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1/ This is sadly a common view among young Lebanese today and, more than anything else, I think it’s an indictment of Lebanon’s educational system for almost entirely neglecting to teach students their own history.
2/ First of all, I hate that I have to state the obvious, but France, by definition, never colonized Lebanon.
Colonization entails actively settling a foreign population in an inhabited area with the intention of taking it over. That’s what France did in Algeria, not in Lebanon.
Colonization entails actively settling a foreign population in an inhabited area with the intention of taking it over. That’s what France did in Algeria, not in Lebanon.
3/ We also need to understand that the French mandate emerged in a very specific historical context.
Lebanon, then a majority Christian region, was coming out of a 400 year occupation by the Ottoman Empire whose demise in WWI was a rather bloody affair.
Lebanon, then a majority Christian region, was coming out of a 400 year occupation by the Ottoman Empire whose demise in WWI was a rather bloody affair.
4/ In Anatolia, the Ottomans perpetrated a genocide against their Christian subjects, exterminating 2-3 million people.
At the same time, they also blocked aid from reaching famine-struck Lebanon, helping wipe out somewhere between a third and a half of the region’s population.
At the same time, they also blocked aid from reaching famine-struck Lebanon, helping wipe out somewhere between a third and a half of the region’s population.
5/ It was in this context that the Maronites of Mount Lebanon, nearly destroyed in the famine and fearing for their lives, pleaded with the French to intervene and protect them.
The Maronite Patriarch even made the trip to Versailles to plead his people’s case.
The Maronite Patriarch even made the trip to Versailles to plead his people’s case.
6/ Essentially, the French occupation that came after amounted to nothing less than protecting a local minority community that had just survived a partly man-made, borderline genocidal famine and giving them the opportunity for self-determination.
7/ The French even went so far as to set up key institutions to ensure that the nascent state could stand on its own feet, which isn’t exactly what colonizers do. And indeed, the country and its people — yes, even non-Maronites — thrived in the decades following its independence.
8/ So you know what’s worse than “sucking the d*cks of our colonizers” @ohmyhoven?
It’s being a historically illiterate tool who furthers a malicious narrative that paints minority communities as traitors and, thus, paves the way for their eventual marginalization or worse.
It’s being a historically illiterate tool who furthers a malicious narrative that paints minority communities as traitors and, thus, paves the way for their eventual marginalization or worse.
