Lebanon--the First Quartet
I had seen Lebanon years ago when it was considered the Crown Jewel of western culture on the shores of the Mediterranean and the Arab world. Then, before the civil war which tore it to pieces, it was the capital of western luxury and decadence, where the rich from the Middle East and Europe went to play.
But even then, beneath the surface and the façade of this “little jewel,” Lebanon seethed with tension and intrigue. It had been created as a colonial protectorate when it was seized by the French from Syria after the first world war. It was a polyglot nation supposedly half Christian and half Sunni Muslim, with the Christian arabs in the driver’s seat, from which one vast population (the Shiite minority) were excluded and shunted aside and forgetting. All of this was a “fiction” maintained by political ambition, and a small spark set the volatile mix into an explosion of civil war that lasted for more than a decade. It is now almost two decades since the war subsided and the pieces completely rearranged.
Lebanon has settled into anew, more equitable configuration. It has rebuilt itself remembering the lessons of power, balance, and equity. It would say it has recovered itself and its identity and now sees itself proudly as a nation of disparate peoples, cultures, religions and factions learning to live in a new balance.
Today there are Christians Muslim, Druse and even Jews living together with a new respect for one another. Lebanon is a microcosm of what the western world, in its idealism, must continue to be--eastern and western pluralism, created by the ideals of a secular democracy managing the inevitable paradoxes and tensions. Its face is to the West, but it remains a Middle Eastern country aware of its past, but moving into the future as a kind of wise, modern guide-star.
We not only enjoyed the new Lebanon, the Churches meeting all over the city on Sunday morning—entering into more than one liturgy, and then the Mosques which opened and invited us in, but also the layers of history and civilization going back ten millennia to the roots of our Phoenician ancestors living on the shores of the Mediterranean basin at the ancient site of Byblos. Later we visited the mysterious and magical site of Baalbek, now a Roman ruin, built with great power high in the Mountains, on a platform of stone left by “someone” who moved the largest hewn stones in the world (some 1,200 tons each) and erected a platform upon which the Romans later built. We left that sight in awe and wonderment, and crossed the borders into the second quartet.
But even then, beneath the surface and the façade of this “little jewel,” Lebanon seethed with tension and intrigue. It had been created as a colonial protectorate when it was seized by the French from Syria after the first world war. It was a polyglot nation supposedly half Christian and half Sunni Muslim, with the Christian arabs in the driver’s seat, from which one vast population (the Shiite minority) were excluded and shunted aside and forgetting. All of this was a “fiction” maintained by political ambition, and a small spark set the volatile mix into an explosion of civil war that lasted for more than a decade. It is now almost two decades since the war subsided and the pieces completely rearranged.
Lebanon has settled into anew, more equitable configuration. It has rebuilt itself remembering the lessons of power, balance, and equity. It would say it has recovered itself and its identity and now sees itself proudly as a nation of disparate peoples, cultures, religions and factions learning to live in a new balance.
Today there are Christians Muslim, Druse and even Jews living together with a new respect for one another. Lebanon is a microcosm of what the western world, in its idealism, must continue to be--eastern and western pluralism, created by the ideals of a secular democracy managing the inevitable paradoxes and tensions. Its face is to the West, but it remains a Middle Eastern country aware of its past, but moving into the future as a kind of wise, modern guide-star.
We not only enjoyed the new Lebanon, the Churches meeting all over the city on Sunday morning—entering into more than one liturgy, and then the Mosques which opened and invited us in, but also the layers of history and civilization going back ten millennia to the roots of our Phoenician ancestors living on the shores of the Mediterranean basin at the ancient site of Byblos. Later we visited the mysterious and magical site of Baalbek, now a Roman ruin, built with great power high in the Mountains, on a platform of stone left by “someone” who moved the largest hewn stones in the world (some 1,200 tons each) and erected a platform upon which the Romans later built. We left that sight in awe and wonderment, and crossed the borders into the second quartet.
Labels: balance, civil war, journey, Lebanon, modern pluralism, religious pluralism
posted by Lynn Bauman at 6:04 AM
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