Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Some things never change!

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Some things never change!

    I was reading one of the magazines, of which too many I receive, when I saw ads for Lebanon as "The Place to invest". The rationale was that Lebanon's banks had escaped the problems that US and European had encountered. I was looking for verification of this in the magazines on-line version when I came across the following article. You be the judge:

    http://www.forbes.com/2009/02/18/bei...8_lebanon.html

    To be honest I did find this journal presentation brutal. The BBC has a more objective presentation of current affairs in a link as follows:
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_ea...1071.stm#media

    In fact, if one would like some good information about Lebanon, there is no better place to turn than our own CIA organization, see:
    https://www.cia.gov/library/publicat...le.html#Issues

    Who would say that the CIA not serve constructive purposes?
    Last edited by Loup Solitaire; 05-02-2009, 07:50 PM.

  • #2
    This part is true (although, someone should alert the CIA that their page contains a typo):

    "many Christian Lebanese do not identify themselves as Arab but rather as descendents of the ancient Canaanites and prefer to be called Phoenicians"

    That is generally a true statement.

    Interestingly, however, and without giving out too much information: All the members of Daheshville that I personally know of as belonging to the Christian faith (or having been raised Christian) do *not* subscribe to this belief and are proud to consider themselves Arabs.

    There is one thing that many seem to overlook: Arab does not equate a religion. Arab is a culture, a language, and a...mindset, first and foremost.

    A Christian Lebanese may be in denial and consider him or herself as being Phoenician all they want. But if they speak Arabic and love tabbouleh, hummus, baba ghannouj, and rave about falafels (how's that for a bigoted over-generalization) — sorry — they are Arabs.

    Jesus spoke Aramaic, which was a mix of Arabic and Hebrew.

    The Arabic Language predates Islam.
    "Fail, to succeed."

    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by Mario View Post
      This part is true (although, someone should alert the CIA that their page contains a typo):

      "many Christian Lebanese do not identify themselves as Arab but rather as descendents of the ancient Canaanites and prefer to be called Phoenicians"

      That is generally a true statement.
      While it is true that some Christians deny their arab heritage, it should be mentionned that those are the extreme right wing Christians like the phalangists.

      Their claims to be descendents of Phoenicians have no scientific basis but rather stem from a deep seated anti-arab and anti-muslim racism.

      Comment


      • #4
        There are some issues that footnotes, limited by their brevity, can not adequately address. I wonder how the CIA might comment the religious tension in an Arab Irish Catholic Native American household. Then of course we have Barrack Obama born of a Kenyan father to a white girl in Hawaii, then transported around the world to Jakarta, Indonesia to live in an Asian Muslim society at a tender age.

        By comparison my early life was like living in a test tube.

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by ronschaum View Post

          By comparison my early life was like living in a test tube.
          Then again, only God knows what you experienced in other "lives" that made it so in this one..
          "Fail, to succeed."

          Comment

          Working...
          X