The Arab-Latin America
Success Story
Over the last six decades, at least eight Latin American presidents were of Lebanese, Palestinian or Syrian descent.
By Aline Sara,
Brazil
Tracking the number of Latin Americans of Arab descent is a fiddly task. Many no longer speak Arabic and have fully adopted their Spanish- or Portuguese speaking identity. Others, despite obvious Middle Eastern – and more specifically, Levantine – family names, refuse to consider themselves Arab. Unlike several of the more recently established immigrants in North America or Europe, Latin American Arabs have rarely set foot in their transatlantic homeland.
Yet, curiously, kibbeh, tabbouleh and sfiha, traditional dishes of the Levant, abound the streets of Brazil just like gyro carts permeate New York City’s avenues. Forbes magazine’s richest man in the world for three years in a row was Carlos Slim, a known Lebanese-Mexican. Over the last six decades; at least eight Latin American presidents
were of Lebanese, Palestinian or Syrian descent. Colombia’s biggest pop star, Shakira, famed for her rapturous belly dance moves, is born to a Lebanese father. And finally, Chile, derived from the native American term for “end of the earth,” harbors the largest and most outspoken Palestinian community outside of the Middle East.
Demographics and a brief history
Figures are not exact but six of the world’s largest Arab diaspora communities outside of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region are in Latin America. Argentina hosts approximately two million citizens of Arab descent; Venezuela, some 1.6 million; Mexico, 1.1 million; Chile, one million; and Colombia, 800,000. As for Brazil, estimates place its Arab community at a whopping 11 million, seven million of whom are claimed to be Lebanese, more than twice the number
of citizens in Lebanon itself. Representing some 20 to 30 million of the continent’s total population, Latin America’s Arab communities, usually belong to the upper echelons of society. They are, by and large, Christians, though numbers vary per country, usually originating from the Levant.
According to Mike Konrad, webmaster of the Latinaribia.com blog, which studies Arab subculture in Latin America, immigrants trickling in at the end of the 19th century are primarily Maronite and Syrian Orthodox Christians, fleeing persecution under the Ottoman Empire and during the 1860 Maronite-Druze war. While Chile’s Palestinians are 99 percent Christian, Argentina has a slightly lower percentage, perhaps because of a bigger influx of Levantine Jews, Konrad told TRENDS. Given that in 1890, the Roman Catholic Church dominated an almost
Seven million of Brazil’s Arabs are estimated to be Lebanese, more than twice the number of citizens in Lebanon itself.
mono-cultural Latin America, the few Muslims (10-20 percent, depending on the country they went to) adopted or married into Christianity, he added.
Since the turn of the century, Latin America’s Muslim community has gone through various phases and some nations – mostly along the Caribbean coast – do have a more prominent Arab Muslim presence, such as Colombia.
Unlike the West and Central Africa, regions plush with prominent Arab businessmen, Konrad notes two key distinctions that furthered Arab success and smooth assimilation into Latin American cultures. Chile, Brazil and Argentina are
significantly developed, so prosperity there is consequently more stable than in developing African states, argues Konrad. Arabs and Latins are both of Caucasian-Mediterranean stock, so from a strictly racial standpoint, Arabs are considered white and might encounter fewer challenges, notably with respect to racial discrimination.
According to Konrad, two of the eight Latin American presidents of Arab origins were democratically elected by universal and direct suffrage. Argentina, Columbia, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Ecuador and Honduras have all been ruled by leaders of Lebanese,
Palestinian or Syrian descent. Developing a sense of national belonging, it is no surprise such individuals often consider themselves Latin before being Arab, even though they happily and openly acknowledge their Middle Eastern heritage, says Nathalie Handel, an American writer who was born to Palestinian parents in Haiti, itself a hub of successful Lebanese and Palestinian business owners. According to her, the only Latin American country that openly acknowledges its Arab community is Chile, of which 50 percent are of Palestinian descent.
