Khalil Gibran: “Pity The Nation of Lebanon”

The following is a short story and poem taken from:

The Garden of the Prophet.

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Sketch by Kahlil Gibran

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And Almustafa came and found the Garden of his mother and his father, and he entered in and closed the gate that no man might come after him.

And for forty days and forty nights he dwelt alone in that house and that Garden, and none came, not unto the gate, for it was closed, and all the people knew that he would be alone.

And when the forty days and forty nights were ended, Almustafa opened the gate that they might come in.

And there came nine men to be with him in the Garden; three mariners from his  ship; three who had served in the Temple; and three who had been his comrades in play when they were but children together. And these were his disciples.

And on the morning his disciples sat around him, and there were distances and remembrances in his eyes. And that disciple who was called Hafiz, said unto him: “Master, tell us of the city of Orphalese, and of that land wherein you tarried those twelve years.”

And Almustafa was silent and looked away toward the hills and toward the vast ether, and there was a battle in his silence.

Then he said:

My friends and my road-fellows

Pity the nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion,

Pity the nation that wears a cloth it does not weave, eats a bread it does not harvest,

And drinks a wine that flows not from its own wine press.

Pity the nation that acclaims the bully as hero, and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful.

Pity the nation that despises a passion in its dream, yet submits in its awakening.

Pity the nation that raises not its voice save when it walks in a funeral, boasts not except among its ruins, and will rebel not save when its neck is laid between the sword and the block.

Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox, whose philosopher is a juggler, and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking.

Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpetings and farewells him with hootings, only to welcome another with trumpetings again.

Pity the nation whose sages are dumb with years and whose strong men are yet in the cradle.

Pity the nation divided into fragments, each fragment deeming itself a nation.

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Khalil Gibran, The Garden of the Prophet (written 1934)

God in the Class Room?

A Melbourne law firm has begun a legal challenge against the way religion is taught in Victorian government schools.

My question is,  why does religious dogma have to be aired in public schools anyway?  If  families prefer their children to have their own particular religion imparted to them, they have the choice of sending  them to religion specific schools.  If this is not possible for some families, then they ought to teach their children at home, or at the family’s  place of worship.  It just makes more sense.

The claim has been lodged with the Equal Opportunity Commission against the state education department. Lawyer Andrea Tsalamandris says if parents decide they do not want their children to participate in the classes, their children are sometimes left unsupervised.  She says forcing children to opt out of the classes, is discriminatory. “These are young children. They are vulnerable,” she said.  “For them to identify themselves as non-believers and walk out of the classroom is distressing for them and these are the kind of stories we are hearing from the parents.”

Here is an interesting statistic:  While other religious groups – including Jewish, Islamic and Hare Krishna – are accredited to run classes, 96 per cent are taught by Christian education provider Access Ministries, made up of volunteers.

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The following article has been taken from the internet site ‘Fairness of Religion in Schools’ or FIRIS:

When questioned, most parents cite one, or both, of two main areas of concern:

• Special Religious Instruction is instruction, not education. It amounts to the preaching of a particular form of Christianity to our youngest and most impressionable children regardless of the beliefs of their parents or the children’s ethnic or religious backgrounds. SRI is most certainly not, as many have been led to believe, the teaching of comparative religions or religious history.
• The teaching of SRI is often felt by parents as being de facto compulsory. The opt-out provisions play to the politics of exclusion and conscientious objection, something that young children should not be forced to endure. It often appears as intolerant and rigid, quite contrary to most religious and ethical beliefs in the Australian community at large, with its belief in the “fair go”, tolerance and the enjoyment of diversity. All other activities offered at schools are offered to parents as opt in, except for this one. Many parents simply miss the check box to opt their child out, which results in their default attendance.

We regard any instruction of children in matters of faith as a deeply personal matter that families and religious communities should take very seriously. It is not for the Government school system (currently influenced too much by some) to determine what children should be taught to believe about these matters or how and when they are taught it. It is a matter solely for parents and their communities to decide on and administer.

It is simply not good enough, if you conscientiously object to this system by withdrawing your children from SRI, that your children must spend time actively engaged in pencil sharpening or playing computer games while being made to feel they are outsiders.

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Professor Gary Bouma, an Anglican priest at Saint John’s church in East Malvern and the UNESCO chairman in Interreligious and Intercultural Relations, has described the curriculum developed by Access Ministries as appalling. ”Now, unfortunately, most of the Christians out there trying to train the next generation are putting them off with the kind of crap they serve,” he said.

