Krikor Tersakian

Thomas Paine: Creator of the U.S.A. brand through "Common Sense"

2012-02-08T08:19:00.000-05:00

Thomas Paine, the greatest pamphleteer in history, a hero of both the American and French revolutions and allegedly the first person to write the words "the United States of America," died a penniless drunk in Manhattan. Only six people attended his funeral.
Even after death, Paine couldn't catch a break. Some ten years later, overzealous journalist and Paine fan William Cobbett, exhumed Paine's body and shipped it to England where he hoped to build a proper memorial. Cobbett couldn't raise the money needed, so Paine remained in a trunk in his attic. After Cobbett's death, Paine's remains disappeared. Legend has it that his bones were turned into buttons, though in the 1930s, one woman in Brighton claimed to have his jawbone. Poor Tom Paine!

Thomas Paine (1737-1809), the British writer, activist, publisher and pamphleteer had a very active and influential life in Britain, the American colonies and revolutionary France. When he died in New York, his funeral was attended by only six people, despite the enormous prestige he had during his lifetime. His pamphlet, Common sense, was published January 10, 1776 and was an overwhelming success in the American colonies on the eve of the Revolution: it was widely read and reprinted many times, making Paine a very famous figure and inspiring thinker.

The Age of Revolution generally refers to the period between 1775 and 1848 and was a very complex period in history from the American Revolution to the French and Haitian Revolution and counter revolutions. The earlier Age of Enlightenment had paved the way for radical change, challenging the old established orders. The American Revolution preceded the French by about thirteen years, but both severed the ties with the old regime: secession and independence for the thirteen American colonies from Britain, and the establishment of the sovereignty for the people of France in lieu of the absolute monarchy of Louis XVI in France.

The modern understanding of political thought and dissemination of ideas can trace back its sources to the invention of printing and the “democratization” of printed matter. The Age of the Enlightenment is the era when political thinkers, agitators, dissidents and philosophers could reach a much wider audience with printed books, essays, specialty journals or much shorter pamphlets. It is very easy, in hindsight, to underestimate the power of a few sentences or a few chapters printed in a metropolis. But even a short and well written one page pamphlet can be a very powerful tool in the arsenal of any philosophical or political movement. Abbé Sieyes’ 1789 pamphlet What is the Third Estate? made history by the way it shaped opinions and stimulated thought and reflection. Short, understandable by all classes of society and pointed to a basic syllogism of rational thought: the Third Estate is everything yet represents nothing and wants to become something.

Thomas Paine’s Common Sense was published some fourteen years before Sieyes’ much shorter pamphlet, and its impact was simply overwhelming. On the eve of the American Revolution, any galvanizing effort of public opinion was more than needed and welcomed. Paine was somehow at the right time at the right place: Philadelphia was indeed buzzing with revolutionary activities and was a center stage where the First Continental Congress was eventually held on September 5, 1774, in response to all the coercive or intolerable Acts passed by the British Government on the thirteen colonies.

The public Sphere, the pamphlets and Philadelphia

Late Enlightenment major thinker Emmanuel Kant’s (1724-1804) definition of the public sphere can be summed up as “a place where people are free to write and speak critically”. Opinions, new ideas and rational thinking proliferated enormously during the Enlightenment. The radical ideas of the American revolutionaries would hardly be as popular and a rallying cry for the masses if it was not for the increasing importance of the public sphere by a community of participants. The public, however was directly influenced by the increasingly vast number of publications read in salons, bars, coffee houses, table societies that became “the training ground for critical public reflection” Thus the “private” thoughts and opinions became public, and the resulting cauldron whose transformation during the eighteenth century resulted in the “public sphere” that Jurgen Habermas elaborated in his work The structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. The direct result of these developments was profound, and the press played a fundamental role. Shaping public opinion by private people was now possible, and a writer with a finite and relevant message could become “endowed with authority”beyond anything seen before. Publishing letters, pamphlets, newspapers and books could therefore develop a “political consciousness in the public sphere of civil society, which in opposition to absolute sovereignty, articulated the concept of and demand for general and abstract laws which came to assert itself as public opinion”.

