Lebanese Christians
Sir: One can only hope that the current cease-fire in Lebanon will last a little longer than the eleven or twelve that preceded it, but I have my doubts, first because violence on that scale tends to be self-perpetuating and secondly because of the issues at stake.
What surprises me is the lack of sympathy and understanding shown, in Western Europe, for the Christian side in this conflict. It seems to be taken for granted that the Muslims should get what they want, because they are or claim to be left-wing, because they are in the majority, and perhaps because they represent the "developing" rather than the "developed" world.
Lebanon is a Christian country with a Muslim majority. That is to say, the Muslims are Arabs like the rest of the Arabs from Muscat to Morocco, while the Christians are the authentic Lebanese, descended from the people who were there before the Arab invasions of the seventh century and from the Crusaders who reinforced them 500 years later. They give the country its distinctive character, and have a right to be where they are, even if the others have outbred them.
In many ways their position is similar to that of the Jews in Israel, except that they have maintained a more continuous presence in their own country. The Muslims have twenty countries to choose from, in none of which they are foreigners since the Arabs regard themselves as one-nation. Why should the Maronites not have a land where they are at home and where their culture predominates?
Even if Gemayel and his militiamen incline towards Fascism—and without seeing their election literature! cannot tell — are we entitled to blame them? It is a natural reaction in people who find themselves outnumbered on their home ground, and have to defend their way of life with their backs to the wall. Under those conditions one sees the natural link between blood and soil, and feels that those who are not of the blood should have no part in the soil and certainly no controlling part What should happen next is not so clear. Part of the trouble is that the French, for political reasons, detached some Muslim areas from Syria (in which they had been included under Turkish rule) and added them to the original Mount Lebanon which was unquestionably Christian. These areas, or some of them, should probably be restored to Syria, and at this point some people on either side may wish to move: since there would be more Muslims moving
out of Beirut than Christians moving out of Tripolis, it might be well to offer the Assyrian Christians of Iraq the opportunity of finding a new and more congenial home in Lebanon. In any event 1 do not see any future in trying to establish a "non-confessional" state within the present frontiers of Lebanon, because that state will be 60 per cent Muslim and its legislation will inevitably reflect the fact: Muslims are generallY more Muslim than Christians are Christian, and will try to impose their morality and their lack of social freedom, especially for women and girls. The whole atmosphere will change in a way which the Christians, and especially the middle class, are not prepared to accept.
I think we should show more sympathy towards people who share something of our background and who want to live as Southern Europeans rather than as Arabs. They are fighting for their right to be themselves in their own country. They are not wrong merely because the others have had more children.
Anthony J. C. Kerr 52 Castlegate, Jedburgh, Scotland
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