(I’m
posting this because a) I’m too lazy to try to do long posts on IG, and b) if I’m
going to take the time to write something I might as well post it on this
otherwise-dormant blog).
I
posted a meme to my IG this week criticizing HHS Secretary RFK Jr. for his racist
claims about Arabs.
“There’s
500 million Arabs in the world and yet they don’t produce science,” Kennedy
said on the campaign trail Monday. “They don’t win the Nobel Prize. They don’t
win the Fields Prize. They don’t win the Wolf Prize. They don’t produce
literature.”
This produced
this exchange in my DMs (interlocutor in italics):
Is he
factually incorrect? The (Muslim) president of Indonesia said the same thing
back in the 2000's
Yes
he’s wrong (I posted the link below)
FACT
FOCUS: Kennedy's claim that Arabs 'don't produce science' meets a Nobel Prize
reality check
(The
only thing I could find about comments by the President of Indonesia is this.
https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2006/06/21/2003314745
That
may well not be what he’s referring to. Of course many Muslims are not Arabs,
and not all Arabs are Muslims; a non-Arab Muslim criticizing Arab Muslims may
well have… other motives).
Here’s
a longer excerpt from RFK Jr’s speech: https://youtu.be/D9oUgpJlJdE?si=ypsoVRzG4MvkEGUz
It’s
pretty clear from his critique that he’s referring to Arabic Muslims, and he blames
the Muslim Brotherhood for his claimed lack of accomplishment by Arabs. It’s worthwhile noting that the MB wasn’t
labeled a terrorist organization by the US until January 2026. The context is that he’s critiquing Abdul El
Sayed (Senate candidate in Michigan.
Okay,
so let's start picking this article apart. It's exactly the sort of thing
that's writtent to make folks on the left like yourself feel smug and superior.
I’m
pretty sure from reading the article (you can judge for yourself) that the tone
of the article isn’t smug or superior.
It’s the AP after all. It’s pretty matter of fact. I don’t feel smug or superior. I do feel angry and aghast. Anyway, this remark comes across as pretty
snarky, which isn’t helpful to the discussion.
He was
a professor of chemistry and physics at the California Institute of Technology
(Caltech)
Ahmed
Zewail, an Egyptian-American scientist
The
first scientist mentioned. And Egyptians aren't Arabs. They are adamant about
that. The writer shows her ignorance there. I did missionary work there.
So the
first. Not an Arab, and did not work or live in the Arab world.
A
couple of points here. First, it’s
doubtful to me that RFK Jr. actually understands this distinction.
Are
Egyptians Arabs? It depends on what you
mean by ‘being an Arab’. More
importantly, perhaps, it depends on what RFK Jr. means by ‘being an Arab’. He says there are 500 million Arabs in the world. The population of the Arab League countries
is about 500 million. I don’t see how
you get 500 million Arabs (as RFK Jr. claimed) without counting Egypt (population
around 110 million). So regardless, It
would appear that RFK Jr. counts Egyptians as Arabs.
Next –
what makes someone an Arab? One can look
at this from a genetic, linguistic, cultural or religious perspective.
Encyclopedia
Britannica says:
An Arab is a
member of an ethno-linguistic group defined primarily by sharing Arabic as a
native language and a common cultural heritage, rather than a single race or
nationality (https://www.britannica.com/topic/Arab)
My
limited impression is that many Egyptians might reject identification as an
Arab. Others would not. Egyptians speak Arabic, and many elements of
their culture are common to other people commonly identified as Arab. Egypt is
a founding member of the Arab League, and the country’s official name is the
Arab Republic of Egypt.
As for
Zewail, he was born in Egypt and grew up there.
He moved to America to get his Ph.D.
It’s not known if he considered himself an Arab, but I suspect RFK Jr.
would have considered him one.
"Egyptian
writer Naguib Mahfouz" - Again, not an Arab. And Literature is not
Science.
Omar
M. Yaghi - Moved the US when he was 15. Did all his (groundbreaking) work in
the US.
So
he's an American. Not an Arab.
I
agree that literature is not science.
Sir Michael
Francis Atiyah (/əˈtiːə/; 22 April 1929 – 11 January 2019) was a
British-Lebanese mathematician pecializing in geometry. Lived in England, not
the Arab world.
It’s
true that Atiyah lived in England. I don’t
know that that makes him not an Arab.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Atiyah
Yasser
Arafat as an example? Seriously?
I’m
not a fan of Arafat. He did win the
Nobel Peace Prize, which is not a science prize.
Egyptian
President Anwar al-Sadat - again, not an Arab. And worthy of the Peace Prize.
And murdered by muslim extremists.
Again,
it’s arguable that RFK Jr. would have considered Sadat an Arab.
So the
article you referenced is poorly researched tripe that inadvertently proved Mr.
Kennedy's point. Muslim countries are unhappy places full of oppression and
human misery. They don't produce science or technology breakthroughs. His point
stands.
RFK Jr
wasn’t speaking about Muslim countries, but about Arabs.
Here
are some other examples of winners of those prizes:
2018:
Wolf Prize for Chemistry
Omar M
Yaghi, born in Jordan to a Palestinian refugee family, won the Wolf Prize
in Chemistry in 2018 for work on metal-organic frameworks. He shared the prize
with Japan’s Makoto Fujita. The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and
Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) condemned his acceptance of the award
because the prize is awarded by an Israeli foundation.
2023:
Nobel Prize for Chemistry
Moungi
Bawendi won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for the discovery and synthesis of
quantum dots. He was born in France to a Tunisian father, but based in the US.
2025:
Nobel Prize for Chemistry
Yaghi
also won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for developing metal-organic frameworks.
These are crystalline materials with large internal cavities that can capture
and store gases, harvest water from air, and trap pollutants. He shared the
prize with Susumu Kitagawa from Japan and Richard Robson from Australia.
To the
broader point – winning Nobel Prizes, Wolf, Fields are all the result of being
in an environment that is likely to support such endeavors. Many parts of the world are not currently
capable of such support, it involves funding, universities that operate at a
high level, and a critical nexus of highly educated researchers. Many parts of Asia, Africa and the Arab world
don’t have this. It doesn’t mean people are
not capable of doing math or science.
RFK Jr. seems to be criticizing an entire group of people for something
they have very little control over.