(Photo via www.thomas-paine-friends.org/historical-places.html)

In colonial America, the publishing industry was mainly concentrated in Boston, New York and Philadelphia: three major cities with wage labour economies as opposed to the slave labour plantation economy of the southern colonies. The book trade flourished in the north, and by 1638 the first printer was begun by Stephen Daye and sons in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Philadelphia followed in 1685 and New York in 1693. It is worth mentioning that Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanac was published in Philadelphia between 1732 and 1764). The publishing industry was not easy and often types, equipments and presses had to be imported from England. Nevertheless, publishing in the colonies became increasingly independent from the metropolis, especially reflecting the revolutionary mood and ideas: a plethora of books and publications was being written and disseminated, further exposing the growing socio-economic and political schism between the increasingly prosperous colonies and Great Britain with her obsolete mercantile policies. Book piracy was also growing with the increasing demand for publications, and was also centralized in the aforementioned three major cities. Cheaper pirated publications helped achieve an even wider distribution of ideas. The growth of the number of readers, the establishment of accessible libraries and the decline of censorship in the colonies helped make society even more literate and its active participation in politics more committed and up to date.

The prominent and pioneering role Philadelphia played in American history is not an accident. It was rooted in the origins of the city when William Penn acquired the province of Pennsylvania from King Charles II, as a place where his Quaker followers “could enjoy freedom of worship and a chance to govern themselves and govern their lives” The city was prospering with the Quaker merchants and by the turn of the seventeenth century, it had become a major cultural center and playing a leadership role throughout the Thirteen Colonies. Philadelphia had now the nation’s first free library, first hospital and the first learned society, the American Philosophical society founded by Franklin. The publishing industry was also complemented by the construction of impressive public buildings, such as the Independence Hall. Locally manufactured paper further facilitated the publishing industry, and by 1776 it is estimated that there were “23 printers and newspapers with circulations of from 500 to 3000 copies”. Therefore, the pamphleteering as an art was an essential form of the articulations of these ideas, and Thomas Paine found in Philadelphia a very fertile and hospitable ground for his enormously successful pamphlet, Common Sense.

Thomas Paine became an excise officer in Grantham, Lincolnshire (England) in 1762. In August 1764, he was transferred to Alford, at a salary of £50 per year! Photo via www.thomas-paine-friends.org/historical-places.html

Thomas Paine was born in a Quaker family in Norfolk, England, on January 29, 1786. Early on, he developed a taste for literature and politics and after working a few years with his father, he married the daughter of an excise man and adopted that profession along with other occupations such as grocer and publishing poet. He got involved in some “unwarrantable smuggling practices” and was dismissed. He eventually got a recommendation letter from Benjamin Franklin himself, then the commissioner of the excise in England. Franklin was impressed with Paine’s pamphlet on behalf of officers of the excise “urging an increase of salary for the officers of that body (excise)”. With Franklin encouragement and benediction, Paine left for America and arrived there in early 1775 just before the outbreak of the American Revolution. He got employment with a Philadelphia bookseller called “Aitkins”. He also works as editor of the Pennsylvanian Magazine and starts to write articles to “favorable reception”. This was a time of great importance and rising tensions in the colonies and Paine starts to write Common Sense. The pamphlet was widely advertised and sold for eighteen-pence and was a huge success, as it “struck a string which required but a touch to vibrate”. No copyright was secured and the monetary aspect of the pamphlet was a disaster as debts mounted. The influence of Common Sense, however, was enormous as up to a hundred thousand copies were printed reaching all corners of the colonies that were on the brink of war of secession with England.

Philadelphia skyline in 2012, much changed since 1776!

Was Thomas Paine aware that his pamphlet would be so much influential? Did he realize that it would generate a very widespread debate in the public sphere and help disseminate the revolutionary ideas among the colonial population? Did he anticipate such a meteoric rise to fame and his direct involvement in the subsequent war both as a thinker and as a volunteer with George Washington’s army? In any case, he was catapulted to the forefront of American politics and went on to be known as a Founding Father of the United States of America. His later involvement in the French Revolution and his election to the National Convention and actively participated in the Girondin Constitutional Project to bestow official sovereignty of the Nation solely to the people of France based on the principles of justice and reason.

