DOCSLIB.ORG

1 Charles Corm

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
1 Charles Corm CHARLES CORM; HUMANIST, ENTREPRENEUR, PATRIOT, POET AN INTELLECTUAL BIOGRAPHY Prologue After many long years of doubt and hesitation, I finally made my way to Beirut. For far too long have I entertained the prospects of writing a biography of Charles Corm. But the Corm Archives had for the past fifty years been an anonymous jumble bolted shut in a Beirut sanctum, and for more than thirty years—and for a variety of personal and security reasons—Beirut had been off limits to me. I’ve had plenty trepidations about going back. But Charles Corm and I go a long way. His literary works have haunted my boyhood and my school days in Lebanon, and as an adult his lure had been tugging at my academic and research track for a number of years. Writing his biography weighed heavily. And so, finally, on the evening of Tuesday July 10, 2012, in an “ivory tower” abutting the Jesuit Université Saint-Joseph and Beirut’s National Museum, in the heart of the Ashrafiyé’s Quartier Nazareth, I came at last to meet Charles Corm (1894-1963.) Being in the Corm family compound, in the home of one of Lebanon’s iconic national figures of the early twentieth century, was like moving in the midst of an aged gallery of memories and cultural artifacts. The home itself was replete with musty heirlooms and echoes of times past, redolent with fragrances and ghosts of Charles Corm, his craft, the bustle of his learned salons, the frenzied animation of his creative endeavors, and the energy and enterprise of his business and commercial ventures. Meeting Charles Corm’s descendants, the curators and “keepers” of this monument to Lebanon’s national 1 memory—and meeting most recently his son Hiram on this very day in July—was like being in the presence of Charles Corm himself; the father, the family patriarch, the child- poet, the entrepreneur, and the chief architect of Lebanese nationalism of the early twentieth century. At first glance the physical resemblance between Charles Corm and his children was striking. Likewise, their mannerisms, language, inflections, and above all their general energy and warmth bespoke a familiar familial flair. Yet Hiram’s likeness to his father was uncanny on a plane quite distinct from that of Charles’s other offspring—namely his eldest son David, whom I have known for a number of years now, and his younger daughter, Virginie, whom I have recently come to meet in Beirut. Peering into Hiram Corm’s prying—almost mischievous—eyes was like touching the very soul of Charles Corm. The likeness was as otherworldly as it was real; one soothing, enchanting, and disconcerting at the same time. Hiram’s gaze radiated a familiar sparkle, at once inquisitive, impish, and gentle, gleaming in the same luster of yellowed sixty- year-old photographs of Charles Corm’s own piercing look. In one’s eyes are revealed all the mysteries of one’s being and the gates to one’s very soul, often mused Charles Corm in his literary compositions.1 Even in his early teens, in vernal essays some might judge too clumsy to be deemed serious literature, Corm had already been overtaken by the 1 See for instance Les Miracles de la Madone aux sept douleurs, (Beirut: Éditions de la Revue Phénicienne, 2010), 83-85, and Contes Érotiques; Variations sur le Mode Sentimental, 1912 (Beirut: Éditions de la Revue Phénicienne, 2011), 14. 2 “power of the eye.” At seventeen, in a letter sent to his mother from aboard the RMS Olympic that was carrying him to New York, a clearly homesick Charles Corm wrote, To my beloved mother: to you I send these kisses, bubbling with affection. Unforgettably etched in my heart, I carry with me a most exquisite image of you, the finest and most delicate of medals hanging from my neck. With me I also carry your smile, a light and subtle fragrance, pervading and embalming the depths of my being. Oh, and your eyes! They are alive within me; they are my sweet and comforting night-light, discrete and devoted, burning softly in the sanctum of the shrine that you have raised in love to our family. Yours, with all of my soul, Charles Corm, 1912.2 Reflecting “the sweetness of a smile,” “the splendors of daytime,” “the secrets of nightfall,” and “cascades of starlight,” all of life’s zest, deliriums, and woes rested in the eyes, according to Corm.3 And now, whether a Providential coincidence or a heaven-sent assent to Corm’s poetic supplications, his progeny came to fully incarnate the ardor and enchantment that he saw and held dear in the human eye—most remarkably perhaps, bestowing upon his children his own sprightly, burning, prurient gaze. 2 Charles Corm Archives, postcard from the Atlantic Ocean, Royal Mail Steamer Olympic, July 20, 2012. It should be noted that this vessel was a transatlantic liner, the “flagship” and namesake of the “White Star Line” triumvirate of “Olymipic-class liners,” which included the Titanic and Britannic. On this trip, Charles Corm would go on to set up shop on Broadway Avenue, where he would eventually learn English, and later meet Henry Form and Fiorello LaGuardia, laying the groundwork to his very successful future business ventures, and eventually a triumphal return to New York City in 1939-1940 to represent Lebanon in the New York World’s Fair of Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. 3 Charles Corm, Les Miracles de L Madone aux Sept Douleurs, (Beirut: Éditions de la Revue Phénicienne, 2010,) 85. 3 In his eulogy of Charles Corm, Lebanese poet Youssef Ghssoub (1893-1972,) a high- school friend of the author’s, described his sharp bewitching eyes as “garrulous tireless sparkles that one cannot interrupt once they begin talking; so you submit to their magic and you listen. […] Even in illness, his captivating eyes lit up his ashen face and filled his sick-man’s bedroom with a healthy glow.”4 Like his ubiquitous eyes, long after he’d been gone, Charles Corm’s very presence remains, and is undeniable in his children, in the lives they lead, and in the memories that they have kept of him, faithfully preserving his legacy and, as it were, holding down the fort he built. Any father would be envious of the special relationship and the evident affection in which these offspring—now in their sixties and seventies—held, and still hold their father. Something magical takes place when these childlike adults begin speaking of their long-departed parent. Even now, some fifty years after his death, none of them (particularly Virginie, in whose arms he had, literally, breathed his last) can recall that evening of September 1963 without welling up with emotion. I knew from the moment I set foot in the Charles Corm Archives that the history of the man that I set out to write was about to become a personal one indeed; a vicariously written posthumous autobiography, recorded through me, evidently, but dictated by a 4 Youssef Ghsoub, Shaarl Qorm; Sawt Lubnaan al-Madwiyy (Charles Corm; The Resounding Voice of Lebanon,) (Beirut: Charles Corm Archives, ND,) manuscript, 1. See also Al-Hikma (Beirut: The Hikma Institute, Volume 11, Number 9, December 1963,) 451. 4 living gallery of recollections and a rich inventory of untapped private papers pining to get parsed. My subject was to be Charles Corm, modern Lebanon’s national poet. It was also to be the cultural and intellectual history of Corm’s Lebanon through his published literary work, his unpublished manuscripts, his unexplored monographs, sketches (and scribbles on Lucky Strikes cigarette wrappings,) and his public, corporate, and commercial correspondence between 1919 and 1963. But what I suddenly had before me was much more than a rich private archive of untouched primary sources; it was much more than manuscripts and collections of cultural and intellectual testimonials that had once been Charles Corm’s life and his craft’s vessel and carriage. My playground was now a veritable living memory of Charles Corm, and a breathing pulsating palpable likeness of his very being, his demeanor, his mindset, and his temperament. Charles Corm died in 1963, but one can still find him hot-shot, exuberant, spirited, engrossed in his craft, engaged and engaging, coming alive in the persons of David and Hiram Corm, and haunting the home he prematurely (and grudgingly) departed. The Fondation Charles Corm cultural center, an archival trust which Corm’s children are currently preparing to house these private collections, ultimately aiming to turn them into the holdings of a research institute and academic foundation, underpin the essence of this biography. Child-Poet and Business Tycoon 5 The eight-story building currently housing the Charles Corm archives had been the family home since the late 1930s. In 1928, it had begun serving as the corporate headquarters of Charles Corm’s Société Générale Industrielle & Commerciale; the Middle East’s Exclusive Ford Motor Company subsidiary, and the region’s largest franchise of car