The Arab street ( ar, الشارع العربي, ''ash-shāriʿ al-ʿarabī'') is an expression referring to the spectrum of
public opinion
Public opinion is the collective opinion on a specific topic or voting intention relevant to a society. It is the people's views on matters affecting them.
Etymology
The term "public opinion" was derived from the French ', which was first use ...
in the
Arab world
The Arab world ( ar, اَلْعَالَمُ الْعَرَبِيُّ '), formally the Arab homeland ( '), also known as the Arab nation ( '), the Arabsphere, or the Arab states, refers to a vast group of countries, mainly located in Western A ...
, often as opposed or contrasted to the opinions of Arab governments.
[Friedman, Thomas]
Under the Arab Street
''The New York Times'', October 23, 2002. In some contexts it refers more specifically to the lower socioeconomic strata of Arab society. It is used primarily in the United States and Arab countries.
While it is sometimes assumed, particularly in the United States, to have been
borrowed from Arabic political discourse, its evolution has followed a circular course from Arabic to English and then back.
Lebanese newspapers began referring to just "the street" during the 1950s; later in the decade reports in ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' used the term in English to explain
Gamal Abdel Nasser
Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein, . (15 January 1918 – 28 September 1970) was an Egyptian politician who served as the second president of Egypt from 1954 until his death in 1970. Nasser led the Egyptian revolution of 1952 and introduced far-r ...
's broad appeal not just in his native
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning the North Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via a land bridg ...
but across the Arab world. Later commentators added the "Arab" and eventually dropped the
scare quotes to create the current usage, which became widespread in American media during the
First Palestinian Intifada in 1987.
Arab media began using it themselves a decade later.
[Regier and Khalidi, 26.] However, its usage still differs between the two languages. In the Western English-language media, only Arab popular sentiment is referred to as the "street"; Arabic commentators use the expression in the same sense to refer to not just public opinion in their countries but in the West as well.
[Regier and Khalidi, 24.]
Due to the many negative
connotation
A connotation is a commonly understood cultural or emotional association that any given word or phrase carries, in addition to its explicit or literal meaning, which is its denotation.
A connotation is frequently described as either positive ...
s attached to the use of "street" as a
modifier, the use of the term in English has been criticized as fostering stereotypes of a population easily roused to violence. The "Arab street" thus alternately justifies the need for an authoritarian ruler, or constrains the potentially moderate actions of those rulers.
In the wake of the
Arab Spring
The Arab Spring ( ar, الربيع العربي) was a series of anti-government protests, uprisings and armed rebellions that spread across much of the Arab world in the early 2010s. It began in Tunisia in response to corruption and econo ...
early in the 2010s, the concept of the Arab street has been revisited and challenged. The revolutions that toppled governments have, to some, shown how deficient and outdated Western understandings of Arab public opinion, shaped by the concept of the "Arab street", had been
and have even led some to suggest it no longer be used.
Others, including some Arabs, saw the uprisings as vindicating the importance of public opinion in their cultures and changing the popular concept of the street within them.
Definition
Attempts to directly define the Arab street have usually equated it with Arab public opinion. ''
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' columnist
Thomas Friedman
Thomas Loren Friedman (; born July 20, 1953) is an American political commentator and author. He is a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner who is a weekly columnist for '' The New York Times''. He has written extensively on foreign affairs, global ...
, who once covered the Middle East and frequently writes about the region, called it "the broad mass of public opinion" there in 2002, as distinct from extremist opinion, which he calls the "Arab basement".
As of 2013, ''
Collins English Dictionary
The ''Collins English Dictionary'' is a printed and online dictionary of English. It is published by HarperCollins in Glasgow.
The edition of the dictionary in 1979 with Patrick Hanks as editor and Laurence Urdang as editorial director, wa ...
'' defines "the Arab street" as an informal term for "public opinion in the Arab world."
[Arab street]
, ''Collins English Dictionary
The ''Collins English Dictionary'' is a printed and online dictionary of English. It is published by HarperCollins in Glasgow.
