Thread by @oldlevantine

1/ Being Lebanese is loving Lebanon, it is wanting to be Lebanese and nothing else. IT'S THAT SIMPLE!
Being Lebanese is loving Lebanon and not wanting to break it, sully it, bomb it, transform it, Arabize it, Persianize it…

2/ Being Lebanese is being the spawn and total sum of history and geography; it is being the carrier of a body of languages, values, traditions. It is all of that and much more! Being Lebanese is a mode of being, doing, eating, drinking, and speaking;

3/ Being Lebanese is irreverence and impiety thumbing their nose at hateful orthodoxies; it is kindness, openness to the world, hospitality of mind and soul and body. Being Lebanese is Cadmus, Europa, Ulpian, Fakhreddin, Bashir, Gibran, Charles Corm, Nadia Tuéni…

4/ “My country is a covenant,” famously said Europa; “it is light that does not lead astray… It is love; there isn’t rancor in Love… Do not say ‘My Nation’ and overrun the world… We are neighbors and kinfolk to Mankind…” ALL are welcome to partake of this Lebanon!!

5/ But as long as they LOVE it; as long as their aim is to contribute to it, NOT erase it. Closing w/ a paraphrase of #CharlesAznavour; a #FrenchArmenian who was a building block of Frenchness, just like LebaneseArmenians are an awesome stone in the edifice of Lebanese culture:

6/ Être libanais et un choix. On peut bien être né Libanais et ne jamais le devenir, car être libanais est un choix; on le devient ds sa tête, ds son cœur, ds sa manière d’être, ds ses langues et son langage, dans l’abandon d’une grande partie de son être au profit du Liban...

7/ Pour être libanais, il faut le faire ou alors partir...

#Hezbollah is a terrorist organization;
#Lebanon is a colony of #Hezbollah's paymaster Iran;
#MichelAoun is a quisling worse than Pétain;
Time for popular tribunals!