Is sectarianism part of the Lebanese psyche?

 Just heard on what is labelled in Lebanon a 'Christian radio' an interview with the head of what is also labelled 'Christian TV'. Why Christina media? Because these two mediums are funded or affiliated to what is called 'Christian political parties'. Allready weird in itself to have Chritian radios or TVs or parties. Not to say that the audience of the leading radio and TV station I am talking about belongs to all Lebanese 19 sects.

Anyway, I was interested to hear the interview in the hope of getting some inside information. You can imagine my astonishement when I hear the head of a TV station that I follow say:

We have to be honest and say that Christians in Lebanon have a different lifestyle from Muslims. 

And here he did not mean drinking alcohol. Noting that most Lebanese Muslims drink alcohol. He specified by style of life as ease of living and education. In short he meant Christians are more occidentalised, more cultured, more well off... in comparison with the barbarian Muslims.

I would have been angry to hear such nonesense if I had not found it a bit funny. What can I say, I was drawn into the ridiculous of hearing a TV director say aloud what bigoted Lebanese Christians say. A nonety in fact. Lebanon is divided along very clear and strict social classes rules. And each class in fact groups all sects equally. The only difference is that poor Christians dream and are delusional about belonging to the upper class.

It reminded me of something that I experienced in 1970 and that I found at this time funny and outdated.

I had a friend, a Maronite whose family comes from Gemayze. His parents were insisting that he accompanies them to visit his grandmother. He asked me to come with him, like that we could go after it to Hamrah for a movie and dinner. His grandmother thought I was his girlfriend. In her mind, I should have been. I think she found me nice, I have to say, I was cute not to say beautiful. After a short conversation, she liked me even more. I spoke perfect French and was cultured, quite upper class in her view, am sure. She asked me if I was Maronite or Othodox, given that my friend's mother was Orthodox. I answered her that I was Muslim Shiite. If you could see her face! It was quite comic.

She then asked me from where. When I told her who I was. Meaning that my grandfather a vey prominent political figure from a feodale family, a Lebanese aristocrat. She regained her smile that her smile became bigger and she said that 'you are not like the others, you are superior'

Can you imagine! We left her house laughing and laughing, talking about his grandmother being a dinosaur.

Seems, that modern Lebanese are dinosaurs. All the gains of the fifties, sixties, and seventies were lost in the civil war if the director of a leading TV stations utter the words I heard and that are a mirror image of the 'petite bourgeoise' that I met decades ago.