many ensuing years as our friendship became solidified, I never ceased to be continually amazed at the brilliance of these two public intellectuals. They became my most important teachers and I learned a great deal from them. I don't think I exaggerate when I say that every modest contribution I've made over the years has been largely inspired by them.

In Cleveland, I met a number of others as well who were no less brilliant and certainly equally inspiring. Elaine Hagopian and Abdeen Jabara became my political mentors and whatever little things I learned about politics I owe to them. Others include Naseer Aruri, the late Samih Farsoun and Elia Zureik all of whom became dear to me as personal friends and fellow activists.

The list of people can go on and on. But what I find quite interesting as I begin writing this piece is that, almost spontaneously, I immediately begin with a chronicle of the human relationships that I had forged with various people and the friendships that lasted for a lifetime. In fact, this unique combination of first rate scholars and politically committed activists is precisely what made AAUG so special.

The AAUG was established in the aftermath of the June 1967 war and the shocking wave of virulent anti-Arab racism that erupted in North America. Ibrahim Abu-Lughod, Abdeen Jabara and others felt that something needed to be done to counter this racist stereotyping of things Arab by trying to educate the American public about the Arab World and its issues. We come to find out many years later that this anti-Arab and anti-Muslim racism always lurks beneath the surface in American society always waiting for the right moment to rear its ugly head.

Arab-American scholars, originating from various Arab countries, came together to engage in this educational effort. A consensus existed among them: there was uniform commitment to the rights of the Palestinian people and there was general agreement about the various problems faced by the Arab countries. There was also a general agreement that U.S. foreign policy was too closely aligned with Israel and needed to be more balanced and even handed.

We believed, at the time, that we could produce the kind of knowledge that runs counter to the prevailing perceptions of the Arab World in America. AAUG did that so well that, at one point, it began to replace the Middle East Studies Association annual conference as the place that attracted first rate scholars from all over the world to talk about contemporary issues related to the Arab World and U.S. foreign policy. The latter was a topic MESA chose to ignore at that time, largely out of fear of the power of pro-Zionist forces. It focused instead on the safer area of Medieval Studies. AAUG convention speakers/participants came from India (Krishna Menon), from Greece (Papandreou), from the Arab World (a veritable list of the most distinguished public intellectuals), from Israel itself (the late Professor Israel Shahak as well as Arab members of parliament and including Nazareth mayor Tawfic Zayyad and his colleagues, Emile Touma and Felicia Langer), from the Occupied Palestinian Territories (Hanan Ashrawi, Hannah Nasir, Selim Tamari, Ali Jarbawi, Sameeha Khalil, Ibrahim Dakkak and others) and from various parts of Europe. The great poet Mahrnoud Darweesh was a frequent guest of our conferences where he mesmerized crowds with his brilliance. Elias Khouri from Lebanon also became a regular. Members of the PLO delegation to the U.N. General Assembly, most notably Shafiq al-Hout, became frequent participants. And until his death in Pakistan, our good friend and colleague Eqbal Ahmad enriched our conferences with his brilliant insights and his courageous positions.

AAUG conferences also became the arena where...