Another Arabesque: Syrian-Lebanese Ethnicity in Neoliberal Brazil

CONCLUSION • In Secure Futures: Arabness, Neoliberalism, and Brazil

C O N C L U S I O N  In Secure Futures Arabness, Neoliberalism, and Brazil S YRIAN–LEBANESE DESCENDANTS today have celebrated their economic , political, and cultural contributions to the Brazilian nation. Members of second and third generations have recurrently emphasized Arabs’ commercial prowess, ascent into political circles and liberal professions , masculine fame in familial regimes, and popularized forms of cuisine and dance. This book has shown that such ethnic pride is not necessarily unwarranted, but it needs to be understood in the Brazilian context of the“culture of neoliberalism” (Comaroff and Comaroff 2000: 304). Brazilians of Syrian–Lebanese descent have been increasingly recognized in the export economy , transparent government, liberalized immigration policy, as well as commodity and consumer diversification. In such contexts, their alleged innate ability to wheel and deal, purported proclivity toward endogamy, traditions of cuisine and dance, and desires to tour Arab homelands have won increased visibility. My goal has been to show how Arab ethnicity has gained greater recognition in these ways during Brazil’s neoliberal moment. Theoretically, this book has aimed to push the study of ethnicity beyond present-day parameters. Since the 1970s, scholarship has made path-breaking inquires into the peripheral construction of ethnic difference from the colonial past through the national present (Friedlander 1975; Munasinghe 2001; Stutzman 1981; Warren 1989 [1978]; Williams 1991). Seeking to use and move beyond this historical framework, I have asked how the hierarchical relations between ethnicity and the nation have shifted and reorganized during the neoliberal moment of the world system. I have asserted that, while ethnicity I N S E C U R E F U T U R E S 167 remains linked to nationalist hegemony today, its coordinates and references have gained greater privilege according to global cultural economic trends. Once solely rejected or coerced, ethnic subjects and substances have now become acknowledged as export partners, ethically accountable leaders, and market-niche consumers in the neoliberal nation. In this light, ethnicity has not been elevated beyond nationalist struggle. Rather, it has become privileged in unprecedented ways. Framing Arab Brazilian currency in imagined political economy, the nationalist order, and the marketing of ethnic culture, I have sought to compose an ethnography without qualifiers. Each chapter in this book has moved between historical and current Arab self-understandings and institutional practices in São Paulo, changing models of the Brazilian nation and state, as well as world market flows and trends. I have used this approach to go beyond the critique of “writing culture”—not by calling for a return to past anthropological standards but, instead, by employing holism as a textual device. This has enabled me to present varied facets of Arab Brazilian livelihoods and lifestyles , including business, politics, liberal professions, family reproduction, country clubs, and tourism, as an interconnected whole without isolating them from the wider field of power relations. This book’s holistic arrangement of the Arab experience in Brazil has endeavored to chart the many ways in which the hierarchical relations between ethnicity and nation have reorganized in the neoliberal world economy. By way of “another arabesque,” I have sought to convey the shifting place of Arabness in the Brazilian nation. As noted at the very beginning of this book, the “arabesque” in the title alludes to the public design of Arab ethnicity institutionalized by Brazilian executives, politicians, and socialites of Syrian–Lebanese descent. The adjective “another” refers to how Arab ethnicity was hidden or denigrated in earlier times, while it has been increasingly projected and recognized today as a unique resource that mirrors and makes up dominant neoliberal alliances and models in Brazil. Ultimately, my focus on this Arab formation in nationalist agendas and political-economic programs on the Brazilian periphery of the world system has sought to de-center or disrupt established ways of studying Arabness, exploring another arabesque that now circulates in the Americas. OF COURSE, THESE BRAZILIAN contours of Arabness are not isolated from the increasingly insecure world order. Like their counterparts in the United States before and after the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, Brazilians of Middle Eastern descent—particularly Muslims—have become acquainted with the politics of insecurity and 168 C O N C LU S I O N surveillance. The experiences of Dr. Nasser Rajab, a second-generation Arab Brazilian lawyer, illustrate expected and surprising outcomes between Arab ethnicity and the Brazilian nation in...