dealerships, auto part warehouses. and agricultural machinery shops. Indeed the famed Maison Blanche de Beyrouth eventually became the corporate nerve center of one of the Levant’s most successful business ventures of the 1920s and 1930s. At its height, Corm’s Société Générale could boast dozens of Ford showrooms, and a number of Firestone, John Deere, and McCormick International Harvester branches, assembly shops, dealerships and distribution centers stretching from Turkey to Transjordan and Palestine, and from Damascus to Baghdad and Teheran. Some of the dealerships were strewn about in forlorn underdeveloped outposts as far afield as Aleppo, Alexandretta, Amman, and Antioch; others were closer to the nearer metropolises of Beirut, Haifa, Jaffa, Jerusalem, Tripoli and Damascus.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Lebanese Christian Nationalism: a Theoretical Analyses of a National Movement
    1 Lebanese Christian nationalism: A theoretical analyses of a national movement A Masters Thesis Presented by Penelope Zogheib To the faculty of the department of Political Science at Northeastern University In partial fulfillment for the degree of Master of Arts in Political Science Northeastern University Boston, MA December, 2013 2 Lebanese Christian nationalism: A theoretical analyses of a national movement by Penelope Zogheib ABSTRACT OF THESIS Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Political Science in the College of Social Sciences and Humanities of Northeastern University December, 2013 3 ABSTRACT OF THESIS This thesis examines the distinctiveness of Lebanese Christian identity, and the creation of two interconnected narratives pre and during the civil war: the secular that rejects Arab nationalism and embraces the Phoenician origins of the Lebanese, and the marriage of the concepts of dying and fighting for the sacred land and faith. This study portrays the Lebanese Christian national movement as a social movement with a national agenda struggling to disseminate its conception of the identity of a country within very diverse and hostile societal settings. I concentrate on the creation process by the ethnic entrepreneurs and their construction of the self-image of the Lebanese Christian and the perception of the "other" in the Arab world. I study the rhetoric of the Christian intelligentsia through an examination of their writings and speeches before, during and after the civil war, and the evolution of that rhetoric along the periods of peace and war. I look at how the image of “us” vs.
    [Show full text]
  • Young Phoenicians” and the Quest for a Lebanese Language: Between Lebanonism, Phoenicianism, and Arabism
    Chapter 4 “Young Phoenicians” and the Quest for a Lebanese Language: between Lebanonism, Phoenicianism, and Arabism Franck Salameh In the context of modern Middle Eastern history, the varied peoples of the “Greater Middle East” are often viewed through simplified notions of “Arab” and “Muslim,” sometimes to the neglect of other, pre-Arab pre-Muslim Middle Easterners otherwise lapsed from the prevalent paradigms on, of, and about the modern Middle East. To non-historians, a century or more of Western aca- demic interest in the region seems to have yielded little beyond clichés and assumptions referring to “‘Arabs,’ ‘Arab’ fears, ‘Arab’ hopes, ‘Arab’ concerns, and ‘Arab’ hang-ups – ‘Arab’ being the emblematic “be all end all” of all matters Middle East.”1 Yet there exists a vibrant and venerable Middle East outside the dominant platitudes about which traditional Middle East scholarship remains largely mute. It is within this context that this paper offers the suggestion that the prevalent assumptions about an essentially Arab (or uniformly Muslim) Middle East be confronted with a more culturally and religiously diverse Middle East. In line with this, this paper focuses on the so-called “Young Phoenicians” in Lebanon who in the early twentieth century put forward another interpreta- tion of the history of the region and of their region, foregrounding non-Arab and non-Muslim interpretations of it. 1 Young Phoenicians, Old Lebanese In Lebanon, the tendency towards valorising and celebrating the longue durée of Middle Eastern history and memory is referred to by the generic term ‘Phoenicianism’. For obvious reasons, from the perspective of the keepers of Arabist orthodoxy Phoenicianism is deemed problematic, because it rel- egates “Arabness” to a period – rather than an essence – of Lebanese history.
