Argentina

Argentina is a very large country on the southeast of South America, running from the polar south to the tropical north. The population is very European in ancestry, with roughly half being pure-European in background, and another large section being mostly European in background.

It has a large Arab population (9±%), but which is intermarried and assimilated into the country’s larger demographic This is because it is heavily Maronite (Catholic) Lebanese who assimilate well.

Interestingly, Argentina has around 180,000 Jews – the seventh largest Jewish population in the world – and they can be politically active.

The King Fahd Mosque

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The King Fahd Mosque


Posted on YouTube: January 11, 2019

The King Fahd Mosque was built on eight acres of downtown Buenos Aires on land donated in 1995 to the Saudis by Carlos Menem, the president of Argentina, and the Argentine Congress. Menem was a nominal convert to Catholicism, being himself the son of Syrian born Muslim immigrant parents.

In the 1990s, Buenos Aires was a boom city, and one of the most expensive places on the planet to live (This was before their currency collapse). So donating eight acres was equivalent to donating Bryant Park in Manhattan to the Saudis. One wonders what possessed the Argentine government to donate such prime real estate to the Saudis.

Source: A Tour of South America’s Largest Mosque
(now offline)

Non-Muslims in Argentina don’t seem to know much about this complex other than that former President Carlos Saúl Menem (himself of Syrian descent) was responsible for it. This is somewhat true. King Fahd of Saudia Arabia financed the construction, which totaled some U$15m. Menem’s contribution was arranging the donation of the land, which has been valued at around U$10m. Congress passed a national law in 1995, giving the land to the cultural centre. The first stone was laid on 7th December 1998, not without some slight controversy: neighbours were unsure about the increased traffic and architectural disharmony, among other issues. But the centre opened on 25th September 2000 with much fanfare as King Fahd himself and 250 other dignitaries came from Saudi Arabia to celebrate the opening.
…

It is architecturally beautiful, and positively enormous. – it is the biggest Mosque in South America. But there were only 4,500 practicing Muslims in Buenos Aires, at that time, and there was no need for it. It has given the Saudis a door into Argentina to create future headaches.

Source: The Muslim Community of Argentina
(now offline)

… a realistic guess for the Muslim population of Buenos Aires might be around 4,500, far fewer than the number projected by some Muslim officials.

Already the Mosque’s Islamic Center has caused some controversy. A very popular secular Arab-Argentine show, Desde El Aljibe (From the Well)1 was cancelled to make way for Muslim programming that no one wanted – rumors flew around as the to the reason; but what is interesting is that Argentina’s Arab Community, which is 90% or more Christian were among the loudest to complain.

Islam is roughly 1% of the population in Argentina, but even that number may be grossly exaggerated. As academics have noted, the vast majority of Muslims in Argentina do not practice their religion; and were historically inclined to marry into Catholicism. This mosque may slow or halt that process of assimilation.

Until recently, much of South America was content to remain out of Mideast politics. However, now Iranian and Arab Oil Money have infiltrated this very Christian continent. Every nation in South America, except Colombia, recognized Palestine as a nation and set up embassies.

If the USA and Israel do not wake up, the Arabs will turn South America against Israel. Certainly the Saudis and Iranians won’t convert the mass of the Latins to Islam; but they will spread a virulent anti-Zionism.

1Desde El Aljibe (From the Well) was a generic show about Arab culture, music, cooking, dance, history and travelogues. They even had short lessons on the Arab language, geared to teach the Spanish speaking audience a few phrases.


Music and singing were common on Desde el Aljibe (From the Well).
Source: ElAljibedetodos, a viewer who assembled hundreds of these videos
on his YouTube channel.

The hosts were Christian, but the show was secular. The show had Muslims and Jews on regularly. It was aimed at a generic audience, not just Arab-Argentines. A typical show might have a cooking lesson, some history, maybe a travelogue about Jordan or Syria, etc. There might be a discusson of politics. And it would have Arab or Arab-Latin music; and often close with an Arab folkdance troupe. The show was primarily harmless and pushed no strong agenda. Palestine might be mentioned from time to time, but the show did not beat a war path.

When Desde El Aljibe got cancelled to make way for a blantantly religious Muslim show, centered from the King Fahd Mosque, there was a degree of community protest. Was this due to money or bribes? Did the ratings drop that much because a popular host on the show died? But even if the ratings dropped, why would the show be replaced with a show geared to Muslim prosyletization to a Catholic country?


No one wanted this but the Saudi financed Islamic Center

The fate of Desde El Aljibe seems to be symptomatic of a general trend of growing Arab Oil Money influence in the continent. The issue was not so much that it was cancelled, but that is was replaced by Muslim programming nobody seemed to have wanted but the Islamic Center.

When news got out about the cancellation, FEARAB Argentina (Federation of Arab Societies in Argentina) put out a protest video to stop the cancellation. No one listened, but it does show that the Arab community in Argentina had enough guts to stand up to Islamic encroachment which did not represent them.

Their video – which I translated – is worth watching as it shows a gutsy political incorrectness missing in American political dialogue


The background music is Awal Sahur
a piece by Mario Kirlis, an Arab-Latin musician,
and it was Desde El Aljibe‘s closing theme

Sadly, their request was ignored.

