Details Of An Explosion

The picture above is of a political rally in the town of Aley, late last night after the explosion.  The shocked, unsure reaction that had characterized the scene at the other two attacks was gone.  These people were mad (as they had every right to be); they wanted blood.  It was not hard to see how Druze retaliation could create a situation which would quickly spiral out of control.  More than fear, I just felt like a foreigner -- someone who would never understand the crevices of generations-old grudges, who would never be willing to fight and die for their sect like the Lebanese on the television.

So, I went to Aley today with some trepidation.  I went half-expecting to find a village preparing for war.  Instead, I found a strange sort of street fair -- except the event did not revolve around a bandstand, but an explosion.

This is ground zero, so to speak.  A crowd of older Druze men held court in the area.  The conversations all seemed very businesslike.  People were greeting friends and smiling, in that rueful way that Lebanese smile when they know that something is very wrong but that there is nothing to be done about it.  People were scared, but they were still functioning.  The bomb broke most of the windows for an approximately 300- foot radius, and totaled four or five cars.

This is what characterized the entire trip, for me.  People were calmly repairing the damage.  This Vero Moda store was open for business.  People were shopping inside, thumbing through clothes like he.  The conversation on the street was uniformly about how quickly everything could be rebuilt, when Aley would be up on its feet again.  The cell phone store bragged about reopening on Monday; the bank employee said that he would be doing business again tomorrow.

I thought the citizens of Aley exhibited just the right mix of resolution, self-control, and defiance.  I've been told that this sign translates roughly as "Nobody can defeat us."  It was a large banner, professionally printed and composed, and in the process of being hung over Aley's city center a little more than twelve hours after the explosion.  With this attitude, they're right.

Comments

[Louis-Noel Harfouche]

Ebeh! Voici le Liban..... Ecce Libano
as the great Charles Corm foresaw it 75 years ago, in the throes of rebirth. Ce n'est pas pour rien que le mythique phoenix est etymologiquement (ainsi que theologiquement et logiquement) lié à notre sort d'immortels...

Le cœur m’a dit:
Un grand mutilé est venu délivrer mon pays mutilé!

Le bras m’a dit:
Du seul bras qui lui reste
Il rend à mon étreinte mes villes démembrées!

Le cerveau m’a dit:
Beyrouth sera la capitale de ma pensée!

Les yeux m’ont dit:
Voici, dans la lumière, mes côtes de Phénicie!

Les oreilles m’ont dit:
Nous entendrons, sans honte, le nom de la patrie!


La bouche m’a dit:
Je mangerai le pain des plaines ancesrales!

Les poumons m’ont dit:
Nos ports vont respirer l’air infini du large!

Les peids m’ont dit:
Nous marcherons vers l’avenir!

Les os m’ont dit:
Nous pourrons reposer
Dans la paix reconquises de nos vieux cimetières!

Le sang m’a dit:
Je déborde des veines
Et je remonte, enfin, jusqu’au sommet de l’âme!

L’âme m’a dit:
Je n’était qu’immortelle. Il m’a rendu la vie!
[…]

Le poète m’a dit:
La muse est revenue!

Le jardinier m’a dit:
Le laurier reverdit!

Le pastoureau m’a dit:
J’aurai plus d’un agneau!

Le braconnier m’a dit:
Je ne volerai plus!

Le bûcheron m’a dit:
Je vais planter des cèdres!

Le munuisier m’a dit:
Je construis des autels!

Le charpentier m’a dit:
J’armerai des navires!

Les émigrants m’ont dit:
Nous nous sentons des ailes pour rentrer au pays!
Le marinier m’a dit:
La mer n’a plus de rides!

Le portefaix m’ai dit:
C’est fini les fardeaux!

Le forgeron m’a dit:
Nous ferons des canons!
Le cordonnier m’a dit:
Les bottes de sept lieues ne nous suffisent plus!

L’architecte m’a dit:
Comme la route est droite où nos pieds vont marcher!

Le tailleur m’a dit:
J’ai pris sa taille
À la mesure de ses batailles!

Le contrebandier m’a dit:
Il n’est plus de frontières!
Le commerçant m’a dit:
Les affaires vont bien!
Le miséreux m’a dit:
Qu’est-ce que cela fait de n’avoir pas de pain!

Le médecin m’a dit:
One ne peut plus mourir, que de tant de bonheur!

L’avocat m’a dit:
Voici tous les plaideurs que se réconcilient!
Le paysan m’a dit:
La terre libérée est un vrai paradis!

La servante m’a dit:
Je deviens une reine!

L’émiresse m’a dit:
De tous nos pauvres gens je serai la servante!

Le coupable m’a dit:
Je ne pécherai plus!

La religieuse m’a dit:
Nous serons inutiles!
La petite fille m’a dit:
J’ai rêvé qu’il dormait et que je l’ambrassais!

Le jeune fille m’a dit:
Je vais me marier!

La vieille dame m’a dit:
La Liberté est une jouvence!

Le vieillard m’a dit:
Je mourrai sans regrets!

L’athée m’a dit:
Je crois en Dieu pour qu’Il nous garde!

Le Chansonnier m’a dit:
La chanson libanaise
Qui n’était que sanglots,
Redeviendra joyeuse!

Le musicien m’a dit:
Les âmes du Liban sont une symphonie!

Le peintre m’a dit:
Quand j’essaye de le peindre,
Le pinceau tremble et la couleur pâlit!

L’orfèvre m’a dit:
Je voudrasi ciseler
Avec l’or l’acier de nos épés!

Le sculpteur m’a dit:
La Vénus de Milo!
La Victoire de Samothrace! Le général Gouraud!...

[Umm Kais]

David-very interesting post! Thanks for the pics too.

[ghassan karam]

Does anyone know whether the extremely successful Lebanese exhibit at the NY World Fair of 1939 that was put together by Charles Corm has been preserved anywhere? Are there at least pictures of it in Beirut ?

Louis, I will be interested in your thoughts concerning this proposition:

Pan Arabism had to be secular since many of its intellectual founding fathers were Christians. The political leaders who were attracted to the idea adopted socialism because it was the popular thing to do. You had to take a stand against colonialism and Stalinist/leininst Marxism with all its warts was adopted uncritically. Obviously these Pan Arabists could not deliver on any of their promises. Pan Arabism becomes essentially a failed idea since it endangered the power of the rulers in each of the Arab countries that emerged from the division of the Ottoman spoils.

Pan Islam became the rage and has contributed significantly to the "defeat" of Pan Arabism. The Islamists however pose even a greater threat to the political rulers of these states because Pan Islam will subsume these states and Arabs will have to become another equal part of the Moslem quilt. Obviously this option is also not acceptable to these ploitical rulers.

If both Pan Arabism and Pan Islam are vanquished does this portend well for civil society in the Middle East?Dare we dream that we will see the roots of such a civil democratic society based on the traditional existing nation states but gathered in an EU kind of a relationship take hold over the next two decades?

[Bad Vilbel]

Your argument makes sense to me, Ghassan. But I don't see this happening within two decades.

Let's not forget that it took 2 World Wars, followed by over 50 years of rivalries within Europe to get us to where the EU is just now starting to function as a cohesive unit.

I'm afraid the Middle East is far behind on that curve.

But in theory, the failure of Pan Arabism, and eventually Pan Islam, will eventually lead to a more democratic and civic society down the line. The question is: How long will it take? And where will the rest of the civilized world be by then?

[Blacksmith Jade]

That is an army poster I think. You can find it as a wallpaper on the Army's website.

[Louis-Noel Harfouche]

Ghassan, the NY public library keeps a sizeable archive of the Lebanese expo (including LaGuardia's adulatory introduction, ha ha). Incidentally, Lebanon was the only Middle Eastern country (and certainly the only nation then under French and/or British mandate) to have been present at the World Fair; there was a tiny kiosk representing the Israeli Yishuv right next to the Lebanese one, ha ha.. and Corm was a close friend of the Jewish delegates ;)
I suspect also that the Baroudys (of New York, inlaws of Charles) have kept some remnants of this in family archives.

With regards to Arabism being secular (on account of the canard of it having been spearheaded by enlightened arabophone Christians etc.., even though it has long since been co-opted by Islam..) I agree that, in theory, it will wise up and give way to more broad-minded systems (à la E.U perhaps?), but like BV, I am extremely skeptical as to whether Middle Eastern societies (and intellectual elites) have reached the levels of political and cultural sophistication to make such a switch possible.

At the very heart of this debate is the issue of language (which is intimately tied to the issue of religion), and unless Arabs (and by osmosis, Muslims) are willing to dump Arabic and adopt vernaculars as intellectual and administrative languages, I don't think we can even begin to emulate a semblance of a "tolerant" society (at least not without a number of devastating religious wars)... Europe went through the same exact problem 500 years ago, went through two 100-year (religious) wars that were fought to some extent over language (Catholics wanted to safeguard Latin, protestants advocated for vernacular languages.) Aha, but Europe (and namely CATHOLIC France) had Joachim du Bellay and Ronsard, the two backbones of La Pléiade, the most militant “anti-Latin lobby”. The basic document expounding La Pléiade’s position as a (French as opposed to Latin) literary and linguistic avant-garde was a “manifesto” penned (or at least signed) in 1549 by Joachim Du Bellay; "Déffence et illustration de la langue Françoyse". Du Bellay's Déffence was essentially an indictment of Latin and an advocacy on behalf of the French language. Like Dante’s 1304 De vulgari eloquentia, it promoted and extolled the virtues of the vernacular (French) language and encouraged poets and writers of the 16th century to employ French instead of Latin in their literary and creative output. In a Déffence chapter titled “Exhortation to the French”, Du Bellay pondered as to why the Frenchmen were “so hard on ourselves? Why do we use foreign languages [excuse me, Latin? LNH] as if we were ashamed to use our own?... You must not be ashamed of writing in your own language.” (Ghassan, BV, isn’t this eerily reminiscent of a similar debate we’ve been having in Lebanon since the late 1940s? Said Akl, Georges Chaccour, Kamal Charabi, Nagib Jamalleddine,?? 2 christians and 2 muslims btw, all four advocating for the intellectualization of Lebanese! They are Lebanon’s La Pléiade, minus the “political” sponsorship.)

Thankfully, for France’s La Pléiade, they had an enlightened ruler like François I behind them! Indeed the cultural policies of François I (1515) helped France and the French dispense (gradually) with Latin once and for all.

In 1539, François I signed the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêt (which is often cited as one of the founding acts of the French language, even though it was not exactly about the French language.)

In 1539, the Catholic Church (under the central authority of the Pope) was better organized and more influential and powerful than most states in Europe (any resemblance with the ME??). François I’s Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêt was a way of reducing the power of the Church and increasing his own. It set out rules for how officials would be sworn into office, how oaths would be made, how witnesses would be heard in court and how judgments would be ruled and enforced (e.g., in French rather than Latin. Incidentally, in 1950 the great Lebanese jurist, Nagib Jamaleddine, was the first trial lawyer in the history of Lebanon to have conducted court proceedings "in Lebanese" as he called it, as opposed to MSA and/or French.) In any case, back to François I’s Ordinance: births, marriages, and deaths would now be registered by the state (in addition to the traditional Church registers) in the state’s language ("French" as opposed to Latin.) Two of the articles in the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêt stated that all state rulings and administrative records were to be produced “en language maternel françoys et non autrement” (“in the French mother-tongue and not otherwise”). The “otherwise” was in reference to Latin, the language of the Church. From that point on, all magistrates, clerks and functionaries working in French dominions were instructed to use French in official documents. Trials would be carried out and verdicts pronounced in French and not Latin. (The “attack” on Latin is illustrated in François I’s use of the term language maternel in reference to French… as opposed to language paternel which at the time meant Latin (the father’s tongue... the Pope's language...)

With the language articles, François I reduced the use of Latin (and with it the influence of the Church in legal and state affairs, and consequently extricated France from the Catholic vs. Protestant quibblings), and contributed to the standardization and codification of the multitude of spoken “French” vernaculars (forbidding any official business or official documents to be conducted or written in any other language but his Parisian—or Val du Loire—dialect.

While François I promoted the use of “French”, he did not regulate it. His French (the French of the 16th century) was not the systematically organized language, the methodical language of later centuries (I’m adding this namely to circumvent those who always attack me with the silly daffodil that “Lebanese doesn’t have a grammar”, which is actually WRONG, Lebanese does conform to “bon usage” normes; they’re simply not written or codified (yet); that is not the same as “non extant”.)

Anyway, in the 16th century, the vocabulary of French was expanding; it was borrowing extensively from other Latin-based vernaculars (mainly Spanish and Italian: arcade, balcon, concert, cavalerie, infanterie, bizarre, etc…) To this day, French boasts a profusion of terms hailing from regional patois and foreign languages.

Anyway, I don’t want to bore you anymore (I’ll be posting something on this soon on my abandoned blog), but to sum up, this (500-year-old) debate is notably similar to the issues that Said Akl and his group began broaching in 1940s and 1950s Lebanon; namely the issue of discarding the Arabic language and adopting the Lebanese vernacular as a prestige, intellectual, national, and official language of administration. Unfortunately for Said Akl—Lebanon’s Du Bellay I would argue—Lebanon lacks a François I to shore up his case and promote Lebanese as a language of science, art, and administration. It IS after all our “langue maternelle.”
Peace out.

[ali bm]

what is that about abandoning arabic? my friend u seme to ingore the fact that the bridge between latin and modern european languages is much much wider between arabic and vernaculars used throughout the Arab world (maybe with the exception of morocoo and algeria). i have spoken to egyptians, saudis, iraqis, yemenis, sudanese, libyans, jordanians, and even to algerians and moroccans in the lebanese vernacular and except for certain idiosyncracies, we managed to get on well. needless to say they all knew how to speak arabic fluently and we could have pursued that option but each felt more comfortable speaking his native tongue and we faced no problems doing so.

as for the intellectual elites not reaching necessary level of sphistication necessary to reach some sort of confederation, i would ask you this? have you ever been to beirut book fair? there you will meet algerian intellectuals such as Abdul-Ilah Bal-Qaziz along with the algerian political figure Ahmad Bin bella rubbing shoudlers with Talal Salman and with palestinian poet Mahmud Darwish and with egyptian notable Muhammad Hassanien Haikal to name the very very few i know off. intellectuals in any of the Arab countries have always spearheaded the call for some form of Arab unity same as the enlightened lights of the ecoonmic feild in the gulf are calling for some sort of commn market and for uniting the currency.

As for Ghhassan hypothesis, i believe that pan islam didn't kill pan Arabism but simply replaced it. pan arabism, at the Arab official level, died in 1970 with Jamal Abdul-Nasser and one can argue that it died earlier in 1967 as a result of israeli victory or even earlier in 1963 as a result of the failure of the United Arab rpublic when syria separated from egypt. as a result of its death and the failure of its promises, and as a result of the failure of its successor movements such as Al-Saddat's bid to foster some sort of egyptian nationalist movement when the Arabs gave him the finger following Camp David, the islamic movement, by this i mainly mean the islamic Brotherhood in egypt, the mother of all islamic movements, gained a breath of fresh air after it was nearly eiminate during Abdul-Nasser's reign. it started rising and kept doing so because of the oppression afflicitng most of the Arab countries.

of course let us not forget to give due credit to the americans and their saudi clients who fostered Bin LAden's brand of Salafi extrmeism as a tool to fight soviets in afghanistan.

thus i belive that this pan islamism is a sumptom of the loss of pan arabism and of the loss of true democracy in our countries.

as for this post, david don't go too far talking about "generation old hatreds"and such, those same people cursing and beating the s**t out of the syrians would be hailing Bashar tomorrow if Walid Junblatt did another of his patented 180 degree turnabouts

[maverick]

oh cmon joumblatt hated the Syrians ever since he was born...just because he was paid lip service during their tutelage,and wasnt powerful enough to express his opposition,doesnt mean he supported them.Actually around 2000 when joumblatt found his voice,it wasnt that he turned 180,it was more on capatilizing on a long awaited 0pportunity.When his father was murdered,he was forced to go to Damascus,on arrival,Assad remarked wryly "How you resemble your father",from then on it was see no evil,hear no evil,speak no evil...otherwise you can meet your fathers fate.I think Joumblatts and the Druze stance on Syria,like many others in lebanon comes from supressed feelings.The Cedar Revolution was the ultimate release of these suppressed feelings and it will continue until the inner and outer Demons are finally resolved.

[Louis-Noel Harfouche]

Ali, I’m afraid your premise is emotive not rational; you’re comparing modern European Languages to Middle Eastern vernaculars anachronistically (ignoring a 500 year diachronic evolution of European vernacular languages and 500 years of trial and error that accompanied the “codification” enterprise.) 500 years ago the French, Italian, Romanian, Castillian (and other Romance dialects) were mutually intelligible to their respective users who had the benefit of "trained ears." To a large extent, this is so to the trained European ear even today. I can illustrate:

The Jèrriais-speaking inhabitants of the island of Jersey (in the English Channel) actually call their language Anglo-French. Lingistically and socio-linguistically, Jèrriais is a separate language. To an un-attuned ear, the Jèrriais language sounds like mispronounced French (although it is a language all its own; one of the rare surviving specimens of the of an Old Norman (i.e. Germanic/Norseman) dialect, which the Normans exported to England in the 11th century.) Jèrriais has its own phonetics, syntax and lexicon. One of its most striking features is its use of the th sound, which is common in English but nonexistent in standard French. Words such as father, mother, and brother are pronounced in Jèrriais as paithe, maithe and fraith instead of père, mère, and frère.

Speakers of Jèrriais and speakers of Québécois-French, Ali, don’t have much trouble understanding each other’s languages (maintaining conversations similar to ones taking place between different speakers of different French dialects today, or different Middle Eastern vernaculars). For a francophone with a good ear and tolerance for variation, most of the conversations in Jèrriais and French are understandable (and again, these are two DISTINCT languages separated by a millennium of history, not to mention geography.)

btw, to a large extent, vernacular Lebanese is the “Latin” of Arabophones. Nearly half of commonly used “Arabic” words (MSA) come from Aramaic (even the Qoranic Salaat, Din, Allah, and YES the word “Qur’aan” itself, are Aramaic…) The majority of vernacular users (who tend to believe these words came straight from Arabic) are not aware of the Aramaic kinship simply because they don’t even know Aramaic exits. Actually, Lebanese linguists Sobhi al-Saleh and sheikh Abdallah al-Alaily make that very argument... They (both Muslims btw) claim that the Lebanese vernacular and Canaanite share a symbiotic relationship that is not replicated as regards the relationship between Lebanese and Arabic… Of course, they admit that Arabic DID make contributions to the Lebanese lexicon, but in their view, those were scanty, negligible contributions; the “Lebanese language’s” langue mère in Sobhi al-Saleh’s estimation was Canaanite and Aramaic, NOT Arabic; Arabic “came lately” in his view, and the kinship between spoken Lebanese and Arabic is a distant not an intimate one… If anything, Arabic did not replace the remnants of Lebanese Canaanite and Aramaic, it spawned a modern version of those languages…) Again Ali, your ability to communicate seamlessly with other vernacular users (kudos to you) is clearly because you are attuned to each other’s vernaculars. You clearly have a good ear and tolerance for variation, and you should be commanded for that. The caveat here is that you are perhaps the exception, not the rule. And remember that you have satellite TV, radio, and Internet today (technological perks from which Dante, Ronsard, Rabelais, Shakespeare, Du Bellay and their contemporaries were separated by seven hundred years… not to mention the issue of “democratization of literacy”.)

[Maya]

David,

I just caught up with your posts today and I really wanted to thank you for doing such a wonderful job. I also really appreciated seeing the pictures from Aley. You seem to be quite well versed in Lebanese culture and politics as well (from some of the little details you've provided), which gives you a different perspective and understanding of the situation in Lebanon than most foreign journalists who have covered the events. Furthermore, I think the regular readers of this blog have a very poor opinion of Seymour Hersh in general and know that his coverage is quite biased, bordering on silliness and irrelevance. What surprised me is the one sided, completely unobjective coverage by NPR. They basically compared the situation in Nahr el Bared to the Sabra and Chatilla massacre, leaving out that 17 Lebanese soldiers were murdered in their sleep, car bombs are being planted every night to terrorize the country, and that the Palestinian terrorists are using the people of Nahr el Bared as human shields. I will never listen to NPR again, they lost my trust. I look forward to reading more of your posts. And please be careful. Lebanon can easily return to the nightmare of the 80s when Americans became Hizballah's favorite targets. Stay safe.

Jean-Louis Harfouche,

Thank you for sharing this beautiful poem with us and providing a piece of history about the origins of the Lebanese dialect. The only way I can communicate with my friends from Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia is by speaking the only common language between us: French. Now I have a better understanding why we do that. "Les oreilles m’ont dit:
Nous entendrons, sans honte, le nom de la patrie!" This will only happen when we get rid of the scum of humanity that are bent on destroying their own country.

[Maya]

Louis-Noel,

I'm sorry for my mistake with your name. I realized that after posting the comment and was unable to correct it. My apologies.

[Jeha]

Ghassan, Louis-Noel, Ali,

An interesting exchange...

In the Arab world, we may well be replicating European history, at a faster rate. It took the Europeans a long while to find a way to survive the myth of the "roman empire", politically and culturally. Only by allowing their individual identities to blossom have they been able to reach a common understanding...

We Arabs should do the same, and should do it, we have a great advantage over the Europeans; we can resort, for our common understanding, on the "common" Arabic.

Then again, it may not be so common; our version of Latin is based on the codifications done at the time of Charlemagne. Similarly, our version of "literal" Arabic owes more to the Nahda than to the Quran, or to literature. So one may consider that the debate had already started, as the current version literal Arabic has already been heavily influenced by the Levantines' understanding of Aramaic.

This had some interesting side-effects, as much of the Quran is misinterpreted because few Arabic speakers understand the real Arabo-Aramaic dialect on which some of it is written... This also appears in some Arabic translations of the Gospels, confusing "Ayssar" with "sword" rather than "the other cheek"...

[Louis-Noel Harfouche]

Jeha, although I sympathize with what you're trying to say, I am afraid you've fallen into the same "Arabist" dithering and mendacity that I am trying (I don't know about the others here) to repudiate. You can't have your cake and eat it too! First you advocate for our individual cultural specificities, you sneer at the idea of a "roman empire" (calling it a myth even though it was a historical reality for a millennium and more) and by association you cast off the idea of an "Arab empire".... then then you knock it all down by reverting back to obsolete silly reductionist Arabist terminology (i.e., "we Arabs", "common Arabic" etc...)
Here's my problem, Jeha:
1- Arab nationalism and Arabism HAVE been tried and have failed miserably.
2- The Arabic language (call "literal", call it "common", call it what you wish) CANNOT be a factor of unity among "we Arabs" --as you're wrongly referring to us. Why?

a) Although your "common" or "literal" Arabic MIGHT be common and literal (I'm assuming you mean here a "systemized standard"), what do you do with the upwards of 50% of illiterate "Arabs" who know not the first thing about their proposed "common", "national" language?

b) In most periods of the history of the Near and Middle East, one or another Semitic language served as the lingua franca (or the dominant language of government, commerce, and scholarship) for the entire region:
1- Akkadian during the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC
2- Aramaic from the middle of the 1st millennium BC to the middle of the 1st millennium AD.
3- Arabic (or some form thereof) since the end of the 1st millennium AD.

Besides those three dominant languages, other important languages of antiquity were Hebrew and Phoenician.

Akkadian, Aramaic, and Arabic, having been the dominant languages of the Near East for some five millennia does not necessarily mean that the Akkadian, Aramaic, and Arabic cultures have been the dominant cultures of the region for the past 5000 years. Language and Culture, or Language and Ethnicity, are not necessarily coterminous in a richly textured and diverse region such as the Middle East.

A lingua franca, or a dominant language of administration, does not necessarily entail monolingualism or cultural uniformity, and therefore Jeha, your idea of "us Arabs" is simply nonsense.

Furthermore, in recent times, Arabic (or a form thereof) became dominant as a result of a combination of factors:
1- Politics,
2- Economy,
3- Colonialism,
4- Diplomacy/Coercion
5- Cultural Aggression or Domination (Cultural Imperialism)
6- Religious/Theological Domination
7- Ideas,
8- or sheer Luck.

The dominance of Arabic, like that of Akkadian and Aramaic before it, was a byproduct of all the factors I mentionned above. Colonialism, Conquest, Repression, Slavery, and yes GENOCIDE, have ALL HAPPENED IN ARABIC(as they might have happened in other languages as well.) Brilliance, Progress, Benevolence, Peace, and Scientific Advancements have also happened in Arabic (as they have in other languages as well), but that doesn’t overshadow the fact that Intolerance, Brutality, Persecution, and Genocide have all had their high-points in the Arabic language.

The Spanish Conquista of the Americas, the Deportation of the Acadians, the Massacres of the Aborigines, the African Slave Trade, and the Arab-Islamic Jihad Conquests of the Middle East during the 7th century (AND BEYOND) all played a major role in making English, Spanish, Portuguese, AND ARABIC into “World Languages.” Languages do not emerge as lingua franca (or vehicular languages) ex nihilo. Lingua francas, vehicular, or dominant languages emerge through a combination of Suppression, Repression, Coercion, and perhaps (although rarely) Seduction.

All this to tell you, Jeha, that your idea of a "common Arabic" language as an attribute and a nimbus of a "common Arabic" people is not only unfeasible, it is shortsighted, reductionist, and negationist. It has already been tried and cast off. If you're looking for a "common" language (and a common vehicle for knowledge, science, human advancement, and civilizational dialogue and understanding), try the language we're using right now; try English! You CANNOT revive a dead language, Jeha, but you can certainly rejuvenate the people who used to speak it!

[lloyd]

The REAL reason Hez doesn't want the army going in to refugee camps

Abbas Zakir, the Palestinian Authority's most senior representative in Lebanon, outlining the alleged Hizbullah weapons transfers into Palestinian camps. The letter noted "unusual activity" in and near the Palestinian camps, including the coming and going of trucks suspected of carrying weapons.

Palestinian groups, including Fatah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, maintain armed bases in Lebanon, mostly in the al-Naemeh province just south of Beirut and in the Bekaa Valley, near Lebanon's border with Syria and Israel. Fatah is the party of PA President Mahmoud Abbas.

The reports follow a WND article last month quoting Lebanese officials claiming Hizbullah, with the help of Iran, started building underground war bunkers in Lebanon's Palestinian camps.

During its 34-day confrontation with Hizbullah in Lebanon that began July 12, Israel destroyed scores of complex Hizbullah bunkers that snaked along the Lebanese side of the Israel-Lebanon border. Military officials said they were surprised by the scale of the Hizbullah bunkers, in which Israeli troops reportedly found war rooms with advanced eavesdropping and surveillance equipment they noted were made by Iran.

[...]

A senior Lebanese official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told WND Hizbullah started building a new set of bunker systems, this time in Palestinian refugee camps.

"The Lebanese Army doesn't have the authority to patrol inside the camps," said the official. "Hizbullah knows it is safe there to rebuild their war bunkers, and they began doing so with Iranian help."

[Jeha]

Louis-Noel Harfouche,

That was a good ol'fashioned drubbing you gave me... I essentially agree with what you state, with a couple of proviso;

The roman empire WAS not a myth, but it is now... And the Arab world has far more in common than the Europeans. Heck; Arabic and Jewish culture have more in common than European cultures, whose only common thread is to be named after teh Aramaic word for "West"

[Randall]

Jeha,

When you say, "The myth of the Roman Empire," are you referring to the perception among contemporary Arabs that the Roman Empire lingers to this day, oppressing them and preventing them from realizing their true potential?

I hear LOTS of references to the Roman Empire in these discussions, as well as to the Crusades (of coooouuuuuurse).

[Craig]

Maverick, Sorry for this comment here but I can't seem to comment on Beirut Spring anymore. Anyway, your assertion that Bachir Gemayel dragged the MNF into the civil war in Lebanon is incorrect. He was assassinated 8 months before the first time the MNF engaged in any combat operations. And it was the Druze who were shelling MNF (Italian, French and US) positions for over a month before the US ever returned fire. The New Jersey didn't arrive until late September 1983, and didn't fire her guns at all until after the October 23, 1983 Barracks Bombing.

[Craig]

Maverick, two links for you to read, that should explain why the US has no interest in establishing a "presence" in Lebanon (despite what Nasrallah says):

An overview:

US Marines in Lebanon
1982-1984

A timeline of events:

Chronology: Marines in lebanon, 1982-1984

Those are both official historical archives, maintained by the Headquarters of the US Marine Corps.

Here is the official findings of the US Department of Defense re the 1983 Barracks bombing:

Report of the
DoD Commission on Beirut
International Airport
Terrorist Act, October 23, 1983

Of all the parties involved in Lebanon 1982-1984, the Multi-National Forces are the only ones who didn't do anything wrong. And yet, Lebanese then (and now) blamed the MNF for all of their own transgressions.

You think the US is anxious to have that happen again? As much as Nasrallah might enjoy having US forces in Lebanon again, it isn't going to happen. The only possible reason US forces might go to Lebanon in the future is to go after Hezbollah, directly. There is no chance at all of a nation building exercise in Lebanon. We already tried that. A long time ago.

[Solomon2]

Of all the parties involved in Lebanon 1982-1984, the Multi-National Forces are the only ones who didn't do anything wrong. And yet, Lebanese then (and now) blamed the MNF for all of their own transgressions.

Michael Totten demonstrated the Lebanese outlook last summer, when he interviewed Lebanese who told him that they "forgave" their fellow Lebanese from a different confessional affiliation because it was necessary, but not the Israelis because they weren't in Lebanon anymore, so they didn't have to forgive them. The same logic can be applied to Lebanese attitudes towards the MNF.

Since they can't blame themselves or their neighbor, Lebanese blame someone else. Psychologists call this displacement.

[Jeha]

Randall,

Not quite; I refer the "holy roman empire", resurrected by Charlemagne thanks to a new Catholic legitimacy.

There may be grounds to view that we live in an Anglo-Saxon empire, but it would be a vast trade empire, far different from Rome's closed "Mare Nostrum"