The edition of the dictionary in 1979 with Patrick Hanks as editor and Laurence Urdang as editorial director, wa ...
'', 2013, retrieved September 4, 2013
Nevertheless, even as the term came into wide use, there was disagreement about its exact meaning. In 2002 a
U.S. State Department
The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other n ...
official, reporting on a meeting between President
George W. Bush and the leaders of Japan and Pakistan, said that the latter,
Pervez Musharraf
General Pervez Musharraf ( ur, , Parvez Muśharraf; born 11 August 1943) is a former Pakistani politician and four-star general of the Pakistan Army who became the tenth president of Pakistan after the successful military takeover of t ...
, had referred to the "possibility of trouble in the Arab street, whatever that is" over the upcoming
invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq was a United States-led invasion of the Republic of Iraq and the first stage of the Iraq War. The invasion phase began on 19 March 2003 (air) and 20 March 2003 (ground) and lasted just over one month, including 26 ...
. This uncertainty has led to confusion over what the term represents. During the same period of time,
Defense Secretary
The United States secretary of defense (SecDef) is the head of the United States Department of Defense, the executive department of the U.S. Armed Forces, and is a high ranking member of the federal cabinet. DoDD 5100.1: Enclosure 2: a The se ...
Donald Rumsfeld
Donald Henry Rumsfeld (July 9, 1932 – June 29, 2021) was an American politician, government official and businessman who served as Secretary of Defense from 1975 to 1977 under president Gerald Ford, and again from 2001 to 2006 under Preside ...
later recalled, Arab leaders urged him to make sure the operation went quickly as they "were worried about the 'Arab street' erupting in anger at the West's invasion of a Muslim country. I was skeptical of the idea that a monolithic Arab street existed ... but I did understand that popular discontent could cause them difficulties."
[Rumsfeld, Donald. ''Known and Unknown: A Memoir'', Penguin Group, New York, 2011, p. 4449. ]
According to a 2009 paper on the evolution and use of the term by professors Terry Regier and Muhammad Ali Khalidi, some of that confusion results from a frequent second meaning. encompassing the majority of Arab public opinion, they observe, another usage seems to associate it more specifically with "a presumed seething underclass within Arab society, one that is viewed primarily as a source of political trouble." In a 1993 exploration of the Arab street's existence, David Pollock of the
Washington Institute for Near East Policy
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP or TWI, also known simply as The Washington Institute) is a pro-Israel American think tank based in Washington, D.C., focused on the foreign policy of the United States in the Near East.
WIN ...
began by acknowledging these
connotation
A connotation is a commonly understood cultural or emotional association that any given word or phrase carries, in addition to its explicit or literal meaning, which is its denotation.
A connotation is frequently described as either positive ...
s: "The very name evokes images of mystery, mobs and
mullah
Mullah (; ) is an honorific title for Shia and Sunni Muslim clergy or a Muslim mosque leader. The term is also sometimes used for a person who has higher education in Islamic theology and sharia law.
The title has also been used in some M ...
s; it sounds vaguely subterranean, if not sinister; and it is most often regarded in the West with a peculiar mixture of fascination, dismissal and fear."
[Pollock, David]
The Arab Street? Public Opinion in the Arab World
1992, p. 1. Retrieved September 4, 2013.
In November 2001, a front-page story in ''The New York Times'' on the Arab street's rising power in the wake of the
terrorist attacks in the U.S. two months earlier began by evoking the term's visual connotations and the corresponding power vested in it by fearful Western observers: "The Arab street: the well-worn phrase evokes men clustered around dusty coffeehouse tables, discussing the events of the day with well-earned cynicism between puffs on a
hookah
A hookah ( Hindustani: ( Nastaleeq), (Devanagari), IPA: ; also see other names), shisha, or waterpipe is a single- or multi-stemmed instrument for heating or vaporizing and then smoking either tobacco, flavored tobacco (often '' muʽassel ...
