Comments by "Itinerant Patriot" (@itinerantpatriot1196) on "The Creation of Lebanon After The First World War (Full Documentary)" video.

  1. Interesting. My best friends are Lebanese, at least that's how they would describe themselves. Their grandparents, who emigrated to the U.S. during the troubled times spelled out here never saw themselves as Lebanese. If anything, when asked, they would say they were Assyrian's. In reality, they were Chaldean's, a Christian sect who were being squeezed by all sides at that time. My friends were raised in the Roman Catholic tradition, same as me, but their grandparents saw themselves as aligned with, but not part of, the Vatican Papacy. And that was their real allegiance,. They saw themselves in cultural, not nationalistic terms and never felt a close bond to Lebanon as a nation-state. They would always simply refer to it as the old country and they said it with a tinge of sadness because none of the family ever returned. The story of Lebanon is tragic. It's creation was not thought out properly and the idea that France would protect Christian minorities fell flat. One of the tragedies of drawing arbitrary lines based on old maps is that it has put Lebanon smack dab in the middle of hostile powers and as they go to war to with each other they tend to use the place as a highway. It suffers the same type of problems based on geography that Poland has traditionally endured. I think I would have like to have seen it as it was before WWI. From the stories I heard as a child it was a beautiful region with lots of tress and while there was tension, people mostly got along. Sykes-Picot strikes again. A curse on that fowl agreement between gentlemen.
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