From: an4458@anon.penet.fi
Subject: Lebanese and Arabs
Organization: Anonymous contact service
X-Anonymously-To: soc.culture.lebanon
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 19:48:10 GMT


I am a Lebanese person who happens to be Christian.  I consider myself
non-political liberal and open minded and I believe that each person's
religion is their own business and should have absolutely nothing to
do with their national belonging.  I've been a passive observer, but
I feel compelled to respond to a post from Sandra Rayes:

<Sandra>As a westerner, listening to this back and forth between ARAB brothers
<Sandra>only makes me think 'Boy, those French colonists sure did an 
outstanding
<Sandra>job dividing a nation amongst itself'.

You say that you are a Westerner, so I have to assume that you are 1) one of
your parents (or grandparents) is an Arab Muslim, or 2) you converted to
Islam or 3) your spouse is Muslim and you converted or 4) you're a Westerner
who happens to be Muslim, whatever the case may be, I have a question
for you:  is your information based on second-hand tales or have you lived in
the Middle East?  Most importantly, have you lived in Lebanon?

Also:  unless the rules have changed lately, a brother is someone who
supports, helps, understands and defends me.  Families where one brother
advocates the killing and humiliation of another is not normal by my
standards.

<Sandra> I know some Christian Lebanese
<Sandra>who prefer to call themselves "Phoenicians", rather than Arabs and this
<Sandra>makes me, a non-Arab, sick at heart to see the residual effects of
<Sandra>Western colonialsim still alive and well today.

Read my response above.  I'm sure that if Arabs treat Lebanese
Christians as brothers, the Lebanese Christians will be able to
call themselves Arab without fearing the loss of their religious
identity.  Let me remind you that when the Arab world
was suffering from an identity crisis with most of the Arabs lining up
behind the Turks it was the Lebanese who did the most to preserve
the Arabic language through the efforts of people like Gibran, Michael
Naeimi, etc.  not to mention the effects of the schools that the
Lebanese church set up to teach kids Arabic in secret under the threat
of death.

<Sandra>Fact is, the Lebanese,
<Sandra>regardless of religion, are Arabs and therefore have a rich history,
<Sandra>language and culture which is inspiring.

See above.

<Sandra>Oh yeah?  Been to Libya recently? Read any Syrian or Iraqi 
Baathist lit?

Thank you giving us an insight into your sources of information.

<Sandra>For me, I hope those self-hating Lebanese Arabs will pick up a book of
<Sandra>Arabic poetry written a thousand years ago, or perhaps listen to a
<Sandra>tape of classic Fairuz and remind themselves that they have nothing
<Sandra>to be ashamed of.  I also hope they all become Muslims.
                           ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is where you really start offending me.  See everything I wrote
above.  As long as being Christian is not considered Arab, you and the
likes of you are giving a lot of Christians some solid reasons to
reconsider their Arab heritage.  I don't have to go back a 1000 years,
I know plenty of Christian  19th and 20th century authors / poets
/ philosophers like Gibran and Naeime whose works are what most
Westerners relate to when they think of Arabic culture.  As long as
Arab=Muslim you are going to find that a lot of Christians will not
call themselves Arab.

One more thing:  Fairuz is a Lebanese Maronite Christian.  People used
to flock to her home town in Lebanon every year during Easter to listen
to her sing in church.  Some Lebanese Christians do not agree with her
politics (nor those of her siblings).  Arab nationalism was revived in
Lebanon by Christians like the founder of the Syrian Nationalist party
and in Iraq by another Christian who founded the Baath part (which
later splintered into Syrian Baath and Iraqi Baath).  According to
your post above, you'll have to consider all these people non-Arab.
Think of what would have happened to your favorite reading material
(Syrian and Iraqi Baathist literature) if that would have been the
case earlier in this century.

The majority of Lebanese Christians are moderate.  You do not have
to take my word for it, simply check historical records on the
distribution of political parties in the Lebanese equivalent of
Congress prior to the start of the war in 1975.  The Phalangist
party carried less than 8% of the seats, and they even had muslim
deputies who belonged to the Phalangist party.  Most of the Arab
Nationalist parties in Lebanon (again prior to 1975) were also
represented by deputies who happened to be Christian.  What
happened since the war is a reaction to the overall circumstances
surrounding it.

<Sandra>Yes, and this while Christian Phalangists supported by many of those
<Sandra>"Phoenicians" were conspiring with the Israeli military to murder
<Sandra>and expel Arabs and weaken the Muslims in Lebanon.

As I said earlier, I am not a political person.  Someone defined Murphy's
law as it applies to Lebanon, I'd like to modify it a little:  any time
you have an "n" number of people of ANY nationality discussing the
Lebanese problem, the number of opinions you end up with = (n * n) +1. 

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