@UnrollHelper
Years ago flying coach with wife to a DC conference, we were seated in aisle & window seats, a distinguished gentle septuagenarian separating us.
Buckled in, my wife & I began talking back & forth in French (how rude) across the classy gentleman sitting between us.

https://twitter.com/tinderella1844/status/1694268087720370377

Classy, dignified, smiling, nodding occasionally, bantering (politely) with the buzzing flight crew running to-and-fro, the crew on this JetBlue flight seemed on familiar terms with this (obviously) frequent flyer, addressing him “Judge,” fretting over him,

Forever young…

I'm old enough to remember her and her Lebanon; pre-War Lebanon of icons like her who had class and grace… people who were decent, clean, principled, genuine… Forces of nature like her, Nadia Tuéni, Evelyne Bustros, May Arida…

https://twitter.com/sanfura40/status/1692815418396688880

I remember old quaint Beirut, the original Martyrs' Square, a veritable human beehive teaming with people, the Automatique, the Grands Magasins Byblos and their regal escalator, the ABC, Cécé--whose owner, a Lebanese Jew and childhood friend of my mother's, was bullied to leave..

1/ This is for you dear @Iyadboustany from June 1920, 3 full months before #GeneralHenriGouraud capitulated to @bkerki & #PatriarchHoyek (may God forgive him insisting on the suicide-pact that was #GreaterLebanon.)
Contrary to what historically-illiterate #PostColonialists say, 2/ France wanted no part of #GreaterLebanon, and long into the eleventh hour, the Quai d'Orsay kept insisting on #PetitLiban. Here's a little snippet from a classified memo #Grouraud sent to the #MAE in June 1920, reflecting France's UNDERSTANDING of #History in the #LongueDurée:

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This is what remains of #CharlesCorm's short lived #AmitiéLibanoPalestinienne; bits and pieces of documents at the #CZArchives in Jerusalem, and an exchange of notes of goodwill like this one to #EliahuEpstein (Eilath) and his wife, "in recognition of [our] friendship" Based on Epstein's recollections and #JewishAgency papers, there is a sizable slice of Lebanese history extirpated from Lebanon's official curricula and doctored up (or suppressed) by the curators of the private papers of Lebanon's "founding fathers." #Corm for instance believed

Excellent must-read essay.
Couple of things I would've worded differently:
1- The Lebanese speak Lebanese period, NOT Lebanese Arabic, just like the French speak French, NOT French Latin;
newlinesmag.com/argument/how-a… 2- Lebanese is a language, NOT a dialect (the word dialect is a statement of power, not observation and NOT analysis);
3- Diglossia is a linguistic situation where two or more languages (NOT necessarily only "varieties of the same language") coexist in a subordinate relationship

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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,

Long, VERY LONG thread👇👇👇:

1- Reflections on yesterday’s storming of the Capitol, and the responsibility borne by the sensationalist inflammatory indecent dishonest Media of the 21st century for those events, their clones, their antecedents, and their aftermath. 2- To be fair, 21st century media are stuck between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand they suffer a paucity of old-style journalists & beat-reporters; on the other hand they face stiff competition & “news” overkill from new forms of media, what the French call GAFTA;

1- In defense of Partition:
France let go of Krak des Chevaliers in 1932. So should Lebanon disabuse itself of the obsession with monuments to Lebanese history, Baalbek, Sour etc, that have gone to the dark side. 100 years of Lebanon has been a failed experiment. Enough! 2- In a letter from Latakié dated April 1, 1931, French Under-Secretary of State for the Fine Arts wrote the following to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs:
“Krak des Chevaliers, precious specimen of France’s military architectural style of 12th and 13th centuries, is left

1- Thread👇
Excerpts of a speech given by General Henri Gouraud in Damascus, June 20, 1920; a Speech-Program" of sorts, meant to guarantee Lebanese sovereignty but also stymie Faysal's "Arab Syria" program. #Maysalun was 34 days later. My grandfather was there, under Gen. Goybet! 2- "Lebanon, with proud traditions & a history all its own, ought to remain free, and shan't be constrained to enter into any regional union. It may wish to be associated economically in a joint customs & monetary regime with a future Syrian federation, but this ought to be

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;

Thread:
LES REVENDICATIONS DU LIBAN
MÉMOIRE DE LA DELEGATION LIBANAISE À LA CONFÉRENCE DE LA PAIX
PARIS, 25 Octobre, 1919
Le Patriarche Maronite, President de la Délégation Libanaise à la Conférence de la Paix, agissant au nom du Gouvernement et du Conseil Administratif du Liban 2/
dont il a le mandat, ainsi qu'au nom des populations des villes et campagne Libanaise ou demandant leur rattachement au Liban... a l'honneur de solliciter de la haute justice de LL. EE. les Plénipotentiaires des Puissances Alliées et associées...:

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1- @NationDuLiban wrote that on this day some 100 years ago the honorable #PatriarchEliasPeterHoyek was busy at work consolidating international support for the establishment of Greater Lebanon. #Hoyek's efforts throughout the 1914-1918 Great War, which devastated Lebanon,

https://twitter.com/nationduliban/status/1285478312085684233

2- and the international support networks that he activated in the run up to the #ParisPeaceConference1919, during the conference itself, and in its aftermath, culminated in the establishment of #GreaterLebanon on September 1, 1920.

In memory of the #ArmenianGenocide, #PonticGenocide #Kafno, #Sayfo, different places, different methods, same anthropogenic extermination campaign
#DeadAreMyPeople, Kahlil Gibran
"Gone are my people, but I exist yet,
Lamenting them in my solitude...
Dead are my friends... and in their Death my life is naught but great
Disaster.
The knolls of my country are submerged
By tears and blood, for my people and
My beloved are gone, and I am here
Living as I did when my people and my
Beloved were enjoying life and the
Bounty of life,

1- There are more serious concerns in our times than discussing dead ideas. Yet, historically, Fascism has struck root, suppressed opposition, & imposed strict intellectual & political regimentation in vulnerable societies at their psychological & economic nadir. #Lebanon today? 2- That is why I wish to briefly weigh in on one such Fascism today; a vicious opportunist; Arabism & its "original sin," & by association its bedfellow Islamism. Namely, I wish to address the phenomenon's original hooliganism, which strikes me as a behavioral mental disorder.

1- This rubric is my humble attempt at blasting out the fallacy about Lebanese being an Arabic dialect. In simple/simplistic terms Lebanese is the result of millennia of heteroglossia & convergence of multiple Semitic & Mediterranean linguistic syntactic & lexical constructions. 2- This of course includes Arabic. But saying that for this reason Lebanese is a dialect of Arabic ignores the language's overwhelming pre-Arabic grammatical and lexical features. It's like saying English is a dialect of Norman French, ignoring its Germanic substrates.

1-“Syria” is a term of disputed etymology. It first appears in Greek, during Classical Antiquity, as a broad geographic designation, later adopted by Roman Administration. After the Arab Conquests of the Near East, “Syria” disappears and is unknown in Arab and Muslim chronicles. 2-The term “Syria” was was excavated and reintroduced in the 19th century by Near Eastern Christians versed in the languages, ideas, and geographic terminologies of Europe, becoming the official name of a new country contrived by the French in the middle of the 20th century.