In the decades preceding the Revolution, Philadelphia was a leading American city, and certainly the most important buzzing point of the American Revolutionaries. The city remains today a major metropolitan center in the American megalopolis, but her importance was even more pronounced when Thomas Paine arrived in early 1775. He was at the right spot at the right time with his ideas and a momentous pamphlet. He was in a prosperous and rebellious city that would host the First Continental Congress and see the delegates to the Second Continental Congress proclaim the Declaration of Independence. Paine was in the eye of the storm and he certainly made the storm more focused and determined.

Plaque in Thetford, England. (photo via www.thomas-paine-friends.org/historical-places.html)

Common Sense was a pamphlet, a genre of publication that has some basic characteristics and was widespread throughout Europe and increasingly around the world with the expansion of colonialism. A pamphlet is rather difficult to define, but it is generally short, straight forward both in topic development and message and written by an individual or an interest group. The idea is to reach out directly to as many readers as possible by conveying a clear and concise idea about a current social or political issue. The message is often clear, but sometimes it must be explained in a few pages before a conclusion is written. With pamphleteering, media and opinion control was no longer the preserve of the authorities or the upper classes. The cost of issuing a short pamphlet was becoming increasingly affordable to many thinkers and their supporters. Dissemination was sometimes crude and disorganized and many pamphlets were simply handed out person to person or stapled like a poster on lampposts or public buildings. An important characteristic of any pamphlet is therefore boldness, clarity, directness and simplicity in order to be easily understood by the general readership.

Thomas Paine Monument located at his farm in New Rochelle, New York was constructed over his empty, robbed and desecrated grave in 1839. The body is missing. Continued vandalism has continued over the years by Paine's detractors as well as souvenir hunters and the structure has been restored several times.(photo via http://www.findagrave.com)

Arguments used by Paine in Common Sense

The Thirteen American Colonies in 1774 were more than a century and a half away from the first settlements of Sir Walter Raleigh’s late sixteenth century Roanoke and Jamestown, Virginia in 1607. By 1774, the eastern coast of the future United States had become a very prosperous series of colonies. The average income of a free colonist was said to surpass that of the average metropolitan Englishman. The economies were increasingly diversified, exports rising despite the applied very strict mercantile policies; the growing sense of alienation from London and pride in the Americanism were growing exponentially, and the Seven Years War 1754-1763 had been a military success for Great Britain.

North American political landscape was heavily changed in favor of Britain as the Treaty of Paris (1763) put a formal end to the Anglo-French hostilities. The American colonies were even stronger, the French presence was quashed, Spain’s presence and claim to the western lands was very shaky. Westbound expansion into Indian territories and beyond was a very tempting prospect for the colonist in search of new lands and untapped riches. But the end of the Seven Years War was also the beginning of the British influence, when the heavily indebted metropolis wanted to impose new legislation to raise money and pay for the war incurred debt. The Thirteen Colonies had other ideas, and the series of Acts, known as Intolerable or Coercive, led to increasingly intense revolutionary mood to cut the umbilical cord with London and seek independence. These Acts had started with the Stamp Act in 1765 and culminated with the Boston Tea Party in December 1773, just a few months before Common Sense was printed and received unprecedented reception. The American Revolution was at its beginnings, and Paine’s Pamphlet became one of the main landmarks inspiring thousands of colonists and convincing them that the only road ahead led to the inevitable Independence.

Thomas Paines' Common sense was published in Philadelphia (Photo via Michael Nassar)

In a nutshell, the Common Sense is an Englishman turned American revolutionary’s strong challenge to both the British monarchy: Thomas Paine, using a very understandable plain language and arguments, boldly makes the case for the outright independence of the American colonies and break from the Metropolis. In the introduction, Paine makes clear that he views government “even in its best state, is but a necessary evil” The pamphlet is composed of an introduction, four chapters and an appendix written by Paine that end with the words “let the names of… a good citizen be heard…supporter of the Rights of Mankind and the Free and Independent States of America”. Therefore the closing argument clearly says that a certain form of government is a must for any country, and the final word is the unabashed call for total independence of the colonies from the motherland, Britain. In between these significant bookmarks, Paine uses a series of arguments based upon observation and closes in on the inevitable conclusion.

In Chapter I Paine puts the emphasis on “the Origin and Design of Government” arguing that governments are essential but their form and essence is crucial in providing a strong government while preserving the “happiness of the governed”. He defends simple forms of governance but rejects the tyrannical simplicity that is represented by the monarchy in the person of the king and his “Arsitocratical tyranny”. He rejects any form of government that does not derive its legitimate from the People, as the King cannot be trusted in his relations with the Commons. The peers (Dukes, Counts, Barons, Earls Etc.) effectively rule without legitimacy and through hereditary system, all the while contributing very little to the overall welfare. Therefore the peers or nobility is identified by Paine as a class that acts against the interests of the common people, while The King lives with little or no real accountability. Real Constitution should be the Constitution of the People and not that of the Government. Paine is convinced that the English Constitution is filled with “errors” and therefore England cannot provide good government to others, which is the American Colonies. This is a powerful argument that discredits Britain and delegitimizes its realm in distant colonies across the Atlantic.

The second chapter entitled Of Monarchy and Hereditary Succession accentuates the author’s virulent attacks on the monarchy. Paine states that the King is paid huge sums of money to do precious little. Moreover, he introduces the fundamental Enlightenment idea of equality of all mankind “being originally equals in the order of creation, the equality could not be destroyed by some subsequent circumstance”Paine does not agree with the very idea of a Monarchy and evokes various Biblical references that even the ancient people, such as the prophet Samuel “expressly disapproves of government by Kings”. Paine thinks that the Scriptures are inherently anti monarchical despite being “very smoothly glossed over in monarchical governments”. Monarchy, Paine believes, is one of the sins of the Jews, but they fell over and over in the same trap for opting for a King. Monarchy, since ancient times have only led to “blood and ashes”. The English have been guilty of the same abuses and errors so common in monarchical systems around the world. Therefore Paine calls for a republic with the real power vested in the House of Commons, as the king has had “little more to do than make war” and give away the hard earned national wealth by impoverishing the nation.

Thereafter, Paine increases his attacks against the British monarchy, by devoting the third chapter of his pamphlet to inevitable creation of an independent America. “The authority of Great Britain over this continent, is a form of government, which sooner or later must have an end” Then he suggests a Constitutional model called the Continental Charter or Charter of the United Colonies, like an American Magna Charta (Carta) fixing the number and manner of choosing members of Congress and Assembly. Paine also raises an ironic question, anticipating that some would ask “but where is the King of America?” He answers that the “king” in fact reigns from above and does not cause havoc like the “Royal Brute of Britain”. This is a very direct, poisonous attack on monarchy, as Paine declares that in any free country the “Law is King” and human monarchs are useless and dangerous. These are very powerful statements coming from a British subject and leave no doubt in the minds of the reader that remaining a colony is not a viable option and that independence must be achieved without delay. Freedom is anathema to monarchy and any freedom lover must hate tyranny and stand up and be counted. He simply declares that America’s moment has come.

New York City (Photo via: Thomas-paine-friends.org/historical-places)

The arguments about the inevitability of the separation between England and America forms the last chapter of the pamphlet, entitled Of the Present Ability of America: with some Miscellaneous Reflection. The economic, military power and the huge potential of the colonies are used as central arguments for independence. Paine argues that the British naval power should not be overestimated and that the Americans can cope with the might of the British military. The future is bright for the colonies and the balance will tip in their favor as they possess an abundance of resources, mines, lumber, iron ore and hemp for shipbuilding and armament. Paine is convinced that the independent colonies will grow stronger by the day and therefore any hesitation to act against the abusive motherland is outside common sense. Moreover, the war of independence will inevitably happen and to expect any mediation or intervention by nations like France and Spain is “unreasonable”.