Oct 1, 2018 – Edited: Had to replace video with a more recent one.
Aug 10, 2020 – Edited: Had to replace video again with a more recent one.
May 1, 2021 – Edited: Fixed links. Made mobile friendly.

Opening a New Studio

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Opening a New Studio

misiones.png
Misiones Province – Source:
(Andres Rojas)

Channel 12, in Posadas, Misiones, Argentina – the almost tropical Northeast of Argentina – inaugarated a new studio. What better thing to do than have some Arabic dancers on?

Misiones Province (in green on the map above) has a lot of ethnic groups. Italians, Swedes, Ukranians, Poles, French, Germans, Danes, Japanese, and yes, Arabs, as well as the core Spanish. Apprently, this day, they played to the Arab community. Some of the dancers seem fair complected, and I wonder if some of that Swedish or German blood has intermingled.


The observant listener will note the intro music on the video is Arabic.

At the tip of the province is Iqauzu falls, which is a world famouse jungle cataract which is the border between Brazil and Argentina, and is right next to Paraguay, forming a smuggler’s paradise called the Triple Frontier.

But what is important is that no matter where one goes in Argentina, the Arabs are a significant part of the population, and Arab culture is very mainstream.

In fact, the intro music to the video of Iguazi Falls on the left is Arabic; and if one goes to the comment section on the YouTube Page for that video, one will notice some comments in Arabic. There is a lot of cross-cultural polination between the two worlds.

The Arabs seem to view South America as a friendly part of the West.

Edited: June 16, 2022 – Cleaned up the page from older styling.

Dancing in Entre Rios

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Concepción del Uruguay is a town in Argentine province of Entre Rios, NOT Uruguay. Actually, the river between Uruguay and Argentina is the Uruguay River, so the town’s name refers to the river.

In the public parks. Quite mainstream.

What should also be clear is that this is primarily Christian. Wahhabis keep women in veils.

So what you are seen in an expression of Arab identity NOT seen in the Arab world that much any more, since most Christians have been ethnically cleansed out of the area.

Lebanese at 27th annual Ethnic Festival in Rosario

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Argentina has a national Ethnic Groups day.

This is the Lebanese section of a 27th annual ethnic festival, in Rosario, which is Argentina’s third biggest city, about 180 miles NW of Buenos Aires.

Depending on who you ask, 8% to 10% of Argentines have some Arab background, though in some cases it is heavily diluted with Spanish, Italian, etc. Mostly Syrian Orthodox or Maronite Catholic. They tend to be less radicalized than Chile’s Palestinians, who are almost totally Christian.

Oddly, Argentina has a bit more Muslims, but they seem to be less radicalized because the Palestinian presence – even a Christian one – is minimal; whereas in Chile, half the Arabs are Palestinian.

Argentina’s Muslims are about 10% of the Arab population – which translates to about 1% of the total population. However, the Muslims in Argentina tend to be totally assimilated. Their own imams try to exaggerate the numbers, but Pedro Brieger, an Argentine Acadamic, has noted that in 2003 the real numbers of practicing Muslims were grossly exaggerated.1

The prevalence of Syrian Orthodox and Maronite Catholic seems to moderate the views of Argentine Arabs. Yes, there is some degree of support for Palestine. That is to be expected from any Arab community; but you do not see the large scale political support one sees in Chile.

The reason I suspect is that Palestinians are less common in Argentina.

1See: La Comunidad Musulmana en la Argentina (In Spanish), Pedro Brieger.
Los datos, extraoficiales, son importantes si se tiene en cuenta que en promedio se habla en Argentina de familias tipo de cuatro integrantes, lo que implicaría que en la ciudad de Buenos Aires habría un poco más que 4500 musulmanes, muy alejado del imaginario popular

Translation: The data, unofficial, are important if one considers that an average family in Argentina speaks of four types, which would imply that the city of Buenos Aires would have a little more than 4500 Muslims, far from the popular imagination

My Note: The Buenos Aires Metro area has 1/3rd of Argentina’s population. Immigrants tend to be found in Buenos Aires rather than the outlying areas which usually have older stocks. So we can assume even lower concentrations outside Buenos Aires. Of course, there are exceptions to every rule.

Former President Carlos Menem’s Syrian Muslim parents settled in the interior La Rioja Province; but they ran a winery, a practice forbidden to Muslims; so even the exceptions prove the rule. Carlos himself converted to Catholicism.

What this means, in effect, is less than 10,000 practicing Muslims in a country of 41,000,000. Or roughly about 0.025% practicing Muslims.

This is changing. The Saudi financed King Fahd Mosque is probably re-invigorating some renewed interest in the lapsed Muslim community which is considerably larger. But it is competing with a rising Evangelical Revival sweeping all of South America, even Argentina, which is now 9% Evangelical. Until recently, Protestantism was primarily found among some Swedish- and German-Argentines and the Anglo-American resident communities; but that is changing, apparently rapidly so.

I doubt even a resurgent Islam can compete with it.

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