Getting Real About MENA/SWANA/Arab Identity: We Don’t All Live in The Dessert

Let's set the record straight from the get-go. The Middle East/Southwest Asia and North Africa (MENA/SWANA) region isn't just a blend of sand dunes and camels. It's a vibrant mosaic of cultures, languages, and histories. We've got everything from the fiery spirit of Turkey to the ancient allure of Iran, not to mention a whole host of other groups like the Chaldeans, Kurds, Amazighs, Assyrians, Armenians, Azeris, and Mandaeans, each with their own rich culture and history.

When you start peeling back the layers of ethnicity, you'll find it's about as stable as my mood on a Monday morning. Sure, we've got these neat little categories, but they're not so fluid and they don’t capture everyone.

And let's talk about the elephant in the room: ethno-national purity. That’s just a fancy term for erasure. We've seen it time and time again, with minority groups getting the short end of the stick thanks to some misguided quest for homogeneity. It's like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole – it just doesn't work!

In order to combat this, organizations are popping up left, right, and center, championing terms like MENA and SWANA to celebrate our diversity. And while some might argue about the semantics, let's not get bogged down in the details. After all, a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet, wouldn't it?

Now, I may not have a PhD in political science or a lifetime of activism under my belt, but what I do have is a fierce determination to claim my identity and spark some real change. Growing up with a Palestinian heritage in Toronto wasn't always easy. I mean, how do you explain your "ambiguous" appearance on a demographic form without feeling like you're playing a game of 20 questions?

But here's the kicker, – we're not alone in this struggle. There's a whole generation out there grappling with the same questions of identity and belonging. And it's high time we started talking about it.

So, let's shake off the shackles of outdated terminology and embrace the messy, beautiful reality of our identities. Because at the end of the day, it's not about fitting into a neat little box.