—yet suddenly able to turn into a mob, powerful enough to sweep away governments."
Ten years later, columnist
Edwin Black
Edwin Black (born February 27, 1950) is an American historian and author, as well as a syndicated columnist, investigative journalist, and weekly talk show host on The Edwin Black Show. He specializes in human rights, the historical interplay b ...
wrote on the
Fox News
The Fox News Channel, abbreviated FNC, commonly known as Fox News, and stylized in all caps, is an American multinational conservative cable news television channel based in New York City. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is o ...
website, after protesters in Egypt began calling for longtime president
Hosni Mubarak
Muhammad Hosni El Sayed Mubarak, (; 4 May 1928 – 25 February 2020) was an Egyptian politician and military officer who served as the fourth president of Egypt from 1981 to 2011.
Before he entered politics, Mubarak was a career officer in ...
to step down, something that had previously been unthinkable, that the leader had fallen afoul of the Arab street,
Arabic
In Arabic, the word for street (الشارع, ''ash-shāriʿ''
[This transliteration reflects the difference between ]sun and moon letters
In Arabic and Maltese, the consonants are divided into two groups, called the sun letters or solar letters ( ar, حروف شمسية ', mt, konsonanti xemxin) and moon letters or lunar letters (Arabic: ', mt, konsonanti qamrin), based on wh ...
in Arabic, under which when the article ''al-'' is followed by certain consonants, among them ''sh''-", the "l" sound is elided.) is derived from a
root
In vascular plants, the roots are the organs of a plant that are modified to provide anchorage for the plant and take in water and nutrients into the plant body, which allows plants to grow taller and faster. They are most often below the su ...
whose other forms denote a place of entry or beginning, the point of a weapon, and law or lawfulness and legitimacy in both the secular and religious sense. Among those words are ''
sharia
Sharia (; ar, شريعة, sharīʿa ) is a body of religious law that forms a part of the Islamic tradition. It is derived from the religious precepts of Islam and is based on the sacred scriptures of Islam, particularly the Quran and the H ...
'', the term for
Islam
Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God (or '' Allah'') as it was revealed to Muhammad, the ...
ic religious and moral law. ''Shāriʿ'' itself can also be used to refer to a legislator or lawgiver, and when used with the
definite article
An article is any member of a class of dedicated words that are used with noun phrases to mark the identifiability of the referents of the noun phrases. The category of articles constitutes a part of speech.
In English, both "the" and "a(n)" a ...
''al-'' in a religious context is a reference to
God
In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...
as the source of all religious law.
According to Regier and Khalidi, Arabic commentators use the term much as it is used in the West, when they discuss public opinion in the Arab world. However, they also refer to the "streets" of other, non-Arab countries in much the same way—"feelings of anger and shock are running very high in the American street
fter the September 11 attacks,
for example. And in contrast to the fear of political upheaval frequently implied by Western writers, their use of "the Arab street" often carries positive and respectful overtones, such as when ''
Al-Ayyam'' praised "the great Egyptian street, which has always been the heart and conscience of the Arabs" in 1997.
Hezbollah
Hezbollah (; ar, حزب الله ', , also transliterated Hizbullah or Hizballah, among others) is a Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and militant group, led by its Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah since 1992. Hezbollah's parami ...
leader
Hassan Nasrallah
Hassan Nasrallah ( ar, حسن نصر الله ; born 31 August 1960) is a Lebanese cleric and political leader who has served as the 3rd secretary-general of Hezbollah since his predecessor, Abbas al-Musawi, was assassinated by the Israel D ...
provided an example of both differences in usage when he praised "the Israeli street" for its reaction to the
Winograd report on Israel's conduct of the
2006 Lebanon War
The 2006 Lebanon War, also called the 2006 Israel–Hezbollah War and known in Lebanon as the July War ( ar, حرب تموز, ''Ḥarb Tammūz'') and in Israel as the Second Lebanon War ( he, מלחמת לבנון השנייה, ''Milhemet Leva ...
