Monday, November 14, 2005

Eyesores Against The Mansours

A recent outbreak of anti-Lebanese graffiti in the Halifax area has me wondering which group of Lebanese the vandal(s) are referring to.

If they're complaining about the Christian Lebanese who've been there for more than a century, I'd be surprised, because they're regarded as real Nova Scotians by now. Everybody knows an Abbass or Toulany or Jebailey.

If it's the Muslim Lebanese who make up most of the new arrivals, I wouldn't be, because all I've heard from folks back home is how much worse they are than the ordinary Lebanese for buying up stuff in bulk at Wal-Mart to resell and stuffing their women in potato sacks:

Residents of a Dartmouth, Nova Scotia neighbourhood woke up Sunday morning to anti-Lebanese graffiti scrawled on more than 20 businesses and homes stretching across several blocks.

Many of them began working quickly to remove the offensive messages from the walls.

The messages contained racial slurs and politically charged statements, many too offensive to publish. They were hand-written in magic marker and appeared to be carefully conceived and well-scripted.

"Isn't it nice how their children mix with the white folks of Halifax," read one of the messages. Another described Lebanese people as "non-Christian scum," and claimed that local Lebanese-Canadian owned businesses are "turning the neighbourhoods into ghettos."


That's north Dartmouth and Highcrime Highfield Park for you: a white trash trailer park without the trailers. One of them probably got ripped off at the Green Gables and reacted in the best way he knew how.

Hardly a sign of a great anti-Lebanese, anti-Muslim hate crime wave. And most locals would be offended at the suggestion that they're ignorant bigots: they know which bunch of Lebanese to hate.

Source: CTV

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