TV

August 4, 2012

Argentina has approximately 45 million people.

Somewhere between 3 and 4 million Argentines have some degree of Arabic ancestry; most being either Syrian Orthodox or Lebanese, who are often Maronite Catholic.  While Palestinians are found among them, they do not have the same clout that Palestinians have in Chile, where the Palestinians are the majority of the Arab community.

The Syrio-Lebanese seem to be more interested in blending in to Argentine society that the Arabs are in other countries.

The Arabs in Argentina have an ethnic collective organization: FEARAB-Argentina (Federation of Arab Societies in Argentina).

FEARAB-Argentina also maintains a Facebook page.

Former FEARAB-Argentina Website banner (Federation of Arab Societies in Argentina) circa 2012
(Click Here) for archive of website

One of the pictures on the old header was of a gaucho¹ against images of Syria and Lebanon, which was more a message of an assimilating Arab ethnic group which wanted to be Argentine. The Arab-Argentines do not seem to be as strongly politicized as Chilean Arabs, where the Palestinian-Chilean community presently seems to have a strong anti-Israel view.

The former website for FEARAB-Chile (Federation of Arab Societies in Chile) used to have a map of Palestine that erased Israel altogether.

Former Header on FEARAB-Chile website – Israel was erased from the map.

The present page for FEARAB-Chile is still highly politicized against Israel.

Clearly, with Palestinians less of a constituency in Argentina, and Lebanese more strongly represented, a more moderate view seems to operate among Argentine Arabs.

What you are more likely to see in Argentina’s Arabs is more of a concentration on culture and heritage.  The Palestine issue may come up, but it is not as central to their identity.

Again, this seems to be the moderating influence of a large Maronite community from Lebanon. The Christians in Lebanon were terribly persecuted by Muslims, so they tend to shy away from any cause which has a Muslim indentity. Hence, they downplay the Israel/Palestine conflict.

This TV show (below) is more typical:

Dami U Damak (Arabic for Blood to Blood) – 2008 Season – Show #100 Part 1 (Source)
NOTE: Only the opening song is in Arabic, the rest is in Spanish.
From San Luis, in Central Argentina.

Notice how the show shows Christian priests, in the opening. Notice how the women seem quite liberated.

This show seems to be a retrospective show (It is their 100th show) and so they went over some past shows, and stories.

Notice at (5:30) the memorial to victims of the Lebanese-Israel war. Notice the Argentine flag in the crowd. These people are integrated.

What should be clear here is that in Argentina the vast majority of Arabs are Christians, and assimilated ones at that. They set the cultural tone. Actually, there was a resevoir of anger at Muslim extremism after the AMIA bombing of 1994. The Arabs in Argentina were quick to distance themselves from it; and since the vast majority are Christian, this was not too hard.

Most Arabs have assimilated exceptionally well into Argentina with a large degree of intermarriage with other ethnic-Argentines.

¹There is good reason to believe that part of gaucho apparel hails from Moriscos (Hispanicized Moors – lit: Moorish Ones) who came to South America. That is a story in itself; but there is a debate whether the word gaucho comes from Indian tongues or from a Arab-Moorish word for cow herder. I lean towards the Arab-Moorish view.

Many of these Moriscos made it to Argentina, rather than be expelled to North Africa. Expecting equal treatment in the colonies, they were often abused as racially inferior. Many of them deserted into the interior where they mixed with Spanish outcasts, Basque adventurers, Indians, and later black slaves, to produce a new stock … which would become the gauchos. They would eventually totally Catholicize (if they were not Catholic already), losing any connection with their Arab roots, except their wardrobes which smack of an oriental fashion, not a European Spanish one.

The image we have of the gaucho now is white. This was the product of massive white immigration to Argentina in the mid to late 19th century. But when Argentina fought Spain for its independence, in the 1810s, massive white immigration had yet to start. The gauchos were quite mestizo. They played havoc with the Royal Spanish Armies and drove them out of the interior of Argentina, during the Gaucho Wars. They were responsible, to a large part, for Argentina’s Independence since the Spanish Armies were no match for them.

In the end, the gaucho descendents of the Moriscos got their revenge. The Spanish government threw them out of Spain. Their descendents would throw the Spanish goverment out of Argentina.

The Arabs of Argentina take pride in this, though with some degree of exaggeration. Most Arab-Argentines arrived long after the gaucho wars, and during the time of European immigration. Most old line gauchos (from pre-1870 stocks) are probably not aware of any possible Morisco ancestry, and would indentify as Spanish or Basque with possibly a mix of Indian. Newer gauchos, of post 1870 ancestry, would be of European, often Basque or Irish, stock.

The red neck kerchief of the gaucho is clearly European Basque in ancestry. A lot of gauchos wear berets instead of gaucho sombreros. The beret would be Basque in origin.

But, even if exaggerated, the picture of the gaucho shows that Argentine-Arabs identify with Argentina.

3 May 2021 – Edited: Updated info, cleaned up writing, made more mobile friendly, and made a lot of changes.