THE IDENTITY CRISIS LEBANON FACES TILL TODAY!
July 21, 2024Lebanon has long suffered an identity problem.
Pulled between the Western and Arab identities, the Lebanese people have debated and fought over which they incline to most.
I struggled with the same identity crisis growing up in Australia, as do millions of immigrants who relocate to a new country.
This was the theme for my first film Lebanon…Imprisoned Splendour which I made nearly 30 years ago. What I discovered through that film is I didn’t have to choose, I could be and love Australia and Lebanon and embody the best of both cultures. This made me more complete and grateful to both identities for the richness and diversity it permitted me to express and evolve.
We Lebanese living in Lebanon have the unique priviliege of having intimate access to two vibrant, rich, formative cultures. Neither should be considered better than another. Both should be equally respected and treasured. We need to focus on the values that bind our combined humanity, which is what I witness everday in Lebanon, and not be pulled to distraction and division over issues or customs that should remain personal and initimate.
Let us celebrate our similarities and honour our differences as we have done, living side by side on this tiny piece of land for more than one and half THOUSAND years!!
@aljadeed
English Script:
Al Jadeed Voice Over: At every crisis, the Lebanese mourn the beautiful Lebanon, but if it were not for these columns, would we have a past? Would we have a past to which we belong? Since the founding of the state of Greater Lebanon more than a hundred years ago, the Lebanese have been divided between the Western identity and the Arab identity. Since then, the Lebanese have not agreed on a single identity for Lebanon, and the same division still continues.
Unknown man: I can’t tell you if you want to support the West, get out, what relationship do you have with Lebanon? And you can’t tell me if you want to maintain your Arab identity, why do you want to stay here?
Al Jadeed Voice Over: But during the era of President Camille Chamoun, the Baalbek International Festival was launched in 1957, and Chamoun insisted, through art, to create an identity for a lost people. Festivals of a Lebanese, Arab, and foreign nature made Lebanon the focus of international attention, and Fairuz appeared for the first time in front of her audience from the city of the Sun. Despite the six-month war that accompanied the end of President Camille Chamoun’s era as a result of a division between supporters and opponents of Lebanon’s accession to the United Arab Republic, the Lebanese soon returned to the alternative republic of Al Rahabni. At a time when the Lebanese disagreed on the definition of their country, Fairuz facilitated the task in 1969, describing Lebanon with details that no one disagreed on. Fairuz continued to bring the Lebanese together, and political disputes over two identities continued, especially with the entry of the Palestinians and the emergence of a division between supporters and opponents of their right to defend their land from Lebanon. It is true that a civil war occurred, but the irony is that amid fighting, Fairuz affirmed that Lebanon can still be loved, so she released this song a year after the beginning of the war. But there are citizens who consider that they have fallen victim to this unrealistic identity, including Ziad Rahbani. This argument arose between him and his uncle Mansour Rahbani:
Ziad Rahbani: You created something of Lebanon, something very big and bigger than Lebanon itself, which we discovered in the war. You created a non-existent Lebanon.
Mansour Rahbani: Dream that you want to do a play, and you will. Then dreaming is what helps you.
Ziad Rahbani: Right, and dream that you will unite the sects…
Al Jadeed Voice Over: The Rahbanis did not deny that they had created an unreal Lebanon, promising during the war that the real Lebanon would come. Divided Lebanon gave birth to Fairuz, and Fairuz gave birth to a united Lebanon. Because these two Lebanon’s exist under one sky, over the decades we have become a people unable to stay in it and unable to leave it.
