Brazilian Jihadis May Disrupt Olypmics

Source: Independent, Monday 18 July 2016

A  Brazilian Jihadist group has pledged allegiance to Isis just weeks before the Olympic Games are due to take place in Rio de Janeiro.

According to extremist monitoring group SITE Intelligence, a channel on the Telegram app called Ansar al-Khilafah #Brazil has posted a message of support for Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

The vast majority (around 95%) of Latin American Arabs are Christian. So this group is not representative.

Brazilian Stamp Honoring Lebanese

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See this site for a wonderful backgrounder to this stamp.

Robert Moser: The Lebanese Diaspora in Brazil

… Well, you could say that there is a subtle but palpable presence of Lebanese culture in Brazil. If you pay attention and you look for the details, some of the manifestations of Lebanese culture that you might notice range from politics to the food you eat in a corner luncheonette in just about any city in Brazil. It is very common to walk into one of these corner restaurants and order a kibbe or a sfiha, one of these meat pies. They very frequently serve steak sandwiches called beirutes, as in “from Beirut.” One of the most popular fast food chains, Habib, sells Arab food and you can get your hummus and kibbe there. This is one of the largest fast food chains in Brazil, in fact.

If you were to go into some of the cities where the Lebanese population is greater, for example Sao Paulo or Rio de Janeiro, you can find entire blocks of textile and clothing stores that have been run by generations of Lebanese families selling their wares. Then you might turn a corner and come across bakeries and restaurants selling very traditional Lebanese food. There is the Casas Pedro Bakery in downtown Rio. And nearby, there is a hundred-year-old tobacco shop called the Cedar of Lebanon. If you go into the Paraiso district—the Paradise district—of Sao Paulo, there is a Malachite Greek Catholic church that has a distinctly Near-Eastern feel.

South America Taking in Syrians

South America Welcomes Syrian Refugees
US News & World Report
Sept 30, 2015

… countries such as Argentina are receiving praise for their open-door policies.

… Compared to Europe, South America receives just a fraction of the people fleeing conflict from the Middle East … But the continent is increasingly becoming a destination for refugees. Venezuela announced in September that it would accept 20,000 Syrians, while Chile said it would accept 50 Syrian families. Argentina and Uruguay also have installed programs to accept Syrians.

(Read More)

South America has a history of absorbing large numbers of Arabs and assimilating them. It only makes sense that some refugees from Syria would be making their way to the continent.

In the past, most Arab immigrants to South America have been Christian. This new batch of refugees will be mostly Muslim. Hopefully, things will go well. We can only hope they assimilate.

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