.
History
"Arab street" arises originally from Arabic usage, but only became widely recognized through English adaptation.
English
In English, the earliest use of the word "street" in reference to the political role of popular opinion Regier and Khalidi found was that cited in the ''
Oxford English Dictionary
The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a c ...
''
's (OED) entry on the word, where one of its definitions in the plural is "''loosely'' as the realm of the common man, and esp. the source of popular political support."
Wyndham Lewis
Percy Wyndham Lewis (18 November 1882 – 7 March 1957) was a British writer, painter and critic. He was a co-founder of the Vorticist movement in art and edited ''BLAST,'' the literary magazine of the Vorticists.
His novels include ''Tarr'' ( ...
's 1931 book ''Hitler'', a defense of
the German dictator that he later disowned, credited Hitler's political success in part to his "mastery of the street",
[, cited by Regier and Khalidi, 23–24.] which the OED reported as the earliest use of the word in that political sense. It did not enter widespread use at that time.
The earliest use of "street" in a political context that Regier and Khalidi could find was a 1950 editorial in the Lebanese newspaper ''
An-Nahar'':
"The street," they wrote, "is here conceived as an aggrieved everyman, manipulated and exploited by the political class," a sense that later manifested itself in Western discourse.
[Regier and Khalidi, 25.]
This usage made its debut in the American media early in 1957. ''Times'' correspondent Hanson Baldwin, in an article on the personalities in the Middle East in the wake of the previous year's
Suez Crisis
The Suez Crisis, or the Second Arab–Israeli war, also called the Tripartite Aggression ( ar, العدوان الثلاثي, Al-ʿUdwān aṯ-Ṯulāṯiyy) in the Arab world and the Sinai War in Israel,Also known as the Suez War or 1956 Wa ...
, focused on
Gamal Abdel Nasser
Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein, . (15 January 1918 – 28 September 1970) was an Egyptian politician who served as the second president of Egypt from 1954 until his death in 1970. Nasser led the Egyptian revolution of 1952 and introduced far-r ...
, president and prime minister of
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning the North Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via a land bridg ...
. Baldwin credited Nasser's success to "his appeal to 'the street', which
carries great political power in the Arab world." He also inaugurated the concept of the street as a source of political danger to established hierarchies, saying Nasser's prestige was "probably at a new high with the Arab street mobs, by which Arab governments are so often made or broken." Two years later, the title and subtitle of a ''
Times Magazine'' article made explicitly clear that the Arab mob and the street were related: "Power of 'The Street' in the Arab World; Here is an analysis of that frightening phenomenon, the mob, and the role it plays in the contest between freedom and tyranny in the Mideast."
[Regier and Khalidi, 21–22.]
Nasser himself, in speeches, often cited not the street but "''al-gamāhīr''"
[This transliteration reflects the pronunciation of the Arabic letter ج, often given the value , equivalent to an English soft "j", as or an English hard "g", in ]Egyptian Arabic
Egyptian Arabic, locally known as Colloquial Egyptian ( ar, العامية المصرية, ), or simply Masri (also Masry) (), is the most widely spoken vernacular Arabic dialect in Egypt. It is part of the Afro-Asiatic language family, and ...
. (الجماهير) as his political base. The ''
Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic'' defines it as "the masses", or "the people"; in the singular it can mean "the public" or a crowd or throng of people. Another form of the same root is ''jumhūrīah'', the word for
republic
A republic () is a " state in which power rests with the people or their representatives; specifically a state without a monarchy" and also a "government, or system of government, of such a state." Previously, especially in the 17th and 18th ...
.
[Wehr, 163.]
''Gamāhīr'', rendered in English as "the masses", carries
Marxist
Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialecti ...
overtones of
class struggle
Class conflict, also referred to as class struggle and class warfare, is the political tension and economic antagonism that exists in society because of socio-economic competition among the social classes or between rich and poor.
The form ...
.
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world.
