Address to the nation by His Excellency the President of the Lebanese Republic General Michel Aoun for the occasion of the beginning of the commemoration of the centenary of the Proclamation of the State of Greater Lebanon August 31, 2019
My fellow Lebanese ladies and gentlemen,
I address you today to announce the beginning of the commemoration of the centenary of the Proclamation of the State of Greater Lebanon, which occurred on the 1st of September 1920, in preparation of the kickoff of the celebrations organized on this occasion as of the 1st of January 2020 and till the end of the year.
Why these celebrations? Because this event meant at that time a precious international recognition of the emerging Lebanese entity, and the nucleus for the establishment of Lebanon in its present borders, as a free sovereign nation, for which our ancestors paid enormous sacrifices and suffering.
Amid the events and turmoil that our country went through during the past decades, remembering our history with all its sparkles and suffering is imperative because peoples who forget their history repeat their mistakes, marginalize their role and jeopardize their future.
From 1516 through 1918, four centuries and two years during which Mount Lebanon lived under Ottoman occupation. Despite being distinguished by a kind of autonomy, its people suffered a lot, its political format fluctuated between the Emirate, the twin Qaymaqamat and the Mutassarrifate, and its area and extension changed according to the political circumstances, while the rest of the Lebanese regions remained totally stripped from it, under direct Ottoman rule and divided between the Empire’ regions.
All the attempts of liberation from the Ottoman yoke were countered by violence, killing and stoking sectarian strife. The State terror practiced by the Ottomans against the Lebanese, especially during World War I, caused hundreds of thousands of victims between famine, conscription and forced labor, without omitting the gallows through which they wanted to annihilate the spirit of emancipation and rebellion.
In addition to all that, all the emerging administrative and security organizations and institutions put in place by the Mutassarifate regime were struck after Jamal Pasha revoked them and dismissed Mutassarif Ohannes Pasha.
With the end of that war, the defeat of the Ottomans and the entry of Lebanon under French influence, a new chapter of our history began, with which we reached the Greater Lebanon in 1920 then Independence.
There is no doubt that Mount-Lebanon constituted the very foundation upon which the State of Greater Lebanon rose; in fact, it was the heart that reassembled the whole body after having recovered the regions that were stripped from it.
The Greater Lebanon started to emerge through the administrative, judicial, financial and security institutions and organizations which were put in place by the French authorities to pave the way for the proclamation of the State. Institutions were the sole guarantor of the nation, and the pillars upon which rest the foundations of the strong and potent State.
Today, as we begin to commemorate the proclamation of the Greater Lebanon – for which a Higher committee has been established, charged with the task of organizing it –, I stress the need to grant all the relevant activities a paramount attention in view of giving our young generations a historical and patriotic culture.
Teach them the history of Lebanon. After all, our nation does not give in to occupation or trusteeship, and it is no coincidence that Lebanon, exiguous geographical area, is – amid a wide pluralistic region in terms of peoples, customs and history – a beacon of democracy, a platform for free thinking, a field for the interaction of cultures and a hub for creativity.
Teach them how confessionalism is a destructive disease used by the enemies of the nation every time they wish to strike it. Through it, they gain access to our society and fragment it; our people thus become fuel for internal struggle which leaves behind, time after time, wounds and scars that cannot be healed easily.
Unfortunately, the confessional practices were entrenched in the blood of the Lebanese, the veins of the institutions and the mode of governance; and we have not yet reached a stage of internal understanding and awareness where the law is the guarantor of everybody’s rights equally, with competency as the criterion. This is the ideal occasion to declare, as President of the Republic, my faith in the need to shift from the prevailing confessional system to the secular modern State where belonging is, in the first place, to the nation and not the confessional leaders.
Teach our young generations that national unity preserves the nation, its sovereignty, its security and its prosperity. We must all learn the lessons of the cruel war when the children of the same nation fought for years, each party thinking it was capable of triumphing over the other, marginalizing it, or pushing it into subordination. The dawn of solution and peace only broke when the logic of unity and coexistence prevailed over the strife of division and fragmentation.
Let them learn as well that the survival of nations lies in the persistence of their sovereignty. We say it to the whole world that Lebanon is a peace-loving country that does not seek war, but its people never backed off, and never will, before any attempt to attack the country’s sovereignty or undermine its dignity and territorial integrity.
The blatant Israeli assault on our sovereignty, which took place a few days ago, and the unified rejecting and condemning position by the Lebanese while affirming their legitimate right to defend their country, may be the most eloquent proof of our commitment to the constants that preserve the entity and rights of States.
Lebanon is not a permissible land for anyone, and we would not have come to this centennial celebration had we not proven to everyone that we are capable of forcing the mightiest armies out of our land, preserving our independence and our civilizational vocation.
Teach the new generations that institutions are the cornerstone and immunity of the strong State; if they are gnawed by corruption, what shall we rest upon?
This is the great battle we are waging today, the battle of fighting corruption. Although some may think that we are incapable of achieving it or may push to hamper it, let our youth keep their hope in the future, let them not abandon their nation while it is in ruins due to the collapse of the institutions under the weight of corruption. I say it in confidence: the signs of change and victory in this battle have begun to loom on the horizon.
Teach them that Lebanon is Great, not by its area and geography, but rather by its civilization and values, Great by its role and vocation, and they have to strive hard to keep it Great.
We want the Greater Lebanon to remain – for another hundred years, a thousand years – the country of radiance, freedoms, interaction of civilizations, democracy, creativity and diversity, and the land of faith and heritage.
Finally, teach them that Lebanon, no matter how circumstances fluctuate, shall remain too big to be swallowed and too small to be divided.
Long live Lebanon!