Hello My Sumerian Friend. This Is Your Phoenician Friend

Joking about issues that caused wars in the past is very prevalent among the educated new generation of Lebanon. A couple of the undying objects of our jokes at the office, for example, are identity and Arabism (or the Arab cause and what derives from it).
As much as the two terms are related in Lebanon, they are equally not related. Also, considering that I come from a family of a Maronite father and an Orthodox Armenian mother, I don’t think that my experience in Lebanese identity can be generalized. Add to it my mingling and close relationships with Druzes, Sunnis, Shiites and numerous non-Lebanese and you’ll get an extremely rare philosophy about identity. I like to think of myself as a “global citizen”. Maybe I am not and I just wish to be. The layered history of the different identities the area of land now known as Lebanon has had, makes the identity of current Lebanon already very complex. This may be one the very few things that make me proud to be Lebanese; it’s amazing to know that one of my grandfathers might have been Ottoman (also ironic considering my mother’s side), his great grandfather might have been a European Crusader, whose wife might have been Byzantine or Roman, who in turn fell in love with an Arab or a Persian before marrying. I should have added Phoenician somewhere between those, or probably at the end, but that idea is already over-suggested. It doesn’t need me to highlight it.
As if this debate and the comprehension of this complex structure needed any more intricate factors, modern media had to kick in. Satellite TV, internet, and open global economy made Lebanon a street in the “global village”. Being a citizen living on this “street”, I can’t but be a citizen of that “village” as well.
Of course, a very big component (or layer, so to speak) in the current Lebanese identity is Arab. Throughout history (being part of the empire back when it started to rise) and now as part of its geographical existence and its dominant (and official) language. But what Arab is exactly more than that is also debatable in itself. There are many who tried to define that and many who adopt different definitions. Among all those who claim to be Arabs, very few show commonalities among each other. A Saudi Arabian is an Arab (it would be very funny if he wasn’t), and a Moroccan is an Arab. Of course, there are other countries in between that also differ but not as much, but I think considering these two “Arab” countries makes my point. Lebanon adopts a certain definition of Arab as well (not considering those very few who don’t and are not very convincing with why not). All this makes me feel that I haven’t really made up my mind yet about what an Arab really is. I definitely know what I would like the Utopia of the Arab Union to be like, though.
By Raffi Feghali