Charte ...
professor Joe Khalil, who studies the Arab media, explains that it can "refer to everything from the indoctrinated members of a political party to a group of enthusiasts at a pop performance." Within a political context it most often denotes "several groups of people bound together by a common activity or ideology and easily recognizable within a larger population." The term, like the
Pan-Arabism
Pan-Arabism ( ar, الوحدة العربية or ) is an ideology that espouses the unification of the countries of North Africa and Western Asia from the Atlantic Ocean to the Arabian Sea, which is referred to as the Arab world. It is closely c ...
it was also associated with, gradually fell into disuse after Egypt was defeated by
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
both in the Suez Crisis and the
Six-Day War
The Six-Day War (, ; ar, النكسة, , or ) or June War, also known as the 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab states (primarily Egypt, Syria, and Jordan) from 5 to 10 ...
of 1967.
"Street" was first
grammatically modified by "Arab" in English in a 1970 article in ''The Review of Politics'', a
political science
Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and ...
journal
A journal, from the Old French ''journal'' (meaning "daily"), may refer to:
*Bullet journal, a method of personal organization
*Diary, a record of what happened over the course of a day or other period
*Daybook, also known as a general journal, a ...
. The writer, Robert Sullivan, alluded to the role of "radio propaganda aimed at mobilizing the Arab 'street'" during military conflicts. Seven years later, another journal article by
Steve J. Rosen argued that Israel's development of nuclear weapons would lead to "a revolution of declining expectations in the Arab 'street.'"
Regier and Khalidi speculate that the use of
scare quotes
Scare quotes (also called shudder quotes,Pinker, Steven. ''The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century''. Penguin (2014) sneer quotes, and quibble marks) are quotation marks that writers place around a word o ...
by both Rosen and Sullivan suggest that they are using a term not familiar to them, something they may have adapted from a foreign language. Since both of them were academics specializing in
Middle Eastern studies
Middle Eastern studies (sometimes referred to as Near Eastern studies) is a name given to a number of academic programs associated with the study of the history, culture, politics, economies, and geography of the Middle East, an area that is gene ...
, it could be presumed that they had at least a reading knowledge of Arabic and were familiar with the term's use in Arabic media in the region, Regier and Khalidi argued. The two further speculated that Rosen, who often took strongly pro-Israel positions and later became policy director of the
American Israel Public Affairs Committee
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC ) is a lobbying group that advocates pro-Israel policies to the legislative and executive branches of the United States. One of several pro-Israel lobbying organizations in the United Stat ...
, may have also perhaps picked up the term from Israeli media and scholars, as the "street" terminology for popular opinion is also used sometimes in
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
.
An Israeli attorney's 1987 comment to ''
The Christian Science Monitor
''The Christian Science Monitor'' (''CSM''), commonly known as ''The Monitor'', is a nonprofit news organization that publishes daily articles in electronic format as well as a weekly print edition. It was founded in 1908 as a daily newspaper ...
'', that his country had never "tried to root out the
PLO in the Arab street" was the first modern use in its present sense without the scare quotes. By the end of the decade it came into wide use in both American academic and popular media,
as coverage of the
First Palestinian Intifada dominated news from the region. This may have been the result of
geopolitical
Geopolitics (from Greek γῆ ''gê'' "earth, land" and πολιτική ''politikḗ'' "politics") is the study of the effects of Earth's geography (human and physical) on politics and international relations. While geopolitics usually refers to ...
shifts taking place at the same time. ''The New York Times'' language columnist
William Safire
William Lewis Safire (; Safir; December 17, 1929 – September 27, 2009Safire, William (1986). ''Take My Word for It: More on Language.'' Times Books. . p. 185.) was an American author, columnist, journalist, and presidential speechwriter. He ...
anonymously quoted a Middle East expert who told him that before the late 1980s the term "Arab masses" had been used instead. "With
the eclipse of the Soviet Union, that phrase disappeared because
thad too much of a Marxist–Soviet–
Communist
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, ...
tilt to it."
