Denying the Arab Identity: An Introduction

The title of this article sums this whole piece up, yet who is this title pertaining to? The people who are denying their Arab identity, are mostly the Lebanese Christians, the Maronites. We all know that Lebanon is almost perfectly split in half between Muslim and Christian, about a 1 to 1 ratio. Here the problems arise, yet let us examine the history of this area.

The word Arab and the Arab people unite several countries in the Middle East and North Africa, as well as the Persian gulf, as Arabic-speaking, and under the religion of Islam, yet the latter doesn't always have to be the case. However the Christian Maronites have convinced themselves that to be Arab, one has to be Muslim, and not only that, yet they do not want to be generalized with the Arabs, because they have a whole different agenda in their hands for Lebanon, their tiny tortured country.

Christian Maronites, or at least the majority of them, will in no way associate themselves with Arabs, because there is a conflict of interests. During the colonial times, when the French and the British had divided up the Middle East among themselves after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, there was a general response of opposition from the Arabs. Yet the Maronites, at a time, welcomed this colonial power, and they found the French as their liberators in a very dangerous and untolerant Ottoman Empire ruled under Islam.

The main goal of the Maronites of Lebanon is to Westernize the country, and the colonizing of Lebanon, in their perspective, was the first step in doing this. They spoke French, understood French culture during that time, and intergrated themselves into French society which let them gain power, a large amount of power in government, military, economy, and the Lebanese society. The maronites wanted to split from the Arab world and establish a western state on the shores of the White Sea, and open Beirut, as the gates to the Western and "civilized" world.

I will go in more detail about the Arab Identity in the next articles in this series, follow up!