    [Show full text]
  • The Promise and Failure of the Zionist-Maronite Relationship, 1920-1948
    The Promise and Failure of the Zionist-Maronite Relationship, 1920-1948 Master’s Thesis Presented to The Faculty of Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Brandeis University Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies Ilan Troen, Graduate Advisor In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Master’s Degree by Scott Abramson February 2012 Acknowledgements I cannot omit the expression of my deepest gratitude to my defense committee, the formidable triumvirate of Professors Troen, Makiya, and Salameh. To register my admiration for these scholars would be to court extravagance (and deplete a printer cartridge), so I shall have to limit myself to this brief tribute of heartfelt thanks. ii ABSTRACT The Promise and Failure of the Zionist-Maronite Relationship, 1920-1948 A thesis presented to the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Brandeis University Waltham, Massachusetts By Scott Abramson Much of the historiography on the intercourse between Palestinian Jews and Lebanese Maronites concerns only the two peoples’ relations in the seventies and eighties. This thesis, in contrast, attempts a departure from this scholarship, joining the handful of other works that chart the history of the Zionist-Maronite relationship in its earliest incarnation. From its inception to its abeyance beginning in 1948, this almost thirty-year relationship was marked by a search of a formal alliance. This thesis, by presenting a panoptical survey of early Zionist-Maronite relations, explores the many dimensions of this pursuit. It details the Zionists and Maronites’ numerous commonalities that made an alliance desirable and apparently possible; it profiles the specific elements among the Zionists and Maronites who sought an entente; it examines each of the measures the two peoples took to this end; and it analyzes why this protracted pursuit ultimately failed.
    [Show full text]
  • Polyglotism and Identity in Modern-Day Lebanon by Sarya Baladi
    Polyglotism and Identity in Modern-Day Lebanon by Sarya Baladi 1. Introduction Lebanon is known as the true meeting place of Middle Eastern, Arab, and European culture, an incredible mix that is illustrated by the unquestionable and unique polyglotism used daily by both the ancient and the modern Lebanese.1 Sélim Abou, a prominent Lebanese philosopher and anthropologist, defines bilingualism in Arabic- French Bilingualism in Lebanon as “the double language through which the subject, individual or group expresses paradoxically his/her/their unique personality. It therefore appears like a cultural experience, specified by the way it affects the bilingual.”2 Modern-day Lebanon, embodying Abou’s definition of bilingualism, is often referred to as a ‘bilingual’ or even ‘trilingual’ country, since the Arabic, French, and English languages are all widely used by the Lebanese. The greeting “Hi! Kifak? Ça va?” is a stereotypical marker of Lebanese linguistic identity as it illustrates the prevalence of this polyglotism and fusion of cultures in the quotidian lives of the people of Lebanon. Polyglotism is usually not a common phenomenon to occur in a given society. It arises from peaceful or violent outside political intervention, bringing with it a new language that is eventually used by the common people. The people of Mount Lebanon originally spoke Syriac and Aramaic languages, but the multiple invasions by and interactions with different conquering powers led to the introduction of modern Lebanese polyglotism. Arabic was brought to the Levant during the spread of Islam through the Arab conquests of the 7th century and has been used in the Middle East ever since.