Once every hundred years Jesus of Nazareth meets Jesus of the Christian in the garden among the hills of Lebanon. And they talk long; and each time Jesus of Nazareth goes away saying to Jesus of the Christian, "My friend, I fear we shall never, never agree." - Khalil Gibran

This debate is especially relevent to Australia’s multi-culture, multi-religion, society.  As far as Christian religious instruction goes, many of us still carry within us the fear engendered by Christian dogma about  the devil, fires of hell etc, etc.  Obviously I can’t comment on the other religions, but they too are possibly frightening and perplexing to the uninitiated.

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Jewel Topsfield, Education Editor, says on her internet site 5/04/2011:  Proselytising is supposed to be forbidden in religious education classes, but the accounts of many students suggest it happens. One mother withdrew her children after her six-year-old daughter was taught that families who did not attend church would drown when the second flood came. ”She begged me to start going to church so we wouldn’t die. She was so frightened she had nightmares and her siblings felt the fear too,” the woman said.

Ms Topsfield continues: Unlike New South Wales, which offers ethics classes for students who opt out of scripture classes, Victorian students are not allowed to do other work. They are often forced to sit in the back of the classroom or in corridors or the library. The Victorian Education Department says core curriculum cannot be offered instead because the other students would miss out. In 1872, Victoria became one of the first places in the world to provide free, secular and compulsory education. Instead of upholding this proud tradition, we have allowed our schools to be infiltrated by evangelising volunteers.

I will follow this debate with interest.

See Religion vs Ethics in Schools

&  Access Ministries Want To Access Children’s Minds

Lebanon = Islamic Factions

Kahlil Gibran

Kahlil Gibran wrote of Lebanon  - ‘Pity the nation divided into fragments, each fragment deeming itself a nation’.

(Garden of the Prophet 1934)  (see my post: Lebanon – Pity The nation)

Nothing has changed, it seems. Lebanon is being fought over by Sunnis, Shia,  and Hezbollah.  Some Christian groups are aligned to Hezbollah.   Saudi Arabia jointly with Syria is involved in trying to find a ‘peaceful’ solution.   Iran is “vitally supporting Hezbollah”.   One has to question these three countries’ motives.  Druze is  another group putting in its two cents’ worth.   The Druze carried out massacres of Christian Maronites because of their increasing power, during the times my grandparents lived in Bcharre.  Even Turkey still appears to have a stake in Lebanon.

Jim Muir BBC News, Beirut:

Tensions are rising sharply in Lebanon, amid indications that the international Special Tribunal set up to prosecute the killers of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri may soon issue indictments of members of the militant Shia movement Hezbollah in connection with the case.

Despite the dense dust-clouds already stirred in Lebanon by the tribunal and reactions to it, there are fears that the indictments, if and when they come, could still cause real trouble.  “Nobody knows what is going to happen, but the Shia in general, and Hezbollah in particular, can’t risk being accused, and it is bound to cause tension with the Sunnis,” said the Druze leader, Walid Jumblatt, who recently detached himself from alliance with [current Prime Minister],  Saad Hariri, improved relations with Hezbollah and is trying to stay neutral. “If Hezbollah is indicted, that will affect its image in the Muslim world as the heroic resistance against Israel,” he told the BBC. Mr Jumblatt accused the US and other Western powers of cynically using the tribunal to put pressure on Syria, Iran and others, and of trying to head off a compromise understanding among the Lebanese leaders.

“Whoever technically killed Rafik Hariri, those really responsible were [French President Jacques] Chirac and [US President George [W] Bush, who forced him to accept 1559,” he said, referring to the UN resolution passed in late 2004, just a few months before Mr Hariri’s murder. “It had three clauses in it which amounted to death sentences – the demand for Syrian troops to leave Lebanon, and for Hezbollah and the Palestinians to be disarmed,” Mr Jumblatt said.  “More important than finding out who killed Hariri, the most important thing now is to get out of this vicious circle which brings more tension every day, how to break this crisis between Sunnis and Shia.”

While the Saudis and Syrians are looked to as the most influential outside powers potentially able to foster an understanding and prevent the Lebanese factions taking to the streets again, others are also in a position to try to help. The Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who had a hand in the Saudi-Syrian rapprochement, is currently on a two-day visit to Lebanon. And on Saturday, Prime Minister Hariri visits Tehran, his first such trip to the country that helped establish and still vitally supports Hezbollah.

Tensions have been steadily mounting over recent months as the expected indictments grew imminent, but the situation has been contained by an entente between Saudi Arabia and Syria, who exercise great influence respectively among Lebanon’s Sunnis and Shia.  The Iranian ambassador in Beirut has also been co-ordinating with his Saudi and Syrian counterparts to help keep the peace.

[Trying to keep the peace?  I would love to be a fly on the wall at these meetings].