In his 1992 paper on the Arab street as a political phenomenon, David Pollock uses "Arab masses" only once, and in quotes.
[Pollock, 29.]
Arabic
The first use of the term "Arab street" in Arabic media occurred in 1997. The two researchers were not certain whether it had seen any use prior to that year as the database they used only went as far back as 1995. It has become quite common in Arabic media since then, suggesting, according to Regier and Khalidi, that a term created in English from a borrowed Arabic term has been "re-imported" into Arabic.
[Regier and Khalidi, 26.]
Criticism
Negative connotations
While sometimes the American media used "Arab street" as to be interchangeable with "Arab public opinion," suggesting rationality and calm, Regier and Khalidi found that most uses carried the connotations of incipient unrest. "We propose that a central association of the ''Arab street'' is indeed that of a volatile potential mob, dangerous to the established order of Arab states, and thus to any agreements Western powers may have with those states." While users may not always have intended it that way, in many cases they did.
[Regier and Khalidi, 13–15.]
They identified three factors that gave rise to these connotations. First, other common English phrases such as "
man in/on the street", "
street smart" and "
the word on the street" suggest the street is associated with uneducated and possibly misinformed opinion. The street is further associated with illegality through terms like "
street crime
Street crime is a loose term for any criminal offense in a public place. The difference between street crime and white-collar crime is that street crime is often violence that occurs in a public area whereas white-collar crime is non-violent crim ...
" and the "street value" of
contraband
Contraband (from Medieval French ''contrebande'' "smuggling") refers to any item that, relating to its nature, is illegal to be possessed or sold. It is used for goods that by their nature are considered too dangerous or offensive in the eyes o ...
such as illicit drugs. Both of these, Regier and Khalidi observe, help strengthen the sense that the Arab street's opinions are uninfluenced and uncontrollable by any official source or body.
[Regier and Khalidi, 16–17.]
Lastly, terms like "street person" for one who is
homeless
Homelessness or houselessness – also known as a state of being unhoused or unsheltered – is the condition of lacking stable, safe, and adequate housing. People can be categorized as homeless if they are:
* living on the streets, also kn ...
and "
streetwalker" for a prostitute link the street to desperate personal circumstances. Regier and Khalidi note that this has historical connections to the term "
street Arab", for a homeless child, now out of regular use but still encountered by readers of
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for '' A Study in Scarlet'', the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Ho ...
's
Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes () is a fictional detective created by British author Arthur Conan Doyle. Referring to himself as a " consulting detective" in the stories, Holmes is known for his proficiency with observation, deduction, forensic science and ...
mysteries, where the titular character relied at times on a network of such individuals as informants.
Edward Said
Edward Wadie Said (; , ; 1 November 1935 – 24 September 2003) was a Palestinian-American professor of literature at Columbia University, a public intellectual, and a founder of the academic field of postcolonial studies.Robert Young, ''Whit ...
, a
Palestinian
Palestinians ( ar, الفلسطينيون, ; he, פָלַסְטִינִים, ) or Palestinian people ( ar, الشعب الفلسطيني, label=none, ), also referred to as Palestinian Arabs ( ar, الفلسطينيين العرب, label=non ...
-born professor of English literature at
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
who frequently spoke and wrote on behalf of his people's cause, along with casting a critical eye on Western "
orientalism
In art history, literature and cultural studies, Orientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects in the Eastern world. These depictions are usually done by writers, designers, and artists from the Western world. In particular, Orientalist p ...
" and how it affected perceptions of non-Western cultures such as the Arab world, explicitly and critically drew the connection between the two terms, they note, quoting him as saying:
Regier and Khalidi write that the view of the Arab street, and by extension all Arab public opinion, as that of a mob always poised to rise violently, does Western publics a disservice. Not only is it inaccurate, it confronts them with "something quite unlike Westerners' conception of their own publics ... It has the potential to contribute to an ongoing misreading of the Arab public among U.S. readers."
