From an early age I was exposed to different cultures...my home base was and will remain Iraq...not the Iraq of today, but the Iraq that fed my roots...and am proud of them...am proud of what my grandparents, my parents, taught me...I am proud of their dignity. I live in their shadow...in what they imparted, and they did part with this life, but their legacy lives on...
But I have to tell you, no one made me feel inferior like the Lebanese...If you don't know Lebanon, you will not understand. The Lebanese have a chronic inferiority complex they try to make up for...either turning West or turning East...Iran to be precise.
I must say the Lebanese did me in. They kept reminding me that first I was a Muslim, (during a brief interlude in a catholic school) and second, a non Lebanese.
Tu es Libaaanaize ? was the standard question. No am not Lebanese - Am Iraqi. And frowns of disapproval would fall on me with an ah, yiii. I was the Arab slave that the Lebanese psyche still tries so hard to get rid of...only to replace it with a Persian one or a European one, or a "Phoenician" one.
The Lebanese as a whole will never succeed, because they are incapable of forming their own identity.
It's either Westwards or Iranwards....anything but Arab.
The Lebanese like to believe they are above Arabs...I am not sure where they got this farting higher than your ass syndrome...but they have it and it stinks...but because they are so irrelevant, I and others overlook them, and leave them in their illusions...
Why am I writing about this ? Am not sure...maybe because I need to reclaim a part of me that was put down, and hijacked...maybe am trying to recapture all of what I was, all of what I am supposed to be.
