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Welcome »
This website is an attempt to explore the so called "hidden" community in the British society, The Arab community.
The first sizeable Arab community in Britain was made up of Yemeni sailors who settled in the docklands area of London and in some other major ports, including Cardiff and South Shields, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The British had a strong presence in the Yemen at the time, at the port of Aden, which was hugely important because of its strategic location.
These early Arab residents were almost all men, many settling down in the country and marrying local women. As the importance of these ports started to decline in the 1950s, the populations tended to disperse.
Arab Immigrants
During the 20th century there were various waves of immigration into the UK.
In the 1930s, a number of Iraqi Christians arrived, followed by a wave of political refugees following a revolution in Iraq in 1958.
In the 1950 and 60s, many north African Arabs from countries like Morocco came to London to work in the hospitality and hotel industries.
In 1967 The Council for Arab-British Understanding was set up in London with the aim of improving links between the Arab world and Britain.
The UK today is home to a multi-racial, multi-cultural and multi-faith community and the added feature of inter-ethnic marriage makes racial classification progressively more complex. Included in this rich mosaic are British Arab citizens – perhaps 500,000 of them – originating from a wide spectrum of Arab countries. In fact, and this is frequently overlooked – or possibly deliberately ignored – Arabs are arguably the longest-resident, non-European ethnic group in the British Isles. Their presence is largely a consequence of Britain’s colonial past although it is known that the Romans brought Arab archers with them and established a town which is now South Shields.
Project
This website has an academic scoop in order to study the impact of new media (online and sattelite channels) on the 2nd generation of Arab immigrants in the UK. This projects will work closey with Arab youths, no matter what ethnicity or colour or religion they have. The ultimate goal for this website is to document the Arab community existance and overall contribution to the British society.
If you are from the Arab community, born in the UK and you are between 18 - 25, or just interested in this project, I would be pleased to hearing from you.
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