    [Show full text]
  • Charles Corm
    100 years ago: CHARLES CORM A man of culture, who used a car to establish a country Introduction Built on the slopes of Mount Lebanon, the port city of Beirut has a history dating from prehistoric times, through the Phoenician, Greek, Roman, Islamic and Ottoman periods, primarily as a trading and cultural centre. Under the French mandate in the 1920s, Beirut was known as the ‘Paris of the Middle East’. It was also a major trading gateway, including to Iran. In 1925, a budding Iranian business entrepreneur, Habib Sabet, visited Beirut and expressed “unprecedented excitement” at the sight of such a thriving environment. After a few days, he decided to buy a car, specifically a Ford. Visiting the local dealer, Sabet recalled he was a “respectable and well-mannered poet and scholar, very elegantly dressed, always wearing beige silk shirts and high-quality suits”. Sabet drove the car, a Model T, to Haifa then to Teheran, selling it for twice the purchase price. Not surprisingly, he repeated this exercise a number of times. Habib Sabet credited the Ford dealer as the source of inspiration for his business, one which turned him into a billionaire and one of Iran’s richest men. But who was this Ford dealer described as a poet and scholar? He was Charles Corm, born in 1894, the son of a very famous Lebanese artist who trained at the Rome Academy. Daoud Corm, famous artist and Charles’ father, painting Pope Pius IX The eldest son of Daoud Corm, Charles attended a top university in Beirut run by the Jesuits.
    [Show full text]
  • Salameh / the Levantine Review Volume 1 Number 2 (Fall 2012)
    Salameh / The Levantine Review Volume 1 Number 2 (Fall 2012) LEBANON, IDENTITY, DISLOCATION, AND MEMORY Franck Salameh* Dalia Abdelhady, The Lebanese Diaspora; The Arab Immigrant Experience in Montreal, New York, and Paris (New York and London: New York University Press, 2011), pp. 198, paperback, ISBN 978-0-8147-0734-0 Craig Larkin, Memory and Conflict in Lebanon: Remembering and Forgetting the past (New York and London, Routledge: Taylor&Francis Group, 2012), pp. 226, hardcover, ISBN 978-0-415-58779-2 In Spring 2012, joining an elite cohort of “immortals,”1 Franco-Lebanese novelist Amin Maalouf was inducted into the prestigious Académie Française. Acceding to the Chair vacated in 2009 by renowned anthropologist Claude Lévy-Strauss, who had himself inherited it from philologist Ernest Renan—“another Lebanese at heart” to use Maalouf’s own description—was a nod to a “millennial Franco-Lebanese romance” that many in Lebanon, to this day, still take to heart.2 In his elaborate Académie robes, and donning a ceremonial sword, Maalouf further described his new station as recognition of Lebanese distinction, ecumenism, hybridity and cosmopolitanism. Maalouf’s coat-of-arms combined a Cedrus Libani (a Cedar of Lebanon symbolizing Phoenician kinship, and maritime expansion); a Marianne (France’s national emblem and a symbol of Liberty and Reason); and an image of the “Abduction of Europa” (a Greco-Phoenician allegory of millennial East-West intercourse, in which Maalouf’s Lebanon had played a major role since classical antiquity.) All of these motifs were, to Maalouf, illustrative of diversity, humanism, universalism, and multiple identities; parameters of selfhood that Lebanon had been practicing for millennia.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 Charles Corm; Humanist, Entrepreneur, Patriot, Poet
    CHARLES CORM; HUMANIST, ENTREPRENEUR, PATRIOT, POET: AN INTELLECTUAL BIOGRAPHY Chapter Three Charles Corm’s Lebanon at the 1939 New York World’s Fair We stood, yesterday, in the high-ceiled Lebanon Pavilion, awed by the antiquity of the exhibits. Lovely murals, showing the Phoenicians building the first boats of Cedar; the hill scenes and the places famous in Scripture, slowed our steps and smooth-edged the fuss and fury that comes into the hearts of Marsh-ians. Something in the ageless stare of the white marble statues of the ancient heroes of Lebanon dimmed the immediate greatness of the Great. […] It came to pass, and this was late in the afternoon, that we stood before the Cedars of Lebanon. “These cedars,” said the written legend, “felled by heavy snows, are from the 480 surviving cedar trees of Lebanon, some of which date back to Solomon’s time, 3000 years ago.” We saw them, then as through a mist, and imagination carried us completely out of the World of Tomorrow. […] Presently we were aware of a little man who stood beside us, a little, dried up man, with bright little eyes. […] “These trees,” we translated, “stood on the hills of Lebanon. Solomon may have walked beneath their shade, and Sheba’s Queen.” The little man winked. “Sheba,” he told us in an extraordinarily deep and resonant voice, “did walk beneath them.” […] “Now,” the little man muttered, “therefore command thou that they hew Me cedar trees out of Lebanon.” Never, it suddenly occurred to us, had we heard human voice so rich, so warmly narcotic.
