The transition from high school to university life is a momentous one by any standards. I still recall those summer days back in 1997 when I was packing what meager personal possessions that were supposed to get me going towards the fulfillment of a lifelong dream: to complete my education abroad. Family and friends were everywhere, and those who were more experienced than myself were inundating me with words of advice on how to survive in the US. Interestingly enough, half of them had never even been to America, yet they seemed to know everything about it. I resigned myself to absorbing as much of it as possible, keeping in my mind an old saying I like to live by (more on that later).

The most self-deprecating comment of the evening, however, came from a more arrogant relative who was very firm in his speech: "Whatever you do, my boy, stay away from Arabs. Don’t make any enemies, of course, but make sure you keep your distance. Get too close to those Arabs in America, and you’ll be hit hard. I’ve heard some bad stories; they’ll all try to use you and then suck you dry. America has the worst kind of Arabs waiting for you. Follow my advice and you’ll be safe."

After comprehending the first sentence of what I had just heard, the remainder sounded like muffled babble. I looked up and stared at the man in disbelief.

"That doesn’t speak much for the kind of Arab you are, now does it?" I retorted sourly.

Call me rude if you will, but examine the situation a little more closely. Here I am, a young Arab with his future ahead of him, already thinking of how I will best represent my people and my culture, and I have to deal with this before I even get on the airplane. This self-declared expert on Arab student life in the US was trying to brainwash me with the doctrine that Arabs were born to hate and hurt each other, and that they are really nothing more than dishonest, lying, back-stabbing con artists, mere "pimps".

So, what does that make me?

Ever since coming to the US, I have considered this dilemma of being an Arab and how I am supposed to treat my Arab "brethren". Should I share my experiences with them the way the textbooks and teachers at school taught me, or should I simply choose to avoid intimacy and suffice with a sort of "Yes, hello, I know who you are but I don’t want to get to know you"-kind of relationship? My conclusion went far deeper than that, however, into the essence of the modern Arab psyche, and the reasons behind the defeat of the Arab self.

It is apparent that there is a large number of Arabs out there who believe that all other Arabs are out to get them in one way or another. Somehow, we feel comfortable degrading ourselves to the level of bigots, thieves, liars, and even cutthroats, so that we can seem more modern and progressive, like "the others". The Arab psyche today is so defeatist that it has given way to the negative image of hostile media in various countries, perhaps because the loser in a war immediately aspires to mimic the victor in their language, their clothing, their behaviors, their traditions, and their value systems. I guess that makes sense, though; isn’t that how they won in the first place?

Advisors like my wonderful relative are setting up our youth for the ultimate trap: self-destruction by self-degradation. If one Arab is led to believe that all other Arabs are bad, then he or she will act towards them accordingly, probably striking out first in an attempt to preempt those "bad" Arabs before they are hurt. The suspected Arabs then fire back, and we are caught in a vicious circle of self-hatred, a classic self-fulfilling prophecy. This manifests itself in an even more dangerous form, namely bias to one’s own country and stereotyping of other Arab countries. For example, some will suggest – hypothetically speaking – that Syrians are mean misers, Egyptians are drunkards, Kuwaitis and Saudis are womanizers, the Lebanese are partying spendthrifts, Jordanians are crooks, and Palestinians are just plain jerks. Arabs with low self-esteem will agree almost immediately with these theories, bowing to the whims of a groupthink that has ravaged us for decades. At least that’s how "the others" have made us look, and we seem to aspire to be just like them.

I won’t even try to delve into the religious rubbish that happens in Arab society. Self-criticism is fine in my book, but we must ignore those who simply have no aspirations for themselves or their people, and instead choose the easy way out by putting their own kind down. I find it insulting to my intelligence that we desperately attempt to instill idealistic morals in our schools, yet our households fail to maintain our children’s pride in their heritage beyond reciting memorized phrases from a textbook written in the form of a badly-recited speech. Meanwhile, the same textbooks still try to teach us that we’re the greatest civilization on earth because, once upon a millennium ago, we used to be the greatest civilization on earth. Does anyone sense the irony in the contradiction?

By the way, in case you’re still wondering about that old saying: "Wise people speak because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something."