Leopards Ate My Face

Y’know how you do a census in your country? Any country. You count the people so you know how to set policy. We don’t do that here. In 1932, the French colonial government counted the population. 50% Christian. 50% Muslim. Our Parliament is split by sect and not just by district, so that means I can only vote for my district’s Christian seats (technically the seats for my specific flavor of Christianity… yeah).

Since 1932, I’m sure you’ll be shocked to learn, demographics have changed. Christian areas, with their higher rates of education and income, have not seen the same birth rates as other areas. The Christian population can also emigrate more easily to countries with higher standards of living. The reasons why (and mechanics of) the disenfranchisement of other communities (especially Shia Muslim communities) are a whole thing and I won’t get into it now. But as it stands, the Muslim population has grown considerably since 1932. Let’s say it’s 60% (it’s more).

So it’s illegal to check, because it would “upset” the “correct” balance of power. And it’s not just politicians. The average Christian will not only tell you “we’re” artificially holding on to power, but that it’s critical to do so because the other guys can’t govern.

It’s late here and I had a long workday so I can’t bang out the full rant here. But there’s a lot of cultural nuance that might be hard to grasp for outsiders. Whiteness as a concept is a fascinating social phenomenon. In the mind of the very sharpest tools in the shed, it’s a classical Europeanness, a type of inherent ability to do civilization. Lebanese Christians, generally, see themselves in this lens. We are, in some way, mythical long-lost Europeans, being crabs-in-a-bucketed back into a miserable existence by our misguided cousins. We gave Europe Christianity, our sacred ancient treasure. We gave it its fucking name. Oh you Americans think you’re white? You diseased misceganated mongrel barbarian pagans? We are whiter than you. We are not Arabs, we are Phoenicians, we are the true authors of history and the true creators of commerce and writing and civilization and— (for further reading, I recommend looking into Phoenicianism and Lebanese Christian Nationalism. The former isn’t necessarily relevant on the surface, but is a good representation of the hyperexceptionalist worldview. I veered a bit into hyperbole, but I assure you, I’ve heard the kernel of all of these from people I expected better of)

I don’t believe this, I hope it doesn’t need saying. In my view, we are normal people. Lebanese Christians have been no kinder to the people around them than the others have been to them. Same shit, different toilet.

No, literally, different toilet. The Muslims all have bidets. As does my “self-hating” Christian ass (haha ass). God help me if I need to take a dump in a public bathroom in “my” parts of the country. Why don’t we adopt them? Well, it’s a Muslim thing, so even if it’s cleaner, we don’t do it. Because we’re actually the clean ones. And they are dirty. Not like us. Not like the protagonists of world history.

You need to induce vomiting? Open Twitter and search for “Shia” or “Shias”. Look at what people around me think is funny. Twitter is a cesspit and has become worse lately, but Lebanese hate speech has always been overlooked by moderation and has had a decade of head start over what more people are dealing with now. It’s worse when you understand that they don’t even really necessarily hate them for their religion, this is at least partially hatred of the poor, the people who “proper” society has given nothing for a century.

I’m going way, way, way off the rails here. I appreciate that one person’s rant about his own community’s bigotry doesn’t even begin to explain a two millennia of self-propagating Sisyphean sectarian violence. I can go for pages and pages but the point I’m making is

Someone take away this keyboard from me before I write something so based the local mob will bury me alive for it.