There is a large population of Lebanese people in Côte d'Ivoire, whose numbers are variously estimated in the tens or hundreds of thousands.
They are the largest
Lebanese diaspora community in
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, M ...
.
An estimated 1% of all people living in the Ivory Coast are from Lebanon. 90% of the Lebanese community in Ivory Coast lives in
Abidjan
Abidjan ( , ; N’ko: ߊߓߌߖߊ߲߬) is the economic capital of the Ivory Coast. As of the 2021 census, Abidjan's population was 6.3 million, which is 21.5 percent of overall population of the country, making it the sixth most populous city p ...
, where they represent over 7% of the total population.
Migration history
There have been two major waves of migration from
Lebanon
Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to Lebanon–Syria border, the north and east and Israel to Blue ...
to
Côte d'Ivoire; the two groups, the ''durables'' (established families) and the ''nouveaux'' (newcomers), form separate communities.
Though Lebanese migration to other countries of
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, M ...
began as early as the 1890s, the colonial economy in Côte d'Ivoire did not develop until after
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, and as such, no Lebanese community formed there until the 1920s.
The journey took several weeks; migrants went by
donkey from their home villages in southern Lebanon to
Beirut
Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...
, and from there took a ship to
Marseille
Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Fra ...
, where they would have to wait for one of the infrequent departures to West Africa. Some may have originally intended to head for the United States, but either found upon arrival in Marseille that they could not afford the fare and thus opted for a cheaper journey to West Africa, or were tricked into boarding ships for the wrong destination. Other early migrants did not come straight from Lebanon, but were instead drawn from among the children of earlier
Lebanese migrants to Senegal. The community grew quickly due to the relative lack of entry formalities compared to other West African countries.
Beginning in the mid-1970s, a new wave of Lebanese émigrés began to arrive, fleeing the
Lebanese Civil War
The Lebanese Civil War ( ar, الحرب الأهلية اللبنانية, translit=Al-Ḥarb al-Ahliyyah al-Libnāniyyah) was a multifaceted armed conflict that took place from 1975 to 1990. It resulted in an estimated 120,000 fatalities a ...
. Their presence sparked government fears that they might bring with them the sectarian violence that had infected their homeland; however, no such violence actually erupted. By the late 1980s, reportedly 60,000 to 120,000 Lebanese and Syrians lived in Côte d'Ivoire, although some observers gave a figure as high as 300,000.
Many of these later migrants came from the town of
Zrarieh in southern Lebanon. With recent advances in transport and communications, a form of
transnationalism
Transnationalism is a research field and social phenomenon grown out of the heightened interconnectivity between people and the receding economic and social significance of boundaries among nation states.
Overview
The term "trans-national" was ...
has emerged among the community; people are constantly going back and forth between Lebanon and Côte d'Ivoire, and greeting and farewell parties for new arrivals and departures have become "significant ritualised events".
Trade and employment
The Lebanese began at the lowest level of commerce, trading in inexpensive commodities, but during the
Great Depression, expanded their scale of enterprise and began to displace independent European merchants. The ''petits blancs'', in response, began a campaign to restrict Lebanese (and also Syrian) immigration, but government efforts in this regard were mostly ineffective.
The Lebanese also invested heavily in urban real estate and were among the first to develop hotels and restaurants in previously less accessible areas of the interior.
More recently, they have also become involved in
football scouting, establishing training schools for youths and helping them to establish contact with European clubs. Groups from different villages in Lebanon dominate different trades; for example, those from Zrarieh are involved in the plastics business, while those from
Qana
Qana, also spelled Cana or Kana, ( ar, قانا) is a town in southern Lebanon located southeast of the city of Tyre and north of the border with Israel, in an area historically known as Upper Galilee.
The 10,000 residents of Qana are pr ...
work with textiles.
Lebanese Ivorians claim that they control about 40% of the economy of the Ivory Coast.
Gender issues
The Lebanese community is largely
endogamous
Endogamy is the practice of marrying within a specific social group, religious denomination, caste, or ethnic group, rejecting those from others as unsuitable for marriage or other close personal relationships.
Endogamy is common in many cultu ...
.
Young men hoping to get married either look for a Lebanese woman locally, or take a holiday back to their ancestral villages in Lebanon and marry a woman there before bringing her back to Côte d'Ivoire. However, this has not always been the case. In the early 20th century, it was common for young Lebanese male migrants to be so poor that they could not afford such a trip back, or even to pay the fare to Côte d'Ivoire for a bride their relatives had
arranged
In music, an arrangement is a musical adaptation of an existing composition. Differences from the original composition may include reharmonization, melodic paraphrasing, orchestration, or formal development. Arranging differs from orchest ...
; as such, they married African women instead. Women's fashion has diverged sharply from the former agricultural norm in southern Lebanon, with competing "modern Muslim" and "westernised" styles, both consisting of clothes which seek to distinguish themselves from the so-called "peasant look" indicating that the wearer engages in manual labour.
Interethnic relations
The Lebanese diaspora in Côte d'Ivoire is divided into two distinct communities: the people who have been in the country for two or more generations and the people who have only arrived in the country in the past two decades. Both groups find themselves vulnerable to political pressure and manipulation because of their inability to assimilate into Ivoirian society.
The first
President of Côte d'Ivoire,
Félix Houphouët-Boigny
Félix Houphouët-Boigny (; 18 October 1905 – 7 December 1993), affectionately called Papa Houphouët or Le Vieux ("The Old One"), was the first president of Ivory Coast, serving from 1960 until his death in 1993. A tribal chief, he wo ...
, was a defender of the Lebanese minority during his early time in office.
The Lebanese were particularly targeted by looters during the
2010–11 Ivorian crisis
1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1 ...
, after Lebanon’s ambassador to Ivory Coast, Ali Ajami, attended
's presidential swearing-in ceremony (one of only two diplomats to do so), despite widespread support for his rival,
Alassane Ouattara
Alassane Dramane Ouattara (; ; born 1 January 1942) is an Ivorian politician who has been President of Ivory Coast (Côte d'Ivoire) since 2010. An economist by profession, Ouattara worked for the International Monetary Fund (IMF)[Arab diaspora
Arab diaspora (also known as MENA diaspora, as a short version for the Middle East and North Africa diaspora) refers to descendants of the Arab emigrants who, voluntarily or as refugees, emigrated from their native lands to non-Arab countries, ...]
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Lebanese diaspora
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Lebanese people in South Africa
Lebanese people in South Africa have a population exceeding 5,100 and other estimates report a total of 20,000 Lebanese in South Africa. In addition, an increasing number of Lebanese students seeking education and career opportunities opted for ...
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Lebanese people in Senegal
There is a significant community of Lebanese people in Senegal.
Migration history
The first trader from Ottoman Lebanon arrived in French Senegal in the 1860s. However, early migration was slow; by 1900, there were only about one hundred Lebanes ...
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Lebanese people in Sierra Leone
Footnotes
Bibliography
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Further reading
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{{Arab diaspora
Côte d'Ivoire
Ivory Coast