Louis-Noel Harfouche Bar-Levannon is a member of the Knights Templar and an astute, witty, and absolutely fearless Lebanese non-Arab. He has started a new blog, Ecce Libano. Don't miss his incisive and illuminating explanation of Lebanese identity, "Why I Am Not Arab" -- particularly relevant after the Hariri murder.
Bravo, Louis! Let us hear more from you.
Very nice,
"“But why are you not an Arab?” might you ask!
My answer is simply “because I am Lebanese!" Period! "
I am an AMERICAN,"you are what you are".
This website is first-rate and should be useful, not only for non-Muslims but also for all non-Arab Muslims (from Berbers in Paris or the Kabyle, to the descendants of Hindus and Buddhists in the East Indian archipelago) who are beginning to chafe under Arab imperialism.
The only begetter of this website is piercing in his analysis of how islamization was necessarily accompanied by arabization. The indifference or even hostility to, pre-Islamic and non-Islamic civilizations is reflected in what Bernard Lewis refers to as the remarkable "incuriosity" of Muslims about the non-Islamic world (except in regards to military technology, which the Ottomans did get interested in; indeed, the cannons used by Mehmet Fatih in 1453 in the taking of Constantinople were constructed by a Hungarian), and what has even been noted by the Arab authors of a report on the state of Arab Muslim "civilization" to the U.N., where that incuriosity was reflected in the small number of translations made annually into Arabic).
Imagine if, in Europe, as it islamizes through the inexorable effect of Da'wa and demography, that more and more people assume Arabic names, as they did whereever Islam conquered. And imagine, too, that the language of prestige, the language of faith, the language of all government, was Arabic. How many generations would it be before even those clinging to their Christianity or Judaism (most of whom, as well as others who do not have any religious belief, should be booking passage soon) would believe themselves to be "Arabs"? Imagine, in your own family, if your grandchildren took Arab names, even if not embracing Islam. How many generation would it be before they forgot that they were not Arabs?
That is one of the central questions that needs to be raised, and that has not been raised, adn that this website brilliantly raises.
One hopes that those now contenting themselves with the phrase "Christian Arab" will realize that this phrase is, for many of them (and certainly for the Maronites and the Chaldean and Assyrian Christians and the Copts, none of whom are Arab though they may be Arabic-speaking or perhaps more accurately, "Arabic-using") a misnomer. The "son of Lebanon" who writes this website cannot be fooled, and he helps others to define themselves appropriately, and not as their conquerors would have them do.
The first blog is well worth downloading, and digesting slowly.
Thank you both for the plug and kind words.