Harmful to Arab-American relations
In late 1990 after
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...
i forces under
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein ( ; ar, صدام حسين, Ṣaddām Ḥusayn; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolutio ...
invaded and occupied Kuwait
Kuwait (; ar, الكويت ', or ), officially the State of Kuwait ( ar, دولة الكويت '), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated in the northern edge of Eastern Arabia at the tip of the Persian Gulf, bordering Iraq to Iraq–Ku ...
, ultimately leading to the
Gulf War
The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Iraq were carried out in two key phases: ...
, American commentators and Middle East experts expressed concern about the possible consequences of the Arab street in the region rising up in support of Saddam against their own governments, many of whom (particularly Egypt) had joined the military coalition led by the United States. This did not happen when the actual war began, nor for the hundred days of combat before Iraqi forces retreated and surrendered. A year later, in 1992, David Pollock of the
United States Information Agency
The United States Information Agency (USIA), which operated from 1953 to 1999, was a United States agency devoted to "public diplomacy". In 1999, prior to the reorganization of intelligence agencies by President George W. Bush, President Bill C ...
(USIA) wrote a lengthy paper arguing that those commentators had seriously misunderstood the Arab street and, by extension, all Arab public opinion.
As applied, Pollock saw two predominant conceptualizations of the Arab street. One, he called the "underrated" school, which usually claimed that "in the absence of Arab democratic institutions public opinion in those countries is politically irrelevant."
[Pollock, 3.] Other members of that school went further, claiming that Arab public opinion was "unknowable, and therefore unfit for serious discussion." A small minority considered the Arab street a concept bound with
Pan-Arabism
Pan-Arabism ( ar, الوحدة العربية or ) is an ideology that espouses the unification of the countries of North Africa and Western Asia from the Atlantic Ocean to the Arabian Sea, which is referred to as the Arab world. It is closely c ...
, by then largely discredited, and by extension similarly irrelevant.
[Pollock, 7–8.]
On the opposite side was what he called the "exaggerated" school, which saw the Arab elites as "already hopelessly alienated from the masses ... As a result, popular revolution (or at least paralyzing instability) is always around the corner in the Arab world." Proponents argued that, for that reason, the U.S. should turn its attention towards those who might hold power in a more democratic Arab world; otherwise, its relationships with Arab states will always be tenuous and unstable.
[Pollock, 9–10.]
A key foundation of the "underrated" school's argument, Pollock wrote, was the tendency of the media in most Arab countries to be under state control or influence to a greater degree than in the West and therefore filtering information to the public and not reporting public opinion accurately, an experience informed by
contemporary events in Eastern Europe. However, even in
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
, a coalition country where
the government had the greatest control over the media, citizens still listened to the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
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...
and Israeli and Saudi radio stations. In other countries, particularly some in
, the media was relatively unrestricted during the conflict. Those mystified by the quiet on the Arab street during the conflict, he said, "neglected ... the possibility that different Arab publics generally supported the different policies pursued by their own governments towards the crisis."
In addition, it was also entirely possible that those governments had based their policies in part on public opinion. Arab governments, Pollock observed, were not indifferent to public opinion despite the absence of real democratic institutions. Officials in
''es (مجلس) and the Egyptian government took note of what was said at neighborhood discussion centers known as "listening posts."
Some also consulted opinion polls. It was data from those that led him to believe that
both stayed out of the coalition in part because their leaders were aware that popular sentiment in their countries was strongly against participating, and they might have faced destabilizing
if they had.
Pollock was especially scornful of those who viewed the Arab street as irrelevant because it was unknowable. "This assumption sounds at once pathetic and presumptuous, a sorry combination of self-confessed intellectual ignorance and impotence ... For one thing, it should be self-evident that you cannot dismiss the Arab street just because you don't understand it."
