From: martillo@nero.clearpoint.com (Joachim Carlo Santos Martillo Ajami)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.mideast,soc.culture.arabic,soc.culture.lebanon
Subject: Re: Are Lebanese considered ARABS (J. LAWEN a PALESTINIAN)
Date: 24 Jan 93 13:53:56 GMT
Organization: Clearpoint Research Corp., Hopkinton Mass.

In article <1993Jan11.065124.26726@mcs.kent.edu> Sandra Rayes writes:
>In article <1iqpagINNnik@life.ai.mit.edu> steel@hal.gnu.ai.mit.edu writes:
>>In article <1993Jan10.213438.10060@ac.dal.ca> bibr0027@ac.dal.ca writes:

>[some back and forth deleted...]

>>Let me give you a little info you may not be familiar with.
>>In May 1948 , the president of Lebanon, Bshara Alkhouri, gave
>>Lebanese Citizenships to all Christian Palestinians on the spot.
>>The ones that are in refugee camps and not there by choice.  The
>>Lebanese Law does not grant them hardly any rights.   It is written
>>in the Lebanese law that a Palestinian may not drive a pickup truck,
>>nor he may work as an Engineer, nor he may own a house.

>>My neighbours are Palestinains, renting in Tripoli,  they wanted
>>to buy a pick up truck to operate their business that is run
>>in the refugee camps, they had to put the truck in some Lebanese woman's
>>name in order to be able to make a living.

>As a westerner, listening to this back and forth between ARAB brothers
>only makes me think 'Boy, those French colonists sure did an outstanding
>job dividing a nation amongst itself'.  I know some Christian Lebanese
>who prefer to call themselves "Phoenicians", rather than Arabs and this
>makes me, a non-Arab, sick at heart to see the residual effects of
>Western colonialsim still alive and well today.  Fact is, the Lebanese,
>regardless of religion, are Arabs and therefore have a rich history,
>language and culture which is inspiring.  So what the hell is your
>problem, Br. LAWEN????

Sandra Rayes, you really should get beyond your narrow prejudiced
parochial leftist Western viewpoint.  Concepts like nationalism are
precisely the imports from the West which fucked over the peoples of
the Levant.  French colonialism, British colonialism, Turkish
colonialism, Egyptian colonialism etc -- have been part of the
Levantine milieu for centuries.  People knew how to deal with them.
But the introduction of concepts of 19th century secular liberal
democratic nationalism into a region where secularism, liberalism and
democracy have no roots and where people tend to define themselves
primarily on a tribal level has lead to worse slaughter than the
Mongols.

Sandra, you are at a university.  You really should try to acquire
some understanding and comprehension before babbling.  Right now you
represent a pretty good argument for bait al ta`a.

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

Yes, when something goes wrong let's just go blame the Israeli
bogeyman.  Maybe you have not realized it yet, but Arab people
slaughter each other with no external provocation whatsoever.

>Sandra.


-- 
Joachim Carlo Santos Martillo Ajami

The article represents noone's opinions other than the author's.
Newsgroups: talk.politics.mideast