i was going through ra’s al ghul’s wikipedia page and it said that he was born to a group of chinese nomads, and the only reason they used arab names and titles was to instil fear in the locals (i’m paraphrasing here). so if ra’s is chinese and melisande is chinese, wouldn’t talia and damian basically have no arab ancestry?
Already talked about why that is false here: (https://arabian-batboy.tumblr.com/post/162945005381/hello-im-not-trying-to-get-on-your-nerves-or-be).
Are you talking about Batman: Birth of the Demon? If memory serves me right, I’m pretty sure the comic didn’t say he was born to a group of Chinese nomads, it said he was born in the Arabian peninsula near a city whose inhabitants traveled from China centuries ago, not that he specifically was born to them (also even if he was born to that tribe, a few centuries of intermarriage with the native people would automatically make that tribe be Arab by the time Ra’s was born) so no, Ra’s is still Arab, hence why that comic portrayed him and everyone else from that tribe with Arabic facial-features not Chinese-facial features, with Arabic clothes not Chinese clothes and their city with Arabic architecture not Chinese architecture (also the comic isn’t canon, so technically speaking no one is obligated to take it as a fact)
For me, the decision to rewrite the al Ghuls to be part Chinese even though they have only been Arab before that is both dumb and racist. In real-life there’s no such thing as a “Chinese tribe who immigrated to the Arabian peninsula” that’s 100% made up and historically inaccurate, so there was no reason for them to add that part except to justify why they would sometime borrow elements from Chinese culture to give them to Arab characters and maybe because they didn’t want to have prominent Arab characters in their comic? Mind you that comic was released during the Iraqi war and at that time Talia was still portrayed as an anti-hero/a serious lover to Batman and Ra’s while still a villain, was portrayed in very dignified manners and not so moustache-twirling-villain.
And no offense to you personally, but DC has used the al Ghuls to demonize us and bastardize our culture for years now. The least they can do is to let us claim Damian as Arab due to him being an Al Ghul (and for them to acknowledge that too), trying to change their heritage to Chinese all of the sudden and going “oh btw forgot to tell you, they were Chinese all this time” just feels like a middle finger to us.
