For a year, I’ve chosen to stay silent. But as an Arab Canadian, I feel I must now speak out

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Angela Yazbek is an Arab-Canadian writer and former CBC journalist.

Consider this my coming out. Not as gay – that would be easier – but as Arab. It’s an identity I’ve kept under wraps for far too long, hidden from friends and society at large. But as the war in the Middle East erupts, particularly in Lebanon, the time for silence is over.

I wonder if society truly wants to hear from me. A Lebanese-Canadian child of immigrants, I’ve learned to fit in well enough to render my ethnicity invisible, allowing me to achieve academic and career successes – not too Arab, Canadian enough. But this past year has changed everything. Arabs. Jews. The bloodbath we have witnessed has forever transformed us all.

For me, the profound depth of my connection to my Arab identity is matched only by the gut-wrenching horror I now feel – one I never knew was possible.

Yet I’ve kept all this private, retreating back into hiding as I did in grade school. Desperate to fit in, to be the all-Canadian girl I was not, I’ve always felt wedged between two cultures, never fully belonging to either. The irony is today I want to shout it from the rooftops, to scream my outrage over the suffering of innocent Arabs. But I censor myself. The moment I even think about saying I believe in a free Palestine, I can feel the assumptions swirling: I must be pro-terrorism and antisemitic. My identity as a sensitive mother and peace-loving yoga teacher can be eclipsed by speaking that one difficult truth. I feel the expectation to denounce Oct. 7, to justify my thoughts, my emotions. So I have chosen to say nothing. But with each passing day, it eats away at me.

A friend who is neither Jewish nor Arab told me she has noticed this reluctance. Why won’t anyone talk about this, she asked me. I confessed that I have not engaged in any meaningful conversations with friends, either, afraid of where they might lead. What if they don’t see things the way I do? I’m terrified of what their true feelings might reveal – about Gaza, Lebanon and me. Better not to go there.

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Or is it?

This latest conflict isn’t new for me. I grew up on images of the Lebanese civil war. I remember watching my father glued to ABC’s World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, cursing in Arabic, arms flailing at the television screen. Lebanon was burning, as was his anguish. His family – our family – was trapped in Beirut. It was heart-wrenching to witness. He had unknowingly escaped when he immigrated to Canada 10 years before the war began, but survivor’s guilt for what his family endured haunted him through his life, to his deathbed. Seeing his torment shaped my early ideas of what it meant to be Arab – a fierce loyalty that transcended space and time. And as I picture our dwindling family in Lebanon facing yet another war, I realize that same guilt has found me.

It takes me back to my first trip to Lebanon, where, fresh out of university, I encountered a country in chaos. It was the late eighties – bombs were a constant threat, and nightly shelling became an unsettling backdrop. “You’ll get used to it,” my cousin Corine told me. “Get used to war?” I thought. “Not a chance.” She was right. Within months, I barely noticed it. Yet, as I travelled beyond Beirut with my cousins, something snapped. Approaching checkpoints manned by various factions and militias demanding IDs, I could taste my father’s bitter fury. My own visceral outrage finally made me grasp what he’d carried for years.

But it wasn’t until the attacks of Oct. 7 and the continuing destruction in Gaza that I felt something break inside me. The images in the news – bloodied children, desperate mothers – cut to the bone. I see my face in their faces. Like my father, I am glued to the screen, arms flailing, cursing in English. Now, it’s not just his torment – it’s mine too. Day by day, my helplessness and hopelessness deepen as does the guilt of doing nothing – saying nothing.

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As the war expands into my homeland, I can no longer remain a bystander. Seeing Lebanese families fleeing a conflict they didn’t start feels both tragically familiar and hits painfully close to home. Each new image from Lebanon tightens the knot in my stomach. What’s happening there has shattered my silence.

I’m finally saying what I should have said months ago: I am Arab, and our stories matter – now more than ever. Our lives matter. We can’t keep hiding from discomfort and fear by avoiding the hard conversations about what’s happening in the Middle East – I know I can’t.

So, I’m going to do what I’ve been afraid to do my entire life: Be loud. Be proud. Be Arab. The fear – of having fingers pointed at me, of being called out, of what others will say, a fear that has shaped my entire life – suddenly feels trivial compared with what’s unfolding before my eyes.

In Arabic, we have a word: “sawti” – my voice. It’s tattooed on the back of my neck, a gift I gave myself when I became a yoga teacher 10 years ago. It now reminds me of what this year has made clear. I have a voice. It’s time to use it.

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