Phoenicianism

Phoenicianism (,نزعة فينيقية) is a form of nationalism that promotes the idea that  are not  and the Lebanese speak their own language and have their own culture, separate from the surrounding Middle Eastern countries. Followers maintain that Lebanese are descended from n origins, and are not Arab. Some also feel that they speak Lebanese, not Arabic.

Notwithstanding the professional view of historians, summed up by Lebanon's most prominent historian,, "between ancient Phoenicia and the Lebanon of medieval and modern times, there is no demonstrable historical connection", Phoenicianism, overleaping a millennium and a half of Arabisation, embraces Phoenicia as an alternative cultural foundation.

The earliest sense of a Lebanese identity is to be found in the writings of historians in the early nineteenth century, when, under the emirate of the, a Lebanese identity emerged, "separate and distinct from the rest of , bringing the s and s, along with its other Christian and Moslem sects, under one government." The first coherent history of was written by  (died 1861) who depicted the country as a feudal association of Maronites, Druzes, s,  and s under the leadership of the Shihab emirs. "Most Christian Lebanese,anxious to dissociate themselves from Arabism and its Islamic connections, were pleased to be told that their country was the legitimate heir to the n tradition," Kamil Salibi observes, instancing Christian writers like (died 1963), writing in French, and, who urged the abandonment of classical Arabic, together with its script, and attempted to write in the Lebanese vernacular, using the Roman alphabet.

An founded in Phoenicianism has had an additional appeal for the Christian middle class, as it presented the Phoenicians as traders, and the Lebanese emigrant as a modern-day Phoenician adventurer, whereas for the Sunni it merely veiled French imperialist ambitions, intent on subverting.

Criticism of Phoenicianism
Many critics of this argument feel that Phoenicianism disregards the Arab cultural influence and linguistic influence of the Lebanese, citing much of this reasoning due to sectarian influences Lebanese culture and the insistence of many Lebanese Maronites to distance themselves from Arab culture and tradition which has Arabic influences. While descendants of the ancient Phoenicians are present among the coastal Lebanon population, irrespective of religious heritage, the nation's culture is influenced by Greek, French and Arabic culture, islamic or not. However some Lebanese identify with a Phoenician past, in a similar manner in which the Scandinavians identify with a Viking past.