    [Show full text]
  • New Graffiti Sub-Cultures of Beirut, Lebanon Jaime Alyss Holland University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
    University of Arkansas, Fayetteville ScholarWorks@UARK Theses and Dissertations 5-2014 "Beirut Speaks": New Graffiti Sub-Cultures of Beirut, Lebanon Jaime Alyss Holland University of Arkansas, Fayetteville Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd Part of the Near and Middle Eastern Studies Commons, and the Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons Recommended Citation Holland, Jaime Alyss, ""Beirut Speaks": New Graffiti Sub-Cultures of Beirut, Lebanon" (2014). Theses and Dissertations. 2269. http://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd/2269 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UARK. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UARK. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. “Beirut Speaks”: New Graffiti Sub-Cultures of Beirut, Lebanon “Beirut Speaks”: New Graffiti Sub-Cultures of Beirut, Lebanon A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Anthropology By Jaime A. Holland Arkansas State University Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design, 2010 May 2014 University of Arkansas This thesis is approved for recommendation to the Graduate Council. Dr. Ted Swedenburg Thesis Director Dr. Jonathan S. Marion Dr. Kirstin Erickson Committee Member Committee Member ABSTRACT Modern graffiti is an ever-present part of urban space. It has become globalized and has adapted to different environments and social contexts. Today in Beirut, Lebanon a phenomenal street art movement is infiltrating public space. This particular movement questions the common understandings that have constructed Western graffiti artists and graffiti culture for so long. A new group of street artists is working to make the art form more inclusive of Beirut’s many communities by writing messages that speak to the whole of Lebanon.
    [Show full text]
  • Processes of Making and Informing Maronite Identity in Beirut Divin Boutros University of South Carolina - Columbia
    University of South Carolina Scholar Commons Theses and Dissertations 2018 Urban Social Landscapes And Urban Places: Processes Of Making And Informing Maronite Identity In Beirut Divin Boutros University of South Carolina - Columbia Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd Part of the Geography Commons Recommended Citation Boutros, D.(2018). Urban Social Landscapes And Urban Places: Processes Of Making And Informing Maronite Identity In Beirut. (Master's thesis). Retrieved from https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/5011 This Open Access Thesis is brought to you by Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. URBAN SOCIAL LANDSCAPES AND URBAN PLACES: PROCESSES OF MAKING AND INFORMING MARONITE IDENTITY IN BEIRUT by Divin Boutros Bachelor of Arts University of South Carolina, 2015 Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Master of Arts in Geography College of Arts and Sciences University of South Carolina 2018 Accepted by: Amy Mills, Director of Thesis Caroline R. Nagel, Reader Hamid Khan, Reader Cheryl L. Addy, Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School © Copyright by Divin Boutros 2018 All Rights Reserved. ii DEDICATION I dedicate this thesis to my parents who left everything behind in Lebanon to give me and my sister a better life here in the United States of America. I will never express enough gratitude for everything they have done for me and my sister. I can’t even begin to imagine selling my house and business and going across the planet to a place where I don’t even speak the language.
