Thread by @oldlevantine

Thread👇👇
Like my Cilician grandmother's family, Afeyan's took refuge in Lebanon when Lebanon could still brag about being a refuge. #CharlesCorm (the builder of the Armenian "refugee camp" that eventually became Beirut's most industrious and enterprising municipality) wrote

https://twitter.com/JoeIssaElKhoury/status/1354768417128112131

"It is here, in Lebanon, since time immemorial, that every minority, whenever mistreated and whenever abused, elsewhere in the Near East, has found sanctuary, has found safe refuge, from murder and tyranny. Even Druze and Shi’as, even Muslims themselves,

when persecuted by majorities among them, have always found peace, freedom and security, in the shadow of the Lebanon! And so, here are we, us the Armenians, ever since the persecutions of 1875, and during the massacres of Red Abdulhamid, in 1895, then in 1915, and later in

1916, 1917 and 1918, and to this very day [written in 1939?] it is always there, near the hearth of the Lebanese homeland, that a brotherly welcome has been extended to us! Without hesitation, always with devotion, the Lebanese have given their exquisite friendship.

They have given us convents, they have given us churches, they have given us happy hearty homes, mountains impregnable, and lands arable; they have given us charming climes, and beautiful skies; most importantly perhaps, they have given us, unhindered freedom,

to move about and grow! And so, in the embrace of the Lebanon, we shall dwell in the Lord!...."
"But wait, if they are truly who you say the are, their mountain must be cursed! If they open their doors to every new comer, they must be crazy for sure! If they are so generous,

then it must not be long before they become exiles in their own home! [. . .] And if their country is truly a sanctuary, where they truly live their gospels, like wolves the foreigners shall soon put an end to all that! We are better off seeking refuge elsewhere!"

Reread #CharlesCorm's #LesCiliciennes. If you don't find it premonitory, I have to question your reading skills.
Written in 1939 by a visionary who decided to STAY in Lebanon; in a Lebanon that today refuses to honor his memory (and his work) often ceding his legacy to poseurs.