Chile’s Palestinian case Without a doubt, Chile’s Palestinian patriotism is both present and visible. At the political level, Chile’s Deputy Interior Minister, Mahmud Aleuy, and an alleged
Chile’s Deputy Interior Minister, Mahmud Aleuy, and an alleged ten percent of senators and 11 percent of the lower house’s deputies are originally Palestinian.
ten percent of the county’s senators and 11 percent of the lower house’s deputies are originally Palestinian. In 2011, then President Sebastian Piñera recognized Palestine’s right to exist after a visit to the Holy Land, while just last summer, Chile suspended Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations with Israel during the July siege on Gaza. It also recalled its ambassador in Tel Aviv, as did Brazil, Ecuador,
El Salvador and Peru.
Club Deportivo Palestino – a professional football club founded in 1920, based in Santiago and one of Chile’s top leagues – is perhaps one of the community’s greatest sources of pride. Last year, the Palestine Football Club replaced the numeral 1 of its jerseys with a map of Palestine before Israel’s
1948 creation. It was eventually fined by the Chilean soccer league. Besides politics, Chile’s Palestinians dominate the nation’s business sector. Two of the richest families are from Bethlehem. In the 1930s, the Yarurs founded the Banco de Credito e Inversiones (BCI), one of Chile’s leading banking institutions, which in 2013 had $29.2 billion in total assets, while the Said family, also from Bethlehem, relocated to Chile after years of leading Bolivia and Peru’s textile and cotton industries.
In addition to extending the family’s operations to Chile, José Said Saffie and his uncle established the Banco del Trabajo, one of the five largest banks in the nation. Later, in 1979, Said created the real estate development firm Parque Arauco
S.A. (PASA), Chile’s third largest shopping mall company, whose 24 branches today extend to Colombia and Peru.
Kings of the business world
Beyond Chile, in places such as Brazil, prominent business men of Lebanese origin include Brazil-born Lebanese and French current Chairman and CEO of the Renault-Nissan Alliance, Carlos Ghosn, whose reputation as a “Cost Killer” is not only Latin American but worldwide. From 2010 to 2013, Lebanese-Mexican Carlos Slim was Forbes’ wealthiest man on earth. Slim is Chairperson and Chief Executive of telecommunications companies Telmex and América Móvil. As of 2015, his net worth is estimated at $76.4 billion.
A little further North, Lebanese-born Faisal Hammoud is Paraguay’s leading retailer, known for a multi-level shopping center in the country’s second larges
city, Ciudad del Este, while in Central America, Honduras’ principal coffee roaster is third-generation Palestinian, Oscar Kafati, now Minister of Industry and Commerce. His grandfather arrived from Beit Jala, right outside of Jerusalem, and founded Gabriel Kafati, S.A. in 1933.
Off the coast, in the neighboring islands, billionaire Gilbert Bigio, considered one of the wealthiest people in Haiti, is a Sephardic Jew of Syrian descent and Chairman of GB Group, a leading private industrial group in the Caribbean, while Yassin Saleh, originally from Jerusalem, heads one of Puerto Rico’s largest drugstore chains, Farmacia El Amal. And the list goes on.
With such a record of notable personalities, especially in the political and economic spheres, it is no surprise that in 2005, Brazilian President Lula launched the Cumbre América del Sur-Países Árabes (ASPA), the Summit
of South America and Arab Countries in Brasilia, with the goal of establishing a tactical alliance in economic, political, socio-cultural and environmental development. Gathering 34 member states, the General Secretariats of the League of Arab States) and the Union of South American Nations, it was followed by two subsequent ASPA Summits in Doha, Qatar, in 2009, and Lima, Peru, in 2012.
More recently, Latin America has shown willingness to open its door to those fleeing civil unrest caused by the 2011 uprisings. According to an article in Foreign Policy dating back to Setpember, some 6,000 of the approximate four million Syrian refugees have come to South America. Brazil has offered 4,200 visas and granted 1,425 refugee asylum requests. Other nations have taken in figures in the hundreds, which is low compared to the total number, not out
of refusal, but rather because it is hard for Syrians to make their way across the Atlantic and overcome the language barriers.
Uruguay, under the lead of socialist President José Mujica, has worked with the United Nations’ refugee agency, UNHCR, and Sweden to establish an official resettlement program that will help families in both their home and employment search. Venezuela, itself known for a historically significant Syrian community, has seen another wave of arrivals due to ties between relatives. As a result, the country has also facilitated the process for refugee emigration.
Given the dire situation in Syria’s neighboring Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan, but also, the historical success of Arabs in Latin America, this distant but inviting continent might very well be their best bet.
