multicultural Hot Words

Lebanese...

Definition

Lebanese refers to the people of Lebanon, a modern state on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Lebanon was created in 1926, after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, under the colonial influence of France and achieved independence in 1944.

Lebanese immigration to Australia began in the late nineteenth century. Major groups in Australia are the Christian communities (Antioch Orthodox and Catholic Maronite), and Muslim (mainly Sunni). However most Australian Lebanese derive from the immigrations of the 1960s and later. Many of the families that came as refugees in the last thirty years have been affected badly during the civil unrest in Lebanon, suffering torture and trauma.

Some Lebanese communities have experienced long term unemployment, particularly where the immigrants had few skills and entered Australia as unskilled industrial jobs were drying up.

What makes it hot?

For many, people in Australia who identify as Lebanese are assumed to be followers of Islam, engendering, in some, fear of a competing ideology. In fact 55% of Lebanese-born Australians are Christian.

Date Added:

10 March 2002