The Lebanese love their foreigners.
Having a foreign friend visiting is a similar status boosting event as having a 4 digit license plate number or a sexy phone number. You show them off as much as you’d show off a new Blackberry
I’ve heard the older generation beam with pride as they say they’re bringing “un voyageur” to one of those big high society dinners. I’ve had clients tell me they’ll refuse to rent their flats out to non-westerners.
Yep, the Lebanese love their foreigners. Or rather, certain foreigners.
It depends where they’re from you see. If from the West, you’re definitely buzzing. If from the Gulf, you’re bang out of luck.
I once had colleagues from London visit. They wanted to go clubbing. As covered previously, that’s not really my thing. So I turned to a big party animal friend of mine and asked him to bail me out and take them to Skybar
The conversation went a little something like this:
- “Sure habibi, with pleasure. When are they coming?”
-“The weekend. Thanks a lot habibi eh?”
-“ Walaw bro! Are they all English by the way?”
-“ No. From Yemen, Egypt and I think Iraq”
-“ What?? Weir! Of course not, no chance. Forget it”.
Had they been from the West, you can be sure my pal would have been a little bit more enthusiastic. At the very least, their presence with him would have given the impression that he was a tad multi cultural, well travelled and internationally versatile.
But my colleagues? They wouldn’t really add anything to his status. There was no chance my mate was having his table at Skybar filled with people he imagined would be dressed like Bedouins and ordering shisha. He could see only long lasting disastrous ramifications to his most prized possession: his image.
It’s not like my mate is uniquely Arabaphobic. You won’t find a mother excitedly call her friends to tell them her daughter is marrying an Omani for example. American, yes. French, sure. Italian, definitely. Omani? Not a chance (On the unlikely chance any Omani is reading this, let me assure you I’d have no problem marrying my, as of yet, unborn daughter off to you, depending on the size of your bank account).
It gets worse is in the summer. Friends will comment that the city is awash with tourists; say they spotted a bunch of Canadians (real ones! Not those ones with Lebanese roots who speak that dodgy sounding French!) wandering the streets. They’ll smile and beam with pride at how Beirut is cosmopolitan. How the Geneva of the Levant is back on track.
Concurrently, they’ll tell you with disgust on their faces of how the city is awash with Arabs. How Beirut in general, and ABC in particular, has become little Jeddah. How they have as much style and grace as me on a dance floor.
Maybe it’s not that bad. No country likes its neighboring country after all. The Dutch and the Germans aren’t best friends. The English and French hate each other. And there isn’t a community in the world delighted to find American tourists, with their ridiculously loud chatter, stupid baggy shorts and larger bellies, invading their city.
But surely nowhere else is there such a disparity between how different tourists from different nationalities are viewed. And it may have nothing to do with the poor Gulfies and Arabs. Perhaps, it’s a just result of the inherent racism that forms the underbelly of our country, the horribly misguided inflated sense of importance the Lebanese place on themselves or the fact that that we’re all jealous of the Gulf’s wealth.
Or maybe it really is simply the fact they dress like Bedouins.
Sooooo true yet so sad !
Posted by: your cous | 03/11/2012 at 01:56 PM