Paine’s arguments against British rule are sometimes based upon very simple facts and practical observations, understandable by all readers. One example is the idea that the remoteness of the metropolis makes the colonial relationship unnatural and impossible to sustain on the long ruin. He argues that the American colonists should be aware that England is always acting solely in her own imperial interest and in an egotistical way. Therefore, the colonies have no obligation or interest to help the so called “mother country” in her unending wars and conflicts in Europe and elsewhere. Americans should do whatever is in their own interest.

According to Jack Greene, a modern historian, the full significance of the achievements of Paine lies in his contributions in the American and French revolutions somehow taken both together. He claims that Paine was instrumental in the “modernization of political consciousness” Paine had the merit of looking at the present and the future while writing such papers as the Common Sense and the Rights of Man and stress on the human reasons for his arguments and relegating the past to a somehow secondary role. Paine “articulated the social rage of the late eighteenth century world” and used the newly emerging “typographical medium” to spread his message and help bring down the old socio-political order. Greene also emphasizes that Paine had the vision to universalize his message: in Common Sense “the cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind”.

Moreover, Greene believes that Common Sense was important in persuading ‘‘strategic segments of the American political community that independence was desirable and possible objective’’. On that basis alone, Paine could be justifiably take honest pride in considering himself among the founders of a ‘‘new Independent World’’ Greene also argues that Paine went on to become an even more important historical figure in his subsequent political life with the publication of The Rights of Men in February 1791. Common Sense and the Rights of Men greatly contributed to the cause of liberty in both worlds (Europe and the Americas) by helping found a new system of government and get rid of the old order.

            Some argue that without Common Sense, the course of the American Revolution could have been slightly different and that the colonist would probably have felt guilty for advocating independence from the reign of the British monarch George III. Common Sense was a very effective pamphlet, and spoke directly to the colonists, urging them not to waste time or have doubts about their radical looking but necessary anti-colonial militant stance. Paine effectively argued that independence was inevitable; Britain was to blame and the sooner the business of independence is dealt with, the better for the colonies. The American Revolution was not directly sparked by Common Sense, but Paine’s historical pamphlet certainly added urgency, understandable and logical arguments on the road to achieving full Independence from Britain. Paine’s words for man “to be free, it is sufficient that he wills it” sums up the essence of his message. The plaque of Paine’s burial site in New York has a quote from Adam Smith, the second president of the United States: “Without the pen of Paine, the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain”. George Washington himself would later comment on Common Sense as follows: “I find that Common Sense is working a powerful change in the minds of men”. The radical ideas put forward by Paine caused an instant and indelible effect on the masses that directly took part in the American Revolution. It is therefore obvious that the Common Sense was hugely successful because of the message of the pamphlet and also because Thomas Paine was the right time at the right place in Philadelphia just on the eve of the American Revolution. Perfect timing, political turmoil on the eve of the revolution and a flourishing publishing industry in Philadelphia all created the perfect conditions to help disseminate Thomas Paine’s powerful message to receptive readers.
                        A popular nursery rhyme at the time of his death went:
                                        Poor Tom Paine! There he lies:
                                        Nobody laughs and nobody cries
                                       Where he has gone or how he fares
                                       Nobody knows and nobody cares

© Written by Krikor Tersakian, Montreal, 2012

Bibliography

-Evert, Duyckninck. Cyclopaedia of American Literature. New York: Charles Scribner, 1856.

-Foner, Eric. Give me Liberty! New York: Seagull Edition, 2009.

-Greene, Jack. Paine, America, and the “Modernization” of Political Consciousness. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1995.

-Hyland, Gomez & Greensides. The Enlightenment: A sourcebook and Reader. New York: Routledge, 2003.

-Outram, Dorinda. The Enlightenment. Cambridge,U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
-www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1988719_1988728_1988696,00.html

The Irish Great Famine: Official English Attitudes from London

2011-12-15T03:38:00.004-05:00

An Gorta Mór or the Great Irish Famine: A Look from London

It took 150 years for a British Prime Minister to issue a statement on the Irish Potato Famine. Tony Blair's publicly regret and apology came in 1997 at a weekend festival in County Cork to commemorate the Great Famine, which claimed one million lives and caused the immigration of many more. A letter was read out from the Prime Minister in which he blamed "those who governed in London" at the time for the disaster.While the Irish had finally an apology, other victims of mass killings and genocides, such as the Armenians, are still waiting for such late but welcome honesty from the guilty nations. Tony Blair's statement read: "The famine was a defining event in the history of Ireland and Britain. It has left deep scars. That one million people should have died in what was then part of the richest and most powerful nation in the world is something that still causes pain as we reflect on it today. Those who governed in London at the time failed their people."

But what was the official attitude of the British Government toward the Irish during the Famine, and did prejudice play a role in that major human disaster? Was it possible to prevent the massive loss of life and the uprooting of millions if London had acted and felt differently about the victims?

A Famine cemetery from county Cork, Southern Ireland (Photo via Moonhops87)

The Irish Great Famine of 1845-1849 is also known as the “Great Hunger”, implying that there were many human factors and neglect involved in the calamity. The Famine is considered to be one of the major natural disasters of nineteenth century Europe, and certainly the major watershed calamity in Irish history. It was the result of the potato blight (Phytophtora infestans) that decimated the staple food of the Irish people for consecutive years. The resulting food shortage resulted in the death of an estimated million and a half through starvation and disease. Another million emigrated, the population of Ireland dropping from the pre-famine estimates of 8.5 million to barely 6 million by 1850’s.

Severity of the Great Famine was very uneven. Note that the Protestant dominated Ulster around Belfast as well as Dublin were almost famine free, while the heavily Catholic remote areas were devastated.

The British government’s response to the Famine has been a very contentious issue. Many different critical explanations have been formulated qualifying the official policies and actual relief efforts from “inadequate”, “inefficient” to “negligent”. In nationalist narratives, An Gorta Mór is often described as actively or passively “genocidal” both in intent and mismanagement of the calamity. The British government’ relief efforts (or the lack of them) were shaped by various socio- economic principle of the period, such as Laissez-Faire and non interference in the forces of the market. The authorities were thought to be more concerned about the faith of landlords than the fate of the starving masses. These controversial policies were undoubtedly influenced also by the prevailing anti- Irish attitudes held by the authorities and shared by segments of the English public opinion. The letter written by Sir Charles Trevelyan, the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury to R.H. Lord Monteagle in 1846 clearly states that firmly believed that the government was doing everything possible “short of transferring the famine from Ireland to England” and pointed the finger to the morbid habits and social evils of the Irish as roots of the Famine. Such views were supported by influential newspapers in London, such as The Times, echoing Trevelyan and disseminating opinions that the natural catastrophe and the resulting human tragedy were the direct results of the backwardness and primitive lifestyle of the Irish Catholics, and that the Famine could at least finally open the path to a more civilized lifestyle.

Sir Charles Trevelyan, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during the Famine: He was the official ''face'' of the British government's response during the Famine, but his actions and words were very controversial to say the least.

It is important to stress that the pre famine Ireland was not the most peaceful of the places, nor was the Great Famine the only time there were widespread food shortages on the island. The period of 1845-49 however, was surely the most devastating, and came after a long period of great socio political turmoil in modern Irish history: Plantations, appropriations of land, forced expulsions of the Catholics, the Penal Laws, the reforms pushed by the likes of Henry Grattan, the Relief act (1791-92), the rise of sectarianism, agrarian violence and the 1798 failed rising led by the United Irishmen. Ireland was in constant turmoil under British rule and the “glue sticking the Harp to the Crown” was problematic at best for both sides.

The political tensions of the late eighteenth century had culminated in the forced Act of Union between Great Britain and Ireland. The Irish parliament was abolished and Ireland sent representatives to Westminster. January 1, 1801 was therefore a date of enormous importance, when the Act of Union became operative after ‘bribery on a scale such as history has seldom witnessed.[1] Therefore, with the forced Union:

The economy of Ireland was assimilated into the economy of England, the Irish Parliament in Dublin disappeared and the Parliament at Westminster hence forward legislated for both countries. It was as if a marriage between England and Ireland had been celebrated, with the clauses of the Act of Union as the terms of the marriage settlement. [2]

The Act of Union, however, could not end centuries of animosity between the Irish and the colonial power from across the Irish Sea, and pre famine Ireland was generally full of poverty and human suffering, especially in the western and southern counties with pockets of relative prosperity such as in rapidly industrializing Ulster (especially counties Down and Antrim).

Potato Blight fungal disease: Phytophtera infestans

The decades following the Union had been ripe with political developments, especially the thorny issue of catholic emancipation and the Repeal movement. Major gains were achieved, but Ireland was not free and was directly ruled from Westminster and Whitehall. Therefore it is important to underline that during the Famine, counties Mayo, Kerry and Cork were as much part of Great Britain as Kent, Lancashire, Cheshire or Essex. But Ireland was a much different place than England, with a very large peasant cottiers class, a very uneven distribution of land and wealth, political and sectarian- based oppression and centuries of discrimination against the majority Catholics. Corn Laws, tillage and pasturage land management (graziers), the middlemen system, the absentee landlordism were all red flags that would have fatal consequences with the crop failures of 1945-49.

Evicted families ended up in last resort public "workhouses" where many just died.

Pre-famine Ireland, however, offered favorable circumstances for a rapid population growth that had reached a peak of 8.17 millions taken at a census in 1841.[3] It is estimated that 5.5 million or 66 percent of the Irish population was dependant on agriculture[4], which meant a very heavy reliance on potato and a inherent vulnerability to any crop failure. The potato was abundant and full of nourishment when complemented with milk, young couples were marrying earlier and the children were seen as an ‘insurance against destitution in old age’[5] as the Poor Laws came into effect just in 1838, offering a very basic form of charity and welfare to the poorest of the poor. Potato had become the staple food for many, a quasi monoculture that fed millions. Práta,was an easy vegetable to grow with minimal care in Lazy beds by lazy people, or so was the interpretation of many.

The British Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel was responsible for the creation of the Relief Commission in 1831 after many disastrous mini famines. Peel had an “expressed distaste for the jobbery or good-natured slackness of Irish public life, but had a businesslike concern for the condition of the country and its inhabitant”.[6] The Duke of Wellington, an Irish born Protestant, in the summer of 1843 had declared that “Ireland was in no longer in a social state” thus pressuring the prime minister the formation of an exclusively protestant force to deal with the situation.[7]

Desperate digging for inedible potato tubers.

In 1843, the British government felt the strong need to intervene in Ireland and appointed the Devon Commission to improve the fate of Irish peasants. The bill was opposed staunchly, amended and finally dropped. Other measures to help the poor peasants through government programs were also devised and opposed by those who thought that providing relief through public funds was unacceptable.[8] Various public works (new roads etc.) were implemented instead of money handouts, and most of these works were pointless infrastructure projects such as these roads built leading nowhere. Nevertheless, these projects were regarded more preferable than straight charity to a people judged lazy and untrustworthy to the crown.

The potato crop had already proven to be an unreliable crop and it was a known fact that a major failure would be serious enough for England but for Ireland it would be a disaster.[9] When the very alarming news were confirmed that the crop had indeed failed, the British government took steps to find a substitute, imported maize (an acquired taste), lift the duties on flour and oatmeal, regulate exports and open ports for free trade in food.[10] It is therefore obvious that the poor Irish were not masters of their own destiny, and the blame of the decimation of their communities during the Great Famine could not be solely placed on their shoulder.

This was not, however, the opinion of Charles Edward Trevelyan and his administration overseeing the Relief efforts during the Great famine. Trevelyan’s letter to Thomas Spring-Rice Lord Monteagle, is a good indicator of his conservative policies and dubious attitudes. He writes that the relief efforts of his majesty’s government were adequate in insofar as not transfer the “famine from Ireland to England”, despite the fact that hundreds of thousands were starving as he wrote. He reiterated his firm belief in laissez faire, non interventionist and pro-business policies, even in face of the calamity worsening by the day:

The institution of the business of society, it falls to the share of the government to protect the merchant and the agriculturalist in free exercise of their respective employments, but not itself to carry on those employments, and the conditions of a community depends upon the result of the efforts which each member of it makes in his private and individual capacity.[11]

Trevelyan further expressed his opposition to the expressed opinions that the government should do more to help the country in crisis. He clearