1870-2007

from the LF forum



* LEBANON DURING 1870*

Lebanon has about 400,000 inhabitants, gathered into more than six hundred
towns, villages and hamlets.

The various religions and sects live together, and practice their
conflicting superstitions in close proximity, but the people do not
coalesce into one homogeneous community, nor do they regard each other
with
fraternal feelings. The Sunnites excommunicate the Shiites; both hate the
Druze, and all three detest the Nusairiyeh. The Maronites have no
particular love for anybody and, in turn, are disliked by all. The Greeks
cannot endure the Greek Catholics - all despise the Jews. And the same
remarks apply to the minor divisions of this land. There is no common bond
of union. Society has no continuous strata underlying it, which can be
opened and worked for the general benefit of all, but an endless number of
dislocated fragments, faults, and dikes, by which the m***** are tilted up
in hopeless confusion, and lie at every conceivable angle of antagonism to
each other. The omnificent Spirit that brooded over primeval chaos can
alone
bring order out of such confusion, and reduce these conflicting elements
into peace and concord.

No other country in the world, I presume, has such a multiplicity of
antagonistic races ; and herein lies the greatest obstacle to any general
and permanent amelioration and improvement of their condition, character,
and prospects. They can never form one united people , never combine for
any important religious or political purpose ; and will therefore remain
weak, incapable of self-government, and exposed to the invasions and
oppressions of foreigners. Thus it has been, is now, and must long
continue
to be a people divided, meted out, and trodden down.


« The Land and the Book »
Written by W.M. Thomson,
Protestant minister,
Published in London in 1870