ABSTRACT
Next to these major developments in Arabic music in the twentieth century, specific Lebanese conditions rendered music in Beirut. During the years of the French Mandate (1920–1943; see Traboulsi 2007), Beirut and other cities of the Middle East underwent great changes. In Beirut, Emil Eddé and Bishara al-Khouri were the two main political rivals at the time. Eddé saw Lebanon as a Christian homeland with a Mediterranean identity that was separated from Syria and the rest of the Arab world. Khouri, on the other hand, defined Lebanon as an independent country built in cooperation with its Muslim population and with close ties to Syria and the rest of the Arab world. the idea of Phoenicia as the mother culture of Lebanon became popular at the time. the New Phoenicians, a group of mainly Christian Maronite intellectuals of the Francophile Beirut bourgeoisie, foresaw an important role for estivation and tourism in Lebanon. “Their idea was to revive Phoenicia as a cultural and national identity dif erentiated from the Arabs and as a model for an outward looking service economy”, writes Traboulsi (2007:92). the notion of Lebanon as the Switzerland of the East was heard often. Lebanon had banks, mountains, and the sea, and it was therefore perfect for tourism. “the New Phoenicians glorified the peasants' ‘dignified misery’ in Mount Lebanon, now presented as an abode of the Spirit and of Faith” (ibid.:93).
