السلام عليكم

I'm Leban*se and yesterday I was having a conversation with a family member and it left me with an interesting question.

In Lebanon, I always wondered one weird phenomenon growing up. So we learn French in school, many people take pride for being able to speak French fluently and hey, I love French music but then I learn about the French history and its connection to our region and I'm left confused about why so many people love (love, not like or are neutral about) France. Ok, I'm like whatever - Lebanon is a shit show with different political agendas that primarily work for the interest of foreign countries.

But then I move to Europe and I meet so many good Northern African folks there and the history they have with France is way worse than ours and you can feel the hatred some folks project to France and yo, you can't blame them. But then. These same people would go to Paris and Strasbourg and Lyon and Nice for vacation. They try to find jobs in France so they can move there. You feel that sense of longing for France. I'm like alright, France has something I personally can't appreciate.

But then I start making contacts with good folks who live and work in the Gulf and these lines start popping up around me 'if you have a UK passport, you can earn 5 times more', 'the board of directors is filled with English folks', 'our Em!rati boss is going to London for vacation.... you're asking where he spent his last 10 vacations? Oh, all of them in London'. The point is that there is that weird fascination to Britain in that region even though Britain never really had any colonies in the Gulf. So the Stockholm Syndrome pun in the title can't work here as it did for Leb*anon/North Africa and France (it was only for attention-attracting effects). But anyway...

Why is it like that? What did France and the UK do to penetrate these glorifications in the people's consciousness and how? What are the methods they used? Are we, as Arabs, capable of doing something similar to spread our influence or at least, prevent our youth from having these submissive thoughts?