Family, Friends & Tradition
Muna Salloum
Muna Salloum is the daughter of Habeeb and Fareida Salloum, a third generation Arab Canadian who learnt the value of Arab family traditions and upbringing from her mother, and the value of Arab culture and education from her father.
Muna and her identical twin sister Leila are very proud of, and very familiar with their Arab roots. Leila is married to an Arab American and has four children, all of whom hold Arab names. Although Muna’s mother, Fareida, is Canadian born, she still have very strong Arab values and traditions and passed these on to her daughters. For instance, Fareida always cooked Arabic food at home and taught her daughters to do the same. They were not allowed to stay out late at night on their own and when Muna and Leila got acceptance from McMaster University in Hamilton, she refused to send them away to live on their own. Fareida’s ideal for her daughters was for them to get married and have children.
The father, Habeeb, on the other hand was concerned about his daughters’ getting a good university education, as this would make them the first Salloums to graduate from an institute of higher learning. Habeeb had a huge influence on Muna's life; he taught her and Leila how to speak Arabic. Muna remembers that whenever there was a show and tell at school or a project, her father would tell them to do it about the Arab world and culture. Muna puts it in the following words: "we knew what we were while we were growing up, and there was never any shame attached to it, there was always the goodness. My father always told us about the great contributions of the Arabs to the world, that we were leaders and had a great empire, and that we can still be great if the West stops supporting our dictatorial regimes and stops attacking us". This is the way her father explained it to her and this is how she accepted it.
It was difficult for Muna at school because, first she had an identical twin sister which confused a lot of people, and second, in those days Muna and Leila were not common names in the predominantly Anglo-Saxon neighborhood. The other kids made her feel unwelcome into their group, and she did not feel that she belonged so she moved towards her Arab origin where there was always acceptance, comfort and love. When her school friends came to visit her at home they loved the hospitality, the friendliness and the family atmosphere. However, at school it was more controversial to be an Arab Canadian. In grade 11, Muna did a presentation on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in history class. She was surprised by the reaction of her classmates because they attacked her presentation and her point of view. They did not feel that Israel has stolen the land from the Palestinians. They felt that Palestine belonged to the Zionists and that the Palestinians had no claim to the land. After the presentation, the kids at school started making fun of her and she felt that she was living in a small world of her own.
At home Muna socialized mainly with Arabs. She loved the Arab culture and the fact that these people never put her down and always treated her like an equal. Muna was always raised to be an Arab first. Religion was never an issue in her house. Once, when she was fourteen, the subject was brought up at a friend’s house but she didn’t like discussing religion because she knew that it was a divisive factor among the Arabs and was used by the West and religious leaders to turn Arab against Arab. She never went to church except for weddings or funerals.
Other than her father, the other great influence on Muna’s cultural sense of identity was Jamil Butrus Qahoush, whom she calls "Uncle Jimmy". Jamil was a friend of her father’s dating back to 1949, a Canadian born Arab, he was also fluent in Arabic. Uncle Jimmy and her father founded the Canadian Arab Friendship Society in 1961, which she and her sister greatly participated in. The purpose of the society was to foster greater understanding of Arabs and the Arab world by Canadians, and greater familiarity of the Arab world with Canada. This was accomplished by having a monthly lecture, given by a variety of distinguished speakers on a wide range of different topics. Issues such as economic relations between Canada & the Arab world, contemporary Arabic literature, Canada’s multiculturalism policy, and so on were dealt with. The members consisted of Arab Canadians and non-Arab Canadians and it was open to everyone who had an interest in furthering their knowledge regardless of faith or ethnic origin.
Muna eventually went to University of Toronto where she and Leila took Middle Eastern and Islamic studies. Muna studied economic history and Leila studied Arabic literature, but they both specialized in Al-Andalus (Arab-Muslim Spain). After her graduation, Muna took a job at the U of T in an administrative capacity. She leads a very busy life, both at work intellectually, and at home with family and friends. The university atmosphere allows her to discuss the Middle East and the Arab world with other intellectuals who tend to be more informed about the area and have more objective and therefore similar views to her. There are exceptions, one being after 9/11 when the whole western world turned against Arabs and Muslims. Muna thinks that people should deal with negative situations in a positive way. Instead of dwelling on the negative image that the Arabs have in North America, she, for example, helped her father write a book on Spanish words that have an Arab origin. It took 15 years to finish that project, but every time Muna has a bad experience, she was more determined than ever to finish the book. It was her way of showing the world what the Arabs were really like and the great contributions they make to civilization.
The first Arab came to Canada in 1882, his name was Abraham Abou Nader and he settled in Montreal. In 1983, Muna told her father that she wanted to do a conference through the Friendship Society to celebrate 100 years of Arabs in Canada. Muna was able to get funding from the government for this conference and after a lot of hard work and perseverance, the conference was held in 1984 with an attendance of well over five hundred people. After the conference was over, she sent all the information to the National Archives of Canada, for future reference.
Muna feels like a true hyphenated Canadian, for although she differs from other Canadians because of her Arab roots, quite often she feels misunderstood by Arabs who view her as being too Canadian. Although Muna loves people and holds family and friends dear to her, she has not let anyone cloud her clear vision. She was brought up by two loving parents Fareida and Habeeb who taught her the value of family, traditions and origin and she lives every day by upholding these virtues and being true to self.