As for the "exaggerated" school, he first observed that there was, in fact, little history of real popular revolutions deposing governments in the modern Middle East with what he called the "debatable" exception of the
, and not even many more unsuccessful attempts to do so via street uprisings. So, he noted with some bemusement, "the beauty of this argument is that it is invulnerable to disproof—because its proof lies in the future, which of course always lies ahead."
again made it likely that the U.S. would find itself fighting another war against a Muslim country, and again fears rose in the American media about the damage an angered Arab street could inflict on American interests in the region when actual combat began, especially with the
already underway.
Another USIA employee, Nancy Snow, wrote about the problems created by the connotations of the term in 2011, when she had become a professor at
wrote in 2011, "the 'Arab street' is damned if it does and damned if it doesn't", echoing a theme of Pollock's critique. After fears of violence across the Arab world proved exaggerated following the beginning of the
, commentators dismissed the Arab street as apathetic and harmless, only to suddenly reclaim it as an object of fear when popular protests erupted all over the region in response to
. He denounced the term as a
the culture and collective conduct of an entire people in a violent abstraction."
agrees that the negative connotations of "Arab street" are harmful to public discourse about the region in the West, he puts some of the blame for its widespread use on Arabs themselves. "It is no exaggeration to say that 'public opinion' has not had any presence to speak of in the Arabic political vocabulary," he wrote in 2009. It did not emerge into Arabic political discussion alongside the idea of
when that became a goal of Arab activists in the early 20th century, he notes, and
organizations did not consequently form as they did in the West. Thus the notion of the Arab street filled the void. The Arabic term for public opinion, الرءئ العمم (''ar-raʾī al-ʿamm''), is
. "There is no other Arabic term that conveys an equivalent meaning."
To make the distinction between mainstream and extremist Arab opinion clear, in 2002 Jordanian journalist
picked it up, noting that the Arab street, in opposition to the "basement", is "largely passive and nonviolent." While the U.S. and the West had no choice but to defeat the basement, since it was beyond reason, he said it was not too late to work with Arab states to address the very real grievances that led from the street to the basement. "If America made clear that it was going into Iraq," he wrote, "not just to disarm Iraq but to empower Iraq's people to implement the
, well, the Arab basement still wouldn't be with us, but the Arab street just might."
Beginning in 2011, popular uprisings that came to be collectively known as the
. Similar
.
"Those accustomed to the region's repressive status quo have been caught by surprise", wrote two editors of an anthology of writings by younger Arabs. "
—typically viewed with trepidation as part of a reactionary 'Arab street' or simply overlooked as masses passively acquiescing to despots—have shattered stereotypes by leading dignified struggles in the face of overwhelming repression."
to step down, reconsidered the concept of the Arab street and whether or not it had, indeed, ever been an accurate representation of public opinion in the region. "I'm convinced the country has what it takes to build a decent, representative society—one that gives the lie to all the stereotypes associated with that dismissive shorthand 'The Arab Street.'"
the day afterward in ''The New York Times''. "In fact, post-
shortly afterwards, noting that Arabs had never risen up in response to violence against
, widely believed to have been ordered by Gaddafi.
Arab commentators agreed. "
ents in Egypt and elsewhere have exposed the myth of 'the Arab street' as a shallow caricature of the complex reality behind the revolutionary movements now sweeping the Arab world," wrote Hassan Malik, a
graduate student. He noted that in both Tunisia and Egypt the protesters had been a diverse group in every way that had been motivated by a desire for political freedom, not the
so often feared to be motivating the street in the West. "It is time for Washington and its allies to drop their fears of 'the Arab street' and unequivocally and genuinely support the popular revolution in Egypt—or to get out of the way."
'', Syrian journalist Ula Shaybeddine recalled how the uprisings had changed the meaning of the word "street" for his generation. Once, much as it had been in English, it had been "a space for thieves, drug addicts, prostitutes, beggars, and 'riffraff.'" But now there was "a new understanding of the Arab 'street,'" he wrote. "We are beginning to understand why the powers that be wanted us to believe all those lies about
" He said it had now become "a place of righteousness and honor, beauty and justice ... the space where our youth came of age, as they rebelled against injustice, abuse, and humiliation."