Lebanon
Loud explosions shook our glass windows on a Saturday night: such a nice weekend, wasn’t it? While most kids in the West were having sleepovers, we were hiding in our bathroom trying to dodge the next bomb dropped on our neighborhood. This is what I remember most from Beirut and my childhood. I wished that I could have experienced myself the nice things my parents told me about Lebanon before the war.
Lebanon used to be known as the Switzerland of the Middle East. Tourists from all over the world flocked there for the beaches, skiing, and nightlife.
The map shows Lebanon, officially the Lebanese Republic, which is a mountainous country in the Levant with a coastline on the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Lebanon borders Israel in the south, Syria in the north, and the long stretches of Anti-Lebanon mountains form the border between Lebanon and Syria in the east. The country also shares maritime borders with Cyprus.
The smallest nation on the Asian mainland covers an area of 10,400 km²: it is about one-third the size of Belgium and about one-third the size of the US state of Maryland.
Lebanon had a population of about 6.1 million people (in 2019) including approximately 1.5 million refugees from Syria and Palestine. Most of the Lebanese people live on or near the Mediterranean coast.
The country's national capital and largest city is Beirut. Spoken languages are Lebanese Arabic, French, and English. Lebanon has the most religiously diverse society in the Middle East: main religions are Islam (58%), followed by Christianity (36%), and Lebanese Druze faith (5%).
Lebanon has a narrow coastal strip along the Mediterranean Sea. The coast is home to most of the larger cities and towns. Agriculture in the region produces fruits and vegetables.
The Lebanese Civil War was both an internal Lebanese affair and a regional conflict involving a host of regional and international actors. It revolved around some of the issues that dominated regional politics in the Middle East in the latter part of the twentieth century, including the Palestine-Israel conflict, Cold War competition, Arab nationalism, and political Islam.
Conflicts over these issues intersected with longstanding disagreements in the Lebanese political elite, and in parts of the population, over the sectarian division of power, national identity, social justice, and Lebanon’s strategic alliances.
During 15 years of fighting, around 90,000 people lost their lives, according to the most reliable data. However, it is possible that the real number exceeds 100,000.
Of the 90,000 killed, close to 20,000 were kidnapped or disappeared, and must be assumed dead as they have not been accounted for. Nearly 100,000 were badly injured, and close to a million people, or two-thirds of the Lebanese population, experienced displacement.
In addition to the many dead, much of Lebanon’s infrastructure was shattered, as was Lebanon’s reputation as an example of cross-sectarian coexistence in the Arab Middle East. The Switzerland of the Middle East, once known for the beauty of its beaches and amazing mountains, was now know for massacres, bombings, and kidnappings.
The Lebanese Civil War was one of the most devastating conflicts of the late twentieth century. It left several political and social legacies that are important for understanding why it involved so many instances of mass violence.
The establishment of the state of Israel and the displacement of a hundred thousand Palestinian refugees to Lebanon during the 1948 and 1967 exoduses contributed to shifting the demographic balance in favor of the Muslim population.
The Cold War had a powerful disintegrative effect on Lebanon, which was closely linked to the polarization that preceded the 1958 political crisis since Maronites sided with the West while leftist and pan-Arab groups sided with Soviet-aligned Arab countries.
Fighting between Maronite[1]and Palestinian forces (mainly from the Palestine Liberation Organization) began in 1975, then Leftist, pan-Arabist and Muslim Lebanese groups formed an alliance with the Palestinians.
During the fighting, alliances shifted rapidly and unpredictably. Furthermore, foreign powers, such as Israel and Syria, became involved in the war and fought alongside different factions. Peacekeeping forces, such as the Multinational Force and the United Nations Interim Force, were also stationed in Lebanon.
The question of Civil War memory is acute for many Lebanese, who have come together in the postwar period to debate the war and create public commemorations of it. In their view, the war has continued via other means in the postwar period, and the periodic rounds of the violent conflict plaguing Lebanon since 1990 are directly related to the Civil War.
https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/lebanese-civil-war-photos/
Lebanon had some of the first Christians residing there after Palestine. Jesus is said to have performed one of his miracles in south Lebanon. Even some Christian priests still pray in Aramaic, the language of Christ.
All this is to say that most of the population were Christian before the arrival of Islam in 610AD and its rapid spread in the Middle East.
Take my last name for example, Challita. From a Wiki search, “Artemius[2]” (Latin: Flavius Artemius; Ancient Greek: Ἀρτέμιος; died 362) or “Shalliṭā” (Classical Syriac: ܫܠܝܛܐ) was a general of the Roman Empire and dux Aegypti or imperial prefect of Roman Egypt. He is considered a saint by the Catholic and the Orthodox Churches, with the name of “Artemius of Antioch.” That was way back in the 3rd century AD. I am glad to have a Saint in the family...
Then the Ottoman Empire swept to power around 1299 and ruled the Middle East for over five centuries. Following that, the population started to diversify beyond just Christians and Muslims. After the First World War, the French came to Lebanon to fight the Ottomans and protect the Christians: that’s when they changed the constitution and made sure that there was a balance of power among all religions.
It was decided that the Lebanese president would always be Christian, which makes Lebanon the only Christian-led country in the Middle East.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maronites
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemius
