Diaspora Dilemma (FINAL Chapter)

Link to previous chapter below.

As part of Alex’s role as the Administrative Assistant to the US Agency for International Development, he was privy towards the amount of money the US decided to put towards humanitarian assistance, specifically for USAID’s response to Syria.

Often, he’d share on his newsfeed the developments that had been released to the public.

One such share included a memo that Raya knew he was heavily involved in drafting, a memo that he had spent sleepless nights thinking through and researching and validating through the help of his contacts on the ground to ensure its accuracy.

Proud of the work he was putting in towards helping resolve a crisis, she shared the link on her page with cute and funny anecdotes from their university and Amman days.

Unaware of the complexity of the Syrian crisis and the constant evolution of the groups for, against, and neither here nor there in terms of loyalty to the regime, Raya was caught off guard by the backlash from Tamara and her friends in Beirut.

Tamara commented, “Wow. What a tool. Why don’t Americans focus their money and efforts on problems at home and stay out of ours…”

Raya’s eyes widened as she watched Tamara’s comment go live on her post. She knew better than to respond directly on her post, but she couldn’t contain herself from sending Tamara a private message.

Raya: “Tamara, what’s with the hostility. What is wrong with humanitarian aid?”

Tamara: “Get off your high horse Raya.”

The messenger showed Tamara as continuing to write another message.

Tamara: “Americans think they can just come into any crisis and save the day when at home they have the highest rate of incarceration, school shootings, and idiots like Donald Trump being elected into office.”

Raya was stunned. Tamara had never been so outrageously hostile towards her and if anything, she was always backing her up, understanding that to be an Arab American did not mean you agreed with every policy the US government put out into the world.

Raya: “Wow. I can’t believe that’s how you think of me now Tamara.”

A few seconds passed.

Raya: “Last I checked, your technology, fashion, and more importantly, your passport all hail in some form or another from the United States of America.”

She immediately felt a pang of regret and wished she hadn’t responded that way.

Tamara read the message.

Tamara: “You and that hypocritical boy of yours are the reason colonialism still exists in the Middle East. Take your righteousness elsewhere and stop trying to conceptualize the problems of the Arab World as unique to the homelands of my people and neighbors. You have bigger problems to deal with, so leave the Middle East to Middle Easterners and stay in your precious, capitalist Western society.”

Tamara has now left the chat.

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Fully stretched and relaxed, Raya was now sitting on her doorstep watching the squirrels dart between the bushes and houses, an occasional bird landing on the paved street and hopping around seemingly scavenging for seeds.

Lucid, she let herself return to the Facebook exchange with Tamara that had occurred earlier that morning.

Tamara had never felt so strongly towards American intervention, at least she had never shared it with Raya before. Her use of the ‘we’ pronoun when talking about the Middle East confirmed Raya’s own insecurities about her Arab-ness and after being so vulnerable with Tamara all these years, she remembered feeling her heart sink to her stomach and a cold sweat physically expelling from her body in betrayal. 

She understood that the anger was at least somewhat misplaced, but Raya wondered how much truth there was in all of it.

The question remained… Was she Arab enough to have a stake AND serve as a third-party observer?

 

Diaspora Dilemma (Chapter 12)