Adonis Diaries

A certain poetic Notion of Lebanon: Long gone?

Michel Chiha (1891 1954) wrote in “Face and Presence of Lebanon“:

“Lebanon is sort of a warehouse of cultural and intellectual diversity, a crosscurrent of people and ideas, where conquerors and their conquests came, went, faded away… but where the Lebanese forever remained and endured, steadfast and committed to their ever diverse character.

Lebanon is a meeting place into which people flock and assimilate, regardless of their origins… where varied civilizations drop in on one another, and where bevies of beliefs, languages, and cultural rituals salute each other in solemn veneration…

Lebanon is above all a Mediterranean nation, like this sea itself, discerning and sensitive to the stirring music of universal poetry…”

A notion long gone? As the Arabic/Islamic empire started in 635 AC?

Note: Another objective look at the Lebanese communities by a foreigner, 140 years ago  https://adonis49.wordpress.com/2012/08/31/how-lebanese-communities-changed-in-over-140-years-had-they-ever/