كامل المعايطة

To be an Arab is not a political declaration that is issued on social media as we can see especially in the case of some people in the diaspora, which love to play identity politics. However, Arabism is a culture that a person lives on a daily basis and such a person can not break away from it. It is not a shirt that people can wear and later take it off. Rather, it is a set of values, habits and ways of thinking

There is no contradiction between Arabism on one hand and regional identification on the other hand. Someone from Egypt is both an Egyptian and an Arab, just as an Iraqi person is an Iraqi and an Arab at the same time. By the way, in each Arab country, you can find minorities, but I am talking about the majority

There is not a single person in the world who belongs to a single entity. This is like circles that gradually increase in size. It is not a dress which is either white or black. One attribute does not negate the second one. I am a Jordanian and an Arab at the same time… and Jordanianness is unique to me, but I also share characteristics that are common to all Arabs

A crucial question is what are the most prominent cultural characteristics that make someone an Arab? The first and the most important characteristic of Arabism is language, although it is not sufficient to be able to speak and write in Arabic… for example, a European who studies the Arabic language may speak and write in Arabic, yet we do not consider him as an Arab. Rather, what is important here are the deep mental and cognitive gestures, which lie in the Arab mentality represented by the Arabic language