http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=79103&d=12&m=8&y=2006&pix=opinion.jpg&category=Opinion
Saturday, 12, August, 2006 (18, Rajab, 1427)
Peace and Harmony in Lebanon
Michael Saba, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Ain Arab, Lebanon is a small village in the Bekka Valley of
Lebanon. It lies in the shadow of Mount Herman. It has never had any more than
500-1,000 inhabitants. Its population now numbers less than 500. This past
weekend, I traveled to Calgary, Alberta, Canada for a reunion of inhabitants
and descendants of inhabitants of Ain Arab. Over 300 people attended this
reunion. They came from Canada, Mexico, South America and the United States.
They represented over 5,000 people who live in the Western world and who claim
descent from the people of Ain Arab.
Ain Arab has produced two US ambassadors, a US Congressman, a
US Senator, a US deputy chief of protocol and a US deputy secretary of state as
well as numerous very successful business and professional men and women. Ain
Arab (which means the "well" or "spring" of the Arab) has produced many
successful sons and daughters. And the Israelis have much to learn from the
people of Ain Arab. The Israelis have already bombed a road close to Ain Arab
on the hills surrounding the neighboring village of Yanta. No one from
Hezbollah was anywhere close to where the Israelis bombed. Ain Arab is also
receiving many Lebanese citizens who are being driven from their homes in south
Lebanon by the Israelis.
This isn't the first time Ain Arab has felt the wrath of the
Israelis. In the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, Ain Arab was one of the
last villages that the Israelis captured. They threw people from their homes
into the streets of Ain Arab. And many of them had to take refuge in either the
mosque or the church in Ain Arab.
Ain Arab has been occupied for hundreds of years by Arab
people. In the more recent past of the last three or four hundred years, Ain
Arab has had both Muslim and Christian inhabitants with occasional members of
the Druze community also.
As long as people there can remember, there has been a mosque
and a church in this village. My own memories include seeing the members of the
Ain Arab Muslim community paying their respects to the Christian Ain Arab
inhabitants in the church during Easter and the Christian community
reciprocating by paying their respects in the mosque during the Eid Al-Fitr and
the Eid Al-Adha celebrations.
In Calgary, although the current situation in Lebanon was the
main topic of discussion, most of the people attending the reunion spoke about
family and friendship and how much enjoyment they got from seeing each other.
And someone commented, "Why can't the Israelis get along with anybody else in
our area?" Both Christian and Muslim Ain Arab attendees concurred. You see
these two "Peoples of the Book" have been living together harmoniously for
centuries in Ain Arab.
My father was an amateur historian and he had written a
history of the village of Ain Arab and the various families of the village. My
family, the Attiyeh family, originally came from the south of Arabia in ancient
times. They moved to Syria initially and then immigrated to Lebanon itself in
the 1400s and then to Ain Arab around the late 1600s. There are both Muslim and
Christian members of the greater Attiyeh family.
When my father came to the United States from Lebanon in the
early 1920s, he carried both a Qur'an and a Bible and he always kept them both
on the mantle of the fireplace of our home. He would often read me stories from
both holy books. He particularly delighted in reading me verses from both books
about the same characters such as Moses or Noah or Mary or Jesus. This was a
very important part of my early education that I was not taught about in the
American school system.
As a child, I really wasn't aware that there were any
differences between the Christian and Muslim Arabs that came to our house. They
all spoke Arabic and laughed and ate and enjoyed each other's company together.
They recalled stories about the "old country." They were all just good friends.
As I got older, my father would tell me many stories about the village and his
life in Ain Arab. Did the Christians and the Muslims sometimes have
differences? Yes of course they did both historically and in my father's
memory. But they worked it out and in the long run, they lived together
harmoniously and respected each other's traditions and religions.
Israel has a lot to learn from the Ain Arab experience. If
you are going to live in harmony with your neighbors, you need to know each
other well and respect each other's traditions and religions. You need to work
out differences in a peaceful and respectful manner.
You can't be arrogant and belligerent and expect friendship
and peace. You must be part of the greater community without trying to control
it or dominate it. And you must treat your neighbors with common respect not
with spite, derision or warfare.
At the end of the Ain Arab reunion, everyone, both the
Muslims and Christians in attendance bowed their heads in prayer for a moment
of silence for all of the victims of the Israeli aggression on Lebanon. And
they also prayed for the Israeli souls that have suffered from the invasion and
war on Lebanon. To quote Hillary Clinton, "It takes a village."
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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Berdikusi dg Santun & Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg
Lebih Baik, in Commonality & Shared Destiny.
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