Akkadians, Amorites, Aramaeans, Assyrians, Babylonians, Canaanites/Phoenicians, Eblans, Nabateans, Persians, Greeks, Romans and Byzantines.  Nevertheless, it was the Arabs who came out of the Arabian Peninsula in the seventh century who had the greatest part in moulding their forefathers - the Syrians.  These desert Arabs brought with them their dynamic religion, Islam, and laid the basis of the culture found in today's Syria.  In later centuries, Crusaders, Mongols, Turks, French and British occupied the Middle East, but they left only minuscule traces.     

                Over ninety percent of the early newcomers to Canada from Ottoman controlled Syria were members of one or another of the Eastern Christian churches.  Even though Islam was and is the major religion of Syria, only the odd Muslim and a few Druze were among these early immigrants and they rarely made Canada their permanent home.  Most feared that their Muslim traditions would be lost if they lived all their lives in a Western society. 

                On the other hand, during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many Arab Christians in Syria, having received their education in American, British, French, German, Italian or Russian missionary schools, tended to develop a strong affinity to the West.  Usually, these places of learning, even though they brought education, caused divisiveness amongst the inhabitants.   

                These institutions were the initial stage of the opening of the Middle East to European colonization.  They usually concentrated their educational efforts on religious minorities.  France took the Maronites and other Catholic sects under their wing; Russia opened schools for the Orthodox even though at the turn of the century over seventy-five percent of its own people were illiterate; and Britain, not to be left out, found the Druze willing clients. 

                The ones who went through the school systems of these colonial powers were taught and later felt that they had a great historical kinship to Western culture and little attachment to their homeland.  If they had a national feeling, it was to the countries which ran their institutes.  Britain and France had for years strategically nurtured religious and political relations with the minorities in order to protect their economic interests.

                The schools were mostly concentrated in urban centres and mainly accessible to the inhabitants of the towns.  Their graduates, more sectarian than nationalistic, influenced the thinking of the majority of the Christians, living in villages, from where almost all the early immigrants came. 

                These Christian peasant immigrants were usually illiterate or semi-literate, even in their mother Arabic tongue.  Only a few could read and write, but this does not seem to have impeded their lives in the New World.  The survival instinct of the early Syrians, inherited through thousands of years of civilized history, was a base for their success in Canada.

                At a faster pace than immigrants from other countries, they assimilated into Canadian society.  Today, their descendants almost without exception do not even know the village or region from whence their forefathers came.  A few dishes of Arabic food and some mispronounced family names are the only connection these descendant's of  the first newcomers have with the land of their fathers.

                After the Second World War, unlike the early pioneers, new types of Arab immigrants came.  They arrived from all parts of the Arab world in the latter part of the twentieth century and were, in the main, well educated.  Exceeding the Canadian average in their level of education, many knew either English or French or both better than their native tongue.  This tended to make them feel more at home in Canada than in the lands from where they originated.

                Yet, even though the majority of these second wave immigrants assimilated quickly, a few were still proud of their history with its rich culture and formed associations in order to preserve this heritage.  Nevertheless, still, these few had their problems.  They brought from the Arab Word their narrow political nationalist views and tried to implement some of these in the Arab communities, however, with not much success.  Further, the tragedy of Palestine added to the problems faced by the ones who took part in Arab-Canadian affairs, thus limiting the achievements of these conscientious few.

                When in the last half of the 20th century multiculturalism became Canadian  government policy, a few of these new arrivals and a minuscule number of the descendants of the first immigrants began to work for the preservation of the Arab heritage in Canada, but the majority stood on the sidelines.  Unlike the other ethnic groups in Canada, the Arab-Canadians appear to have had no desire to sustain their Arab culture. 

                There is no doubt that in the mosaic of ethnic nationalities which makes up the Canadian family, the Arab-Canadians in a few generations, will be no more.  They will have disappeared into either into the English or French societies.  More than any other immigrant who came to this land, the Arab is assimilated even before the first generation passes away.

                In the first hundred years that the Arabs have settled in Canada, many prospered and in the process contributed much to their new land.  But it is a sad fact that as we look back on these men of Arab heritage, we can hardly identify any as Arab-Canadians.  Should this treed continue long before the next hundred years hive passed away, the Arab-Canadians will have completely disappeared.  Only in historical research will they be remembered.

                                                                                                Habeeb Salloum