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"camel herders". wow.

The Arabs had great/ancient civilizations too. The whole region is rife with rich history.

Anyway, lots of people get offended if you confuse their ethnicity ( eg: korean <=> japanese, china <=> japanese, indian <=> pakistani, thai <=> cambodian ...) Doesn't mean it's rational. Doesn't mean you have license to denigrate either of the groups.

This is just a flavor of racism.


>>The Arabs had great/ancient civilizations too.

I disagree, the history of Saudi Arabia is `limited` compared to Persia. And certainly reflects on the culture of the region. While Iranian's can choose moderate parts of their history, with different interpretations of Islam, to be Saudi is come from a conservative Wahhabi mentality.

Consider, for example, the Al Saud takeover of the capital as a tribal scuffle involving less than 200 belligerents. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Riyadh_(1902)


I don't think "camel herders" was meant to be taken any more seriously than "cheese-eating surrender monkeys".

One generally ribs one's regional neighbours. There are obvious exceptions, but I wouldn't necessarily assume it was meant with the tone you seem to be attributing to it.


Sure, it's possible. After all, it's easy to misunderstand an online comment.

However, parent did say that persians had a great and ancient civilization and don't like to be compared to camel herders. And calling arabs camel herders is an actual insult, so "frogs" vs "cheese-eating surrender monkeys".

I considered the ribbing angle, but looking at the parent's account he doesn't look persian or arabic.

Regardless, since the comment was flagged, the point is moot.

It's probably for the best, since the parent has his real identity tied to the comment/account. To that end, I'll happily delete my comments if he wants to delete his :)


I'm not associated with that region in any way, but I'm struggling to find a way in which calling someone a camel-herder isn't designed to be an ethnic slur.


The English call the Welsh "sheep shaggers". That's an ethnic slur. It only serves to illustrate my point. Just because it's an ethnic slur doesn't mean it's meant (or should be interpreted) as something hostile.


> The Arabs had great/ancient civilizations too. The whole region is rife with rich history.

Though a lot of the other people surrounding Arabia (Persians, Byzantines in Syria) had great civilizations the Arabs themselves didn't have a much of a civilization. Most of the Islamic civilization comes from Persia after the fall of the Sassanid empire.


>Though a lot of the other people surrounding Arabia (Persians, Byzantines in Syria) had great civilizations the Arabs themselves didn't have a much of a civilization. Most of the Islamic civilization comes from Persia after the fall of the Sassanid empire.

What about the various caliphates? There is also Babylon, though I'm not sure when the people there were first considered arabs.


There's no Arab race. If I respect Persians, but don't like Arabs, I can't be racist. I'm not xenophobic either because I'm not Persian.


To be clear, I didn't mean to call you a racist: just that that particular comment had a flavor of racism.

Deeming a group of people as just generally superior/inferior to another based country/continent of origin smells pretty racist.

Maybe a more correct term would be cultural racism? It's your prerogative as to how you explain it to yourself, but if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck ...


It is racist and hurtful in the same way calling US Southerners before the Civil War a bunch of slavers...intended to wound, but also based in fact.

Look at what was "Saudi Arabia" prior to the discovery of oil. These people were nomadic herders.


If the parent had said "nomadic herders" would that lend a different tone than using the term camel herders?

Of course!

But hey, different words have different connotations. I am taking the meaning from actual words he used, not ones he could have used.


Iranians are extremely racist towards Arabs. Still butthurt that their amazing ancient civilization was conquered by a bunch of 'camel herders'.




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