Arab American Friendship Club

In 1983, I was studying introductory engineering courses at Penn Valley College. This college is located at Kansas City , the state of Missouri,. This city is large and spacious, and its population now exceeds half a million, but the feeling of alienation is always present in it for some reason that I have not yet understood. Many Arabs were studying at that college, so I suggested to a colleague of mine that we form a club and call it the Arab-American Friendship Club. Through it, we educate Americans about our Arab issues in general and the Palestinian cause in particular. I wrote a one-page flyer and distributed it to young people asking them to join the club, and I wrote the goals in it. The invitation was widely accepted in the college, and then we had to submit a request to the management of student’s activities office in order for the club to become official and they would give us a room equipped with a TV and chairs for free. The administration procrastinated for a long time. After some discussion, they gave us permission and we scheduled the first meeting on Saturday at four in the afternoon, and the members actually came. We were supposed to elect a club president to speak on its behalf and a secretary to organize activities and donations. When the votes were counted, everyone elected me as club president, so I apologized and asked them to re-vote for another young man who had more time than me. Then they asked me to become the Finance Secretary, but I also refused and suggested the name of another member. Things went well in the first meeting. As for the second, some people made fun of the club president because he was confused. He said: Listen, brothers, first, then he followed it with a fourth. A young man laughed and asked him where the second and third flew. He replied, “Brother, we will discuss these two next week.” Everyone laughed. This meeting also passed quietly. We published the club s first periodical in which we wrote about Israeli propaganda in America and the failed Arab regime. As for the third meeting, one member asked us to put a picture of Gaddafi in the hall, then another asked to put a picture of Saddam Hussein, and another asked to put a picture of Yasser Arafat. Here a severe dispute began and it almost turned into a scuffle. The members loyal to Arafat were divided on one side, and the members loyal to Abu Musa and Abu Khaled al-Amleh - who lead the uprising - were divided on the other side. It is as if the disputes that broke out between the Palestinian factions and Fatah members in Beirut during that period had spread to the club’s youth. During that period, Colonel Abu Musa, along with other Fatah leaders, defected from Arafat, claiming that Arafat was a tyrant and had a corrupted leadership. Perhaps Abu Musa represented the left wing of Fatah in that period. The brothers fought and slaughtered each other in what was called the Camp Wars. They left Israel and began to eliminate each others.
Returning to the club, I asked everyone to calm down, and we forbade any talk´-or-discussion of politics, and we banned pictures except pictures of Palestine and Jerusalem. Things went well, and the club participated in football matches. We sold some food in the college to collect donations for the club.
There are two events that it will not be forgotten. The first was that I discovered a third of the members came to the meeting because of a girl who was with us. The other thing is that the finance secretary refused to give us the bank money he had with him, and tried to steal it. The club dissolved after six months and everyone went on his/her way of life.
We, as peoples, despise each other. No attempt at modernization has succeeded. Anyone who thinks among us is considered a conspirator, a follower of Zionism,´-or-a Freemason.
The important thing is that our Arab societies will not rise until they accept each. Look at the civil wars happening in Yemen, Libya, Syria, Iraq and Sudan. And when you search for the reason, you will find that we have not understood this massive transformation in the world from an ancient system based on the religious state to the modern state that builds on respecting the individual, respecting his belief, and obligating everyone to be loyal to the homeland and not to a class, tribe, ruler,´-or-sect. .

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