    [Show full text]
  • Charles-Corm-By-Rony-Karam.Pdf
    100 years ago, CHARLES CORM A Man of Culture who used a Car to establish a Country Introduction Built on the slopes of Mount Lebanon, Beirut, a port city has a long history from pre- historic times, through Phoenician, Greek, Roman, Islamic and Ottoman periods, mainly as both a trading and cultural centre. Under the French mandate in the 1920’s, Beirut, was known as the ‘Paris of the Middle East’. It was also a major trading gateway including into Iran. In 1925, an Iranian budding business entrepreneur, Habib Sabet, visited he expressed “unprecedented excitement” at the sight of such a thriving environment. After a few days, he decided to buy a car, specifically a Ford. Visiting the local dealer, Sabet recalled he was a ‘respectable and well-mannered poet and scholar, very elegantly dressed, always wearing beige silk shirts and high-quality suits.’ With this car, Sabet drove to Haifa then to Teheran, selling the Model T for twice the purchase price. Not surprisingly, he repeated this exercise a number of times. Finally, Habib Sabet purchase of a “Tin Lizzie” from Charles Corm, was the inspiration and foundation of his business which turned him into a billionaire and one of Iran’s richest men. But who was the Ford dealer described as a poet and scholar? He was Charles Corm, born in 1894. His father was a very famous Lebanese artist who trained at the Rome Academy Daoud Corm famous Artist, Charles’ father painting Pope Pius IX His eldest son Charles attended a top university in Beirut run by the Jesuits.
    [Show full text]
  • Editor-In-Chief Georges Mghames English Editor Kenneth Mortimer Reporting Tatiana Rouhana Arabic Typing Lydia Zgheïb Photograph
    ndu Issue 55 June 2012 Have the days of good people gone? [1] Where are those once Have the days gone when generosity, reward, sacrifice, and entrusted with the administration of public affairs, serving patience abounded? Have the days of volunteer work gone? public interests, and preserving public security, safety, integrity, Have the days gone when the loyal and devout were willing to and freedom? sacrifice their lives for an ideal? Have the days gone when people cared for their children, raising Where do we stand today in comparison to honest and them, guiding them, and instilling in them moral values, and righteous judges, the wise and brave governor, the perseverant monitoring their friends, behavior, reputation, and activitiess in worker, the informed and educated writer, the merciful and order to reward or punish them? compassionate doctor, and the philanthropist who soothes Have the days gone when teachers were a guiding light and wounds and alleviates pain? a shining example? Have the days gone when teachers once Where do we stand today as composed to those who speak cared and demonstrated concern, were both harsh and kind, eloquently and intensely, those who promise and honor their educated and instructed, and pursued their labor, guided promises, those who do useful and valuable work, those who are by their inner light and deep inspiration, caring only for the creative and innovative… those who create happy kingdoms? good fruits they had sown and basking in the glow of a clear Where do we stand as compared to omnipresent love, common conscience? good, and beauty, the guiding principles of thought? Have the days gone when these institutions of education, which We truly suffer from a lack of respect for Humanity within and were the yeast, the ladder to success, and havens of peace, for God within this Humanity.
    [Show full text]
  • Muqata`Ji System (1842–1861) 24 3 Grandeur and Misery of the Mutasarrifiya (1861–1915) 41 4 Beirut, Capital of Trade and Culture (1820–1918) 52
    A History of Modern Lebanon Traboulsi T02610 00 pre 1 23/04/2012 08:07 Traboulsi T02610 00 pre 2 23/04/2012 08:07 A HISTORY OF MODERN LEBANON Second Edition Fawwaz Traboulsi Traboulsi T02610 00 pre 3 23/04/2012 08:07 First published 2007 Second edition published 2012 by Pluto Press 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA www.plutobooks.com Distributed in the United States of America exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010 Copyright © Fawwaz Traboulsi 2007, 2012 The right of Fawwaz Traboulsi to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 0 7453 3274 1 Paperback Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data applied for This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental standards of the country of origin. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Designed and produced for Pluto Press by Chase Publishing Services Ltd Typeset from disk by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton, England Simultaneously printed digitally by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham, UK and Edwards Bros in the United States of America Traboulsi T02610 00 pre 4 23/04/2012 08:07 Contents List of Maps vi Preface vii Acknowledgements x PART I: OTTOMAN LEBANON 1 The Emirate of Mount
    [Show full text]