INSIGHT INTO THE LEBANESE CUNNINGNESS AND ITS EFFECTS

Majed Hamed

The Lebanese were somehow considered by the colonizer to be the chosen people of the Arab countries. They were somehow empowered, and the reason is that Lebanon was considered to be a Christian Country which is an advantage in itself for the colonizer. So, Lebanon was to be treated in a slightly different way from other countries that were under mandate , and was made to be ahead somehow of other regional countries that belonged to the same environment and culture . This gave the Lebanese an advantage over other Arab fellows and other third world people of underdeveloped countries .

Those who enjoyed this privilege belonged mostly to the Christian community who were the first to enjoy high levels of education and were encouraged by the west to start all kinds of businesses and to engage in all kinds of deals . Other Lebanese were not excluded also and they started following the steps of the Christians community . This fact had for effect to empower the Lebanese over their Arab Brothers . As a result, the Lebanese acquired a certain wit and a certain savoir faire that is a kind of mixture between an assumed skill and the capacity to cheat and deceive others in a profitable way . This is called the Lebanese astuce or cunningness -in other words- that has become something famous . It is a behavior that simply takes advantage of others that are not so cunning. That is how the typical Lebanese has grown to take advantage of other unprivileged Lebanese or Africans or Asians because simply the Lebanese has proved to be smarter.

The truth is that the colonialist had bred a mini colonizer called the Lebanese entrepreneur , and has sent him to the four quarters to behave as a colonialist of small caliber at a lower scale . This entrepreneur despises the Black African and the Asian from India or Bangladesh or Sri Lanka, and feels superior to them and assumes that he has rights over them . He also feels superior to other members of his own community and family who have not developed the same traits and are at their disadvantage . This is how entire families have been robbing members of their own family that could not stand up to their rights and were disinherited and shunned as a result . And this is very common among Lebanese . Among those deprived of their rights famous writers and artists; and the case of Lebanese writer May Ziadeh is striking who was victim of her relatives’ greed who sought to disinherit her by trying to prove her mental disability . It was a big case that marked the beginning of the century, and it is by miracle that Ziadeh- the brightest woman of her time and most skilled- was dismissed from the mental hospital where she was confined by her relatives who were after her fortune .

Why the Lebanese have been robbed of their money and their bank assets by the ruling class is because of this attitude , is because they played this game ; they considered themselves cunning and capable but they lost and they became victims of the same cunningness they praise and claim and practice. They did not know that the more cunning will eat the less cunning. And because they belong to this realm of cunningness they are no more in a position to ask that their rights be restored and their money recovered .

In order to change this destiny, the Lebanese have to shun this behavior and look for something else in themselves. They should give up this cunningness and follow other models and patterns that they will draw from their original culture and that will not turn against them but that will benefit them and others . They should repent and behave like brothers and not like colonialists .

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May Elias Ziadeh Arabic: مي إلياس زيادة‎, 11 February 1886 – 17 October 1941) was a Lebanese-Palestinian poet, essayist and translator, who wrote different works in Arabic and in French.