Lebanese People - Identity Shifts

Identity Shifts

Some Lebanese, mainly Christians, identify themselves as Phoenician rather than Arab, seeking to draw "on the Phoenician past to try to forge an identity separate from the prevailing Arab culture". They argue that Arabization merely represented a shift to the Arabic language as the vernacular of the Lebanese people, and that, according to them, no actual shift of ethnic identity, much less ancestral origins, occurred. Their argument, based on the premise of ancestry, has recently been vindicated by some emerging genetic studies as discussed below. Thus, Phoenicianists emphasize that the Arabs of Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Sudan, Tunisia, Iraq, and all other "Arabs", are different peoples, each descended from the indigenous pre-Arab populations of their respective regions, with their own histories and lore, and that therefore they do not belong to the one pan-Arab ethnicity, and thus such categorisation is erred or inapplicable. Lehe nationals in particular tend to stress aspects of Lebanon's non-Arab history as a mark of respect, to encompass all Lebanon's historical stages, instead of beginning at the Arab conquests, an attitude that prevails in the rest of the Arab world.

Among the Arabists, most don't dispute the differing ancestral origins of not only the Lebanese, but every other "Arab" group, nor do they disagree with acknowledging those roots. However, they do contest the Phoenicianists' assertion that a shift to an Arab identity did not occur, whether from a Phoenician or later pre-Arab identity. Arabists argue such a shift did in fact occur, if not for the population as a whole and for generations up until the rise of modern Phoenicianism, then at the very least for the larger part of the population, up to and including today. Further, they contend that this was the case for the Lebanese even in light of the differing Lebanese religious communities, especially pointing to the fact that most of the leading Arabists in recent Lebanese history were in fact Christians. The Arabists' point of contention is that Phoenicianists and Phoenicianism disregards and often altogether seems to relegate the reality of the Arab cultural and linguistic heritage of Lebanon and the Lebanese, given the extent to which the culture and customs of today's Lebanese people are indebted to that period of Lebanon's history. This is argued especially when the Arab cultural elements are quantified against the elements that can be attributed to have originated prior to, and survived, the Arab period into the modern time and culture. Therefore, they see the notion of deriving a Lebanese identity based on Arabism as valid, and thus many Lebanese, whether Muslim, Christian or other, do identify as Arabs.

In light of this "old controversy about identity", some Lebanese prefer to see Lebanon, Lebanese culture and themselves as part of a "Mediterranean" or "Levantine" civilization, in a concession to Lebanon's various layers of heritage, both indigenous, foreign non-Arab, and Arab. Arab influence, nevertheless, applies to virtually all aspects of the modern Lebanese culture.