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Quote #10
"Arabs" meant people with whom you made treaties that you did not have to honor, arabs being by definition people of a lesser humanity and there being no need to honor treaties with people of lesser humanity. It meant people whose lands you could carve up and apportion as you wished, because they were of a lesser humanity. (267)
As Ahmed explores the concept of Arabness, she analyzes what it means to those outside the Arabic culture. She concludes that the term is defined by the inhumanity of those who coined it. It's not a reflection of an actual ethnic group or sovereign state. Instead, it's a way to put an entire region's worth of people into a box—and discard them. We are getting a clear sense here of Ahmed's anger and why she's been justified in mistrusting the designation of "Arab."