Shlomo revolution in Lebanon

The ¨Ceder revolution¨ in Lebanon has yet been very succesfull. In a period of one month the Lebanese people has reached more than any people in the Middle east or any other place in the world.

We have seen a goverment resign. We have seen an ocupation force withdraw despite all the interest it gains by staying.

We have in the last fews days seen a Lebanese security service`s highly ranked official willing to bring himself to justice if the UN inspections finds him guilty. Three very important things that show how effective a peace opposition can be with help from the free world.

At the same time as this fruitful revolution continues in the Lebanese streets we have since a few years back another kind of revolution. I call it the ¨shlomo revolution¨.

It is not out on the streets where you can see it but inside school classes where every member of the family can be involved.

More and more we are seeing the Lebanese christian people go from being totaly arabised to start looking for their origins and true identity.

Without any help from the goverment every month we see new churches, schools, institues, organisations and universities supporting the teaching of the old languges for the Lebanese christians, the Aramaic/Syriac languages.

The christian people of Lebanon woke up after the war that lasted between 1975-1990 and found themself being different from the other part of the Lebanese population in the war, the muslim arabs.

In the case of the christians they have had had leaders publisized in every institution of the country about their so called ¨christian arab identitiy¨.

The christian youth got finally to know what they always had been feeling but they didn`t know what the real truth was.

>From the 1990:s until today there were many steps taken toward the goal of reaching the people and teaching them about their roots and how much they need to embrace and preserve their history.

The christian social democratic parti of Lebanon that was the only parti during the war openly spreading this ideology had to stop its activities when the Arab baathists of Syria finally got their hands on the heart of Lebanon in 1990. Instead of opening the minds of the people with politics the new direction went to the language of the ancestors of todays Lebanese christian people, the syriac/aramaic language.

Today there are courses in aramaic/syriac for free for all people to attend. I have been in some of them and i must say it is amazing to see the 8 years old girl sitting in the class with the 45 years old man and between them you find teenagers from all universities and people from all levels of the society. The only thing these people have incommon is their love for that identity hidden deep inside them.

The word ¨shlomo¨ has become a symbol for those ambitious people and the concept seems to be winning over more people and the circle is growing.

This movement exists in Lebanon in many shapes and in the parliament elections of 2005 there will be candidates with this kind of ideology background. The main candidate is Toni Nissi in the Metn district.

All around the world there are also many Lebanese organisations working for such goals and we can name some of them like The Aramaic democratic organisation in Sweden and the WLCU ( world lebanese cultural union ) with many sections in all five continents in the world.

 Part Two

 Coming soon