Lebanese people in the Ivory Coast are a community of people whose ancestors are Lebanese and either emigrated to the Ivory Coast directly or are descended from those who did. It is the largest Lebanese diaspora in Africa.[citation needed]
The number of Lebanese people in the Ivory Coast are variously estimated in the tens or hundreds of thousands.[5][6] They are the largest Lebanese diaspora community in West Africa.[7] An estimated 2.5% of all people living in the Ivory Coast are from Lebanon. 80% of the Lebanese community in Ivory Coast lives in Abidjan, primarily in its northernmost neighborhoods, where they represent over 10% of the total population. About 20% of them live in Bouaké.[8]
Migration history
There have been two major waves of migration from Lebanon to the Ivory Coast; the two groups, the durables (established families) and the nouveaux (newcomers), form separate communities.[9] Though Lebanese migration to other countries of West Africa began as early as the 1890s, the colonial economy of the Ivory Coast did not develop until after World War I, and as such, no Lebanese community formed there until the 1920s.[10] The journey took several weeks; migrants traveled by donkey from their home villages in southern Lebanon to Beirut, and from there took a ship to Marseille, where they would have to wait for one of the infrequent departures to West Africa.[11] 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.[12] 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.[7]
Beginning in the mid-1970s, a new wave of Lebanese émigrés began to arrive, fleeing the Lebanese Civil War. Their presence sparked government fears that they might bring with them the sectarian violence of their homeland; however, no such violence actually erupted. By the late 1980s, reportedly 60,000 to 120,000 Lebanese and Syrians lived in the Ivory Coast, although some observers gave a figure as high as 300,000.[5] Many of these later migrants came from the town of Zrarieh in southern Lebanon.[13] With recent advances in transport and communications, a form of transnationalism has emerged among the community; people are constantly going back and forth between Lebanon and the Ivory Coast, and greeting and farewell parties for new arrivals and departures have become "significant ritualised events".[14]
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 Syrian immigration, but government efforts in this regard were mostly ineffective.[10] 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.[5] More recently, they have also become involved in football scouting, establishing training schools for youths and helping them to establish contact with European clubs.[15] Groups from different villages in Lebanon dominate different trades; for example, those from Zrarieh are involved in the plastics business, while those from Qana work with textiles.[16]
The Lebanese community is largely endogamous.[5] Young men hoping to get married either look for a Lebanese woman locally or else travel back to their ancestral villages in Lebanon and marry a woman there before bringing her back to the Ivory Coast.[18] 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 the Ivory Coast for a bride their relatives had arranged; as such, they married African women instead.[19] 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.[20]
Interethnic relations
The Lebanese diaspora in the Ivory Coast is divided into two distinct communities: the people who have been in the country for two or more generations (durables) and the people who have only arrived in the country in the past two decades (nouveaux). Both groups find themselves vulnerable to political pressure and manipulation because of their inability to assimilate into Ivoirian society.[9]
The Lebanese were particularly targeted by looters during the 2010–11 Ivorian crisis,[21] after Lebanon’s ambassador to Ivory Coast, Ali Ajami, attended Laurent Gbagbo's presidential swearing-in ceremony (one of only two diplomats to do so), despite widespread support for his rival, Alassane Ouattara.[22] Many Lebanese were also seen by Ivorians as being pro-Gbagbo.[23]
Bierwirth, Chris (1997), "The Initial Establishment of the Lebanese Community in Cote d'Ivoire, ca. 1925-45", The International Journal of African Historical Studies, 30 (2): 325–348, doi:10.2307/221231, JSTOR221231
Bigo, Didier (1992), "The Lebanese Community in the Ivory Coast: A Non-native Network at the Heart of Power?", in Hourani, Albert; Shehadi, Nadim (eds.), The Lebanese in the World: A Century of Emigration, I. B. Tauris, pp.509–530, ISBN978-1-85043-303-3
Peleikis, Anja (2000b), "Female identities in a 'globalized village': a case study of South Lebanese migration to West Africa", in Jacqueline Knörr; Barbara Meier (eds.), Women and migration: anthropological perspectives, Palgrave Macmillan, pp.63–79, ISBN978-0-312-23239-9
Further reading
Médo, François (1984), L'immigration libanaise en Afrique de l'Ouest: le cas du Sénégal, de la Côte d'Ivoire et du Bénin, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Poitiers, OCLC489723011
The Armed Forces of Côte d'Ivoire are the armed forces of Ivory Coast.
Human arrival in Ivory Coast has been dated to the Upper Paleolithic period, or at the minimum, the Neolithic period based on weapon and tool fragments, specifically polished shale axes and remnants of cooking and fishing. The earliest known inhabitants of Côte d'Ivoire left traces scattered throughout the territory. Historians believe these people were all either displaced or absorbed by the ancestors of the present inhabitants. Peoples who arrived before the 16th century include the Ehotilé (Aboisso), Kotrowou (Fresco), Zéhiri, Ega, and Diès (Divo).
Ivory Coast, also known as Côte d'Ivoire and officially the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, is a country on the southern coast of West Africa. Its capital city of Yamoussoukro is located in the centre of the country, while its largest city and economic centre is the port city of Abidjan. It borders Guinea to the northwest, Liberia to the west, Mali to the northwest, Burkina Faso to the northeast, Ghana to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south. With 30.9 million inhabitants in 2023, Ivory Coast is the third-most populous country in West Africa. Its official language is French, and indigenous languages are also widely used, including Bété, Baoulé, Dioula, Dan, Anyin, and Cebaara Senufo. In total, there are around 78 different languages spoken in Ivory Coast. The country has a religiously diverse population, including numerous followers of Islam, Christianity, and traditional faiths like Animism.
Koudou Laurent Gbagbo is an Ivorian politician who was the president of Côte d'Ivoire from 2000 until his arrest in April 2011. A historian, Gbagbo was imprisoned in the early 1970s and again in the early 1990s, and he lived in exile in France during much of the 1980s as a result of his union activism. Gbagbo founded the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) in 1982 and ran unsuccessfully for president against Félix Houphouët-Boigny at the start of multi-party politics in 1990. He won a seat in the National Assembly of Côte d'Ivoire in 1990.
Félix Houphouët-Boigny, affectionately called Papa Houphouët or Le Vieux, was an Ivorian politician and physician who served as the first president of Ivory Coast from 1960 until his death in 1993. A tribal chief, he worked as a medical aide, union leader, and planter before being elected to the French Parliament. He served in several ministerial positions within the French government before leading Ivory Coast following independence in 1960. Throughout his life, he played a significant role in politics and the decolonisation of Africa.
The First Ivorian Civil War was a civil conflict in the Ivory Coast that began with a military rebellion on 19 September 2002 and ended with a peace agreement on 4 March 2007. The conflict pitted the government of Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo against a domestic insurgency led by the New Forces of Ivory Coast. Following the war, a second civil war (2010–2011) would begin over the results of the 2010 Ivorian presidential election.
The United Nations Operation in Côte d'Ivoire (UNOCI) was a UN-NATO peacekeeping mission in Ivory Coast whose objective was "to facilitate the implementation by the Ivorian parties of the peace agreement signed by them in January 2003". The two main Ivorian parties were the Ivorian Government forces who controlled the south of the country, and the New Forces, who controlled the north. The UNOCI mission aimed to control a "zone of confidence" across the centre of the country separating the two parties. The Head of Mission and Special Representative of the Secretary-General was Aïchatou Mindaoudou Souleymane from Niger. She succeeded Bert Koenders from the Netherlands in 2013, who himself succeeded Choi Young-jin from South Korea in 2011. The mission officially ended on 30 June 2017.
Articles related to Ivory Coast include:
Opération Licorne was a French Armed Forces peacekeeping operation in support of the United Nations Operation in Côte d'Ivoire. The French forces had been stationed in the country since shortly after the outbreak of the Ivorian Civil War. The troops' main mission was to support the United Nations peacekeeping mission and to ensure the security of French and foreign nationals.
Simone Ehivet Gbagbo is an Ivorian politician. She is the President of the Parliamentary Group of the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) and is a Vice-President of the FPI. As the wife of Laurent Gbagbo, the President of Côte d'Ivoire from 2000 to 2011, she was also First Lady of Ivory Coast prior to their arrest by pro-Ouattara forces.
Women in Ivory Coast formed less than half the country's population in 2003. Their social roles and opportunities have changed since the time of French colonialism.
The 1999 Ivorian coup d'état took place on 24 December 1999. It was the first coup d'état since the independence of Ivory Coast and led to the President Henri Konan Bédié being deposed.
The 2010–11 Ivorian crisis was a political crisis in Ivory Coast which began after Laurent Gbagbo, the President of Ivory Coast since 2000, was proclaimed the winner of the Ivorian election of 2010, the first election in the country in 10 years. The opposition candidate, Alassane Ouattara, and a number of countries, organisations and leaders worldwide claimed Ouattara had won the election. After months of attempted negotiation and sporadic violence, the crisis entered a decisive stage as Ouattara's forces began a military offensive in which they quickly gained control of most of the country and besieged key targets in Abidjan, the country's largest city. At the time, international organizations reported numerous human rights violations, and the UN undertook its own military action with the stated objective to protect itself and civilians.
The Second Ivorian Civil War broke out in March 2011 when the crisis in Ivory Coast escalated into full-scale military conflict between forces loyal to Laurent Gbagbo, the President of Ivory Coast since 2000, and supporters of the internationally recognised president-elect Alassane Ouattara. After months of unsuccessful negotiations and sporadic violence between supporters of the two sides, the crisis entered a critical stage as Ouattara's forces seized control of most of the country with the help of the UN, with Gbagbo entrenched in Abidjan, the country's largest city. International organizations have reported numerous instances of human rights violations by both sides, in particular in the city of Duékoué where Ouattara's forces killed hundreds of people. Overall casualties of the war are estimated around 3000. The UN and French forces took military action, with the stated objective to protect their forces and civilians. France's forces arrested Gbagbo at his residence on 11 April 2011.
Aya Virginie Touré, born Aya Virginie Kouamé, is a peace activist and politician in Côte d'Ivoire. She became known for organizing women in nonviolent resistance against President Laurent Gbagbo who refused to step down since he lost the presidential election to Alassane Ouattara. Touré worked to mobilize women as the Deputy Director for Ouattara's 2010 Ivorian presidential election. In 2016, she was elected as a deputy in the 72nd circonscription which includes the cities of Guépahouo and Oumé. Since at least 2014, she has been the Executive Director of the Petroci Foundation, the caritative organization of the Ivorian oil and gas company.
The following lists events that happened during 2010 in Ivory Coast.
The following lists events that happened during 2011 in Ivory Coast.
Events in the year 2020 in Ivory Coast.
This period in the history of Ivory Coast was affected by the end of the 33-year reign of Félix Houphouët-Boigny in 1993, as well as demographic change which had seen the Muslim population rise from 6% in 1922 to 38.6% in 1998, including a majority in the north of the country.
France–Ivory Coast relations are the diplomatic relations between the French Republic and the Republic of Ivory Coast. Both nations are members of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie and the United Nations.
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