White Self-Racialization As Identity Fetishism: Capitalism and the Experience of Colonial Whiteness

CHAPTER 9 White Self-racialization as Identity Fetishism: Capitalism and the Experience of Colonial Whiteness GHASSAN HAGE In the early twentieth century, when Australia's selection of its immi grants was based on the racial 'White Australia policy', many Christian Lebanese, who had began immigrating to Australia in the 1880s, were often shocked to learn that they were classified racially as 'Asians' (based on Mount Lebanon being part of Syria and the Ottoman Empire at the time). In 1911, a Lebanese migrant already living in Australia sent a letter to the prime minister objecting to the classification and arguing that the Lebanese were 'Caucasians and are as white a race as the English. Their looks, habits, customs, religion, blood, etc., are those of Europeans but they are more' ligent' (in MacKay and Batrouney 1988: 667). In fact, the belief the Christian Lebanese's whiteness/Europeanness on the basis of 'looks, habits, customs, religion, blood, etc ... ' had began develop ing in the mid-nineteenth century with the spread of capitalist social relations in the Lebanese mountains almost exclusively among the Christians. From a mode of identification that primarily stressed religious difference from a largely Muslim environment, the Christians' identity (especially the Maronite Catholics') was trans formed into a racialized world view that saw difference from Muslims in terms of cultural hierarchy and culminated in the Christians' self-perception as more 'European' than 'Arab', and as 'white'. In this chapter, I want to examine this socia-historical process of white self-racialization, what it entails, and how it can best be understood. I will argue that an essential part of the process White Petishism 187 186 Ghassan · a process as autonomous 1976: 165). of 'commodity fetishism' is often con seeking the protection of its rugged mountains (when exactly sidered as embodying his most complex theorization of ideology, as is a hotly debated issue-see Beydoun 1984). The southern part of the far as I know, it remains unutilized in the analysis of the ideological mountains gave refuge to the Druze, followers of a secretive offshoot formation of identities. In this analysis Marx aims to show how cer of Shiite Islam originating in Egypt at the end of the Fatimid era. tain social products that appear on the capitalist market 'detach' In their early days of settlement, the Maronites were an over themselves, so to speak, from the social relations that produce them, whelmingly peasant community working under the rule of Shi'a Muslim overlords (muqata'jis) within a quasi-feudal system known and are experienced as having powers of their own. In much the same way as a 'fetish' is experienced as having an intrinsic power in Mount Lebanon as iqta'. The Maronite peasants lived 'either as over a tribe, even though the tribe must have initially produced it landless serfs or metayers, or combined their primary labour as and given it such power, commodities under capitalism are experi metayers with the cultivation of their own small parcels' (Saba 1976: enced as having a life and social powers in themselves and in abstrac 1-2). The Shi'a overlords were later replaced by the Druzes who tion from the social relations that continue to give them such power. were seen by the ruling Muslim authorities as having valiantly At the core of Marx's analysis is that this experience of an inversion fought against the Crusaders. Furthermore, in the seventeenth cen of power between product and producer is not the result of some tury, important demographic changes occurred when the Maronites 'mental or intellectual deficiency' on tbe part of people. It is not began to spread south into central Lebanon and to the southern because they are not thinking properly about it that they perceive Shuf Mountains with the encouragement of Druze muqata'jis. The perspective. Rather, D'Avrieux experience. As him' (Godclier 1975: 337). are much the same way, I examine below how, in its emergence them everything to keep them, so as to extract the midst of the colonial transformation of the economy of Mount the sums of money they have to pay to the Ottoman Porte' ,. Lebanon, Christian Lebanese identity was experienced by those iden Chevallier, Dominique 1982: 12). Beside the Maronites' geographic tifying with it as European and white, and as intrinsically endowed spread and increase in numbers, of equal importance was that they, with a causal power to generate the very capitalist social practices like other minorities within the Empire, virtually monopolized mar that produced it. I conclude by showing what this identity fetishism ginal economic activities such as commerce and craft. When they can tell us about the relationship between colonial white racializa moved into the Druze districts they were seen as coming 'to perform tasks Druze thought degrading' (Polk 1963: 216). This Christian tion and class. quasi-monopoly over trade and crafts became increasingly significant r as the economic developments of the late nineteenth century tended to make these initially marginal and 'degrading' activities increasingly The Maronites and the Transformation of central and led to the rapid growth of Christian villages. Mount Lebanon's Economy An important example of this change was the Christian village of Dayr el-Qamar (Smilianskaya 1 16), which developed into a major trading town for silk as the Mountain witnessed a growth in of the mulberry tree due to 'a growing demand for on the El!vDtian market' (Saba 1 It 188 Ghassan Hage White Selrracialization as Identity fetishism 189 spread of money transactions among the Christians, 'enlarging the However, by the early 1800s, industrial capital began to emerge as a scope for small accumulation among peasants and artisan producers, significant social force thanks to France's involvement in the devel and a growing involvement of these or of other individuals in the opment of the local silk industry, parts of which had been integrated slowly widening sphere of trade and exchange' (Saba 1976: 3). in the circuit of French merchant capital since the seventeenth cen Furthermore, the Maronite monks, who had earlier 'demonstrated to tury (Smilianskaya 1972: 14). everyone that they were hard workers and could actually increase As the Lyon silk industry developed, France aimed at increasingly the country's productivity and hence the revenue of the muqata'jis' monopolizing the Lebanese silk produce. Towards 1835,25 per cent (Harik 1968: 114), were by the turn of the century slowly becoming of the Mountain's silk production was exported to Lyon; by 1861 own right. This new landowning role chal more than two-thirds were (Dubar and Nasr 1976: 53). In buying Druze .n11r'-:lt-:l'ii<: pvpn tholHTh. initiallv, the for French industry and, more importantly, in employing labour the French were speeding the development of capitalist prac social sphere and craftsmen, of yearned to free themselves and from the muqata'jis who had set out to benefit from the new eco nomic developments by taxing mills, local trade, crafts, and weighing of silk (Harik 1968: 64). The Christians, however, the military power that could allow them to overthrow the iqta' sys mills permitted tem. This military power was to be provided later by the French who family business to a capitalist industry 'that knows the were already intensifying their colonial competition with Britain for mechanisation of work' (Labaki 1984: 79). By 1851, seven French the control of the disintegrating Ottoman Empire. silk mills were operating in the Mountain (Raccagni 1980: 364). By the beginning of the nineteenth century the signs of the The increase in this activity accelerated the rise of an embryonic Ottoman Empire's end were many. The emergence of industrial cap Lebanese Christian bourgeois class active in various sectors of the ital in Europe had already set the Empire on the road of under economy. The Beirut Christian bourgeoisie was mainly formed by development, destroying the local industries the Porte was unwilling the established local merchants who attached themselves to or unable to protect (Mouzelis 1978: 12). The power of the central European capital. Already in 1827, the French consul in Beirut had state was all but gone, and the control of the expanding capitalist reported that 'of thirty four commercial firms dealing with Europe, activities in the region were increasingly seen by some of the local fifteen belonged to local Christians and six to Turks' (Issawi 1966: rulers as a source of enrichment. They set out accordingly to 'mod 71). By 1839, there were sixty-seven commercial houses of which ernize' the state and their district, basically improving the infra thirty-four were Lebanese (Dubar and Nasr 1976: 57). These local structure necessary for the penetration of capital. Thanks to the merchants 'served as intermediaries between the European wholesaler protection of its surroundings by the Prince of the Mountain, a and the local retailer, whose language they spoke and whose needs Druze who significantly had by now converted to Christianity, and tastes they knew ... ' (Fawaz 1983: 86). In the Mountain's inter Beirut became increasingly viable as a port for the export of ior another group of intermediaries operated between the Mountain's to France. From 1833 to 1836 the silk exported silk producers and the Beirut houses (Chevallier 1982: 234). 1963: 1 The rise of silk as a crop transformed the peasant economy and weakened the dependency of the peasant on the muqata'jis, substi , was tuting it with dependency on the market (Polk 1963: 1 ). A class of this presence on was rich Christian peasants emerged, buying land and employing daily For 'merchants do not make revolution ising workers, lending money to embattled muqata'jis as well as renting production but by controlling markets, the control villas to rich Beirutis (Smilianskaya 1972: The Maronite Church they are able to exercise the greater the profit' (Kay 1 itself continued to amass riches and was establishing itself as the 190 Ghassan Hage White Self-racializatioll as Identity Fetishism 191 biggest landowner in the Mountain.

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