British Jordanian working to counter stereotypes of Arabic culture

AMMAN — The idea of connecting cultures, particularly the Middle East and the UK, was the primary motivation for British Jordanian Suhad Jarrar-Brown, an anthropologist and art collector, to start her mission of introducing Westerners to Arab cultural heritage.

“My interest in bridging gaps between the East and the West started when I worked for the UN University International Leadership Academy [1997-1999],” she told The Jordan Times in a recent interview.

“We organised leadership programmes and invited people from all walks of life, including political leaders, diplomats, journalists, civil servants and many actual and potential decision makers,” Jarrar-Brown explained.

While in the UK, she realised that a good platform for cultural work was available to counter negative stereotypes on Arabs prevalent in Western media.

“I kept the best of my culture and adopted the best of the British and Western cultures,” she stressed, adding that in Britain, she had a good opportunity for cultural work by organising public speeches, lectures and seminars.

She was also interested in the conservation and collection of traditional Arabic dresses.

“I’ve been collecting traditional Arabic costumes and tribal jewellery, in addition to other artefacts for about 20 years,” Jarrar-Brown noted.

Part of the collection was inherited from her mother, she said, adding that she bought other artefacts to expand the collection.

“I started putting up [and] educational exhibition in the UK, so the local council supported me and appreciated my work for the community, which is supposed to help intercultural and interfaith dialogue,” she underlined.

Decades of negative propaganda in which Arabs have been portrayed as terrorists and villains have created the atmosphere of distrust between local communities and Arab immigrants in the UK.

“I want people to... experience the art of Arab hospitality and prove that Arabs and Muslims have another face rather than what the media have tried to impose on people in the West,” Jarrar-Brown emphasised.

In 2003, she won Millennium Commission Award for contribution to her community, while in July this year, she organised an exhibition, titled Bayt at St Andrew Church in Hertford, that displayed Arab traditional dresses and tribal jewellery.

Her plan for the upcoming year is to publish a book about Bayt collection and organise other educational exhibitions, she said.

Her anthropological background has helped Jarrar-Brown in learning more about the “abundant and multi-layered Arabic culture and arts”.

When she studied for her master’s degree of social science in gender, culture and society at the University of London, Jarrar-Brown found that the available resources were “very Eurocentric”.

The research about non-sedentary population took her to the eastern region of Jordan, where she studied local bedouins.

It proved to be an “eye-opener and a new chapter” in [her life].

Jarrar-Brown said she had previous knowledge about nomads, but it was more theoretical than practical.

“Although I had some expertise about nomads in the Eastern Badia of Jordan, what I had learnt was definitely worth the experience,” the anthropologist explained.

“We lived with a very poor family in a tent made of camel and goat hair,” she said.

Clean drinking water and running water in general, which people in the city take for granted, “was a luxury which many nomads couldn’t afford”, Jarrar-Brown explained.

Nomads travel through the region for eight to nine months, according to the scholar.

Before the current political turmoil, bedouins used to travel from Saudi Arabia via Jordan to Syria; however, “crossing borders nowadays is very dangerous and difficult”, she noted.

For Jarrar-Brown, it was “a pleasure” to witness how nomads produce their own food — like bread, labaneh (yoghurt) and cheese.

“The government started new programmes to help them settle, but that also clashes with their identity,” she argued. 

“It’s a big dilemma on how to improve their lifestyles to make their lives easier and more comfortable without robbing them of their heritage and what makes them proud.”