Lebanese politicians had been hoping that Saudi-Syrian mediation at top level would very soon produce a formula that could be agreed on by the cabinet in Beirut to deal with the repercussions of the expected indictments.  But now there are fears that the Saudi role may fall victim to developments inside the kingdom. The monarch, King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, was flown to the US on Tuesday for medical treatment. He was personally overseeing his country’s rapprochement with Damascus and their joint sponsorship of peace efforts in Lebanon. The king has temporarily assigned his powers to his half-brother, Crown Prince Sultan, who is himself ailing.

Lebanese politicians believe that Prince Sultan and other prominent members of his Sudeiri wing of the ruling family are much less keen on cultivating good relations with Syria.  CBC said its months-long investigation was based on interviews with sources inside the UN inquiry and on documents leaked from the tribunal.

It said that evidence gathered by the Lebanese police and the UN “points overwhelmingly to the fact that the assassins were from Hezbollah”. To back that allegation, it contained detailed diagrams showing how investigators traced interlinking networks of mobile phones which they believed led from the vicinity of the massive explosion which killed Rafik Hariri and 22 others, ultimately to Hezbollah’s communications centre under a hospital in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

The CBC film had a bombshell effect in Lebanon, where it dominated news bulletins and front pages. It also prompted comments from key players, including Prime Minister Hariri and the international tribunal prosecutor.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu even held a meeting of his inner cabinet to discuss the possibility that Hezbollah might stage a coup in Lebanon should some of its adherents be indicted.

On Tuesday, shortly after the CBC documentary was aired, the Lebanese communications minister Sherbel Nahhas (a Christian allied to Hezbollah) gave a three-hour news conference at which he and other officials and experts showed detailed technical evidence which they said indicated Israel had complete penetration of Lebanese communications, to the extent of being able to plant parasite lines within existing lines.

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The country’s telecommunications minister said Israel had penetrated Lebanese telephone lines.

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Hassan Fadlallah, a Hezbollah MP who heads parliament’s communications committee, said three Hezbollah operatives had been detained as suspected Israeli spies until it was realised their mobile phones had been infiltrated. All of this may make it easier for Hezbollah to shrug off possible indictments as Israeli-manipulated falsehoods.

The allegation that Col Wissam al-Hassan fell under suspicion has further muddied the waters. As Rafik Hariri’s chief of protocol, Col Hassan would normally have been in the convoy that was hit by the blast that killed Mr Hariri and his entourage. But he had taken the day off to sit a university exam – an alibi that CBC’s sources said was doubtful, and did not stand up under scrutiny.  But Saad Hariri, questioned by journalists about the allegations, said he had always had full confidence in Col Hassan, and still did.

One of the prime minister’s senior aides went as far as to suggest that both Hezbollah and Col Hassan should sue CBC for libel. Another prominent Hariri supporter, MP Iqab Saqr, said the CBC report should be ignored because it contained “poisoned information, aimed at disturbing the desired settlement”. He said everybody was concerned “not to target Hezbollah politically, while Hezbollah should stop the political assassination of Lebanese”.

With both sides apparently impugning the integrity of the court – or at least the CBC leaks – it almost looked as though there were some common ground between them.

The tribunal itself – or its prosecutor, Canadian judge Daniel Bellemare – took the unusual step of responding to the CBC documentary, saying he was “extremely disappointed” by it and was assessing its impact on the investigation. This was widely seen in Beirut as implicit confirmation that the CBC had indeed sourced its report on genuine tribunal documents and information.

The decision on whether and when to issue draft indictments lies in the hands of prosecutor Bellemare, and it is not clear whether the first step – referring them to the pre-trial judge for confirmation – would be made public.

What a mess!  All I can say is POOR LEBANON, what will become of you. Kahlil Gibran must be turning in his grave.

Lebanon: “Pity The Nation”

Lebanon is dying

‘Pity the nation divided into fragments, each fragment deeming  itself a nation’ - Khalil Gibran.

The above picture illustrates what can happen in a Lebanese street when a fight breaks out over parking space; a four-hour street war leaving three people dead.  Members of  small, well armed private armies roam the streets of Beirut.

Photo from article written by:  Associated Press Writer Elizabeth A. Kennedy

Not only are Lebanese separating themselves from the Arab world, but when asked who we are, we answer with “ana Shia” or “ana Sunni” or “ana Maruni” (meaning I am Shia, I am Sunni, I am Maronite). Within the small country of Lebanon there are around 16 major religions. As if  we could make ourselves any more complex, we specify not only if we are Arab or Phoenician, but what kind of Lebanese we are. This demonstrates how complex it is for some people to just say “Ana Libnani” (meaning I am Lebanese).

The separation within the nation has caused many disputes and countless deaths. Is it really that hard to just say you are Lebanese? – contribution from another blog

See  Understanding the Arab Mind