The MIT Arab Students' Organization

Primary sources

The MIT Arab StudentsOrganization (ASO) has been quite active this past academic year sponsoring and organizing a number of social, cultural, and political events. The activism shown by the current Arab students can be traced back to the origins of the ASO in 1958 ( Arab Club And Fair Play For Cuba Given Provisional Class B Status (The Tech, online archive, Friday, January 13, 1961) ).

The Arab Club, as it was called originally, was formally organized in October of 1958 led by Rurik Halaby. Its agenda included dinners offering traditional Arabic food, lectures on problems of the modern Arab world given by respected speakers, and political debates.

After only two years of existence, in 1960, not only did the Arab Club publish the Arab Reporterbut they also started the Arabic Hour at the MIT radio station. Furthermore, the Arab students participated in the International Bazaar showing MIT and the community the Arab Worlds culture and customs. They also catered to the politically attached and invited well-known Arab diplomats to speak on the pressing issue of the Palestine/Israel conflict.

Through contacting the founders of the Arab Club we found out a couple of interesting facts about their time at MIT. For instance Atif Debs who came to MIT in 1960 noted that during his eight and a half years at MIT the Arab Club consisted of 3 rather distinct eras, (1) 1961-64, (2) 1964-67, (3) 1967-69. In the first era, the Arab body consisted mainly of two main groups of Egyptians and Iraqis. The main issues of this era in the Arab World related to the rivalry between Nasser and the Baath, socialism vs. capitalism, with Arab Unity as the key political concept. The resulting political tensions in the Middle East were reflected at MIT and led initially to a focus on social activities- dinners, Arabic movies, picnics, with limited cultural events.

Later in the 70s and 80s the Arab Club continued to be an active community sponsoring monthly seminars addressing many aspects of the political and social conditions in the Arab worldaccording to Mujid Kazimi. For a few years the ASO had a lack of human capital and consequently could not go ahead with some activities. Nonetheless this year it came back full force lining the year with various interesting events. Firstly, we sponsored Rock the Vote by MTV. Later in November the ASO co-sponsored the TARI Conference here at MIT. In February a Spring Term Kickoff Dinner was a success bringing together more than 50 Arab students and professors at MIT. The CCRR asked the ASO to sponsor a dinner and discussion in March which attracted at least 45 members of the MIT community to discuss topics such as illiteracy among Arab women, racial profiling, Darfour, Syria/Lebanon Relations, and other issues.

The ASO has the remainder of the year booked with social, cultural, and political events and hopes to attract more and more of the MIT Arab community to these activities. We encourage Alumni who wish to drop us a note on the ASO's history to share their stories with us.

MIT ASO recollections