ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the experiences through the inter-war years of the Arab seamen based in South Shields and the community associated with them. It focuses on the way in which those experienees reflected the historic role of ‘alien seamen in one of the North Sea ports in which modern seagoing trade unionism was established, and pays particular attention to the issue of the ‘Britishness’ of the Arabs and the Arab descended. The irony is that the racism of the National Union displaced them from that position and drove them into an alliance with the Minority Movement. The Arab question was embedded in a wider local class conflict. The identification of the role of the Arab descended in subsequent industrial politics in South Shields brings into play another very important point about this community. The events and processes surrounding the Arab community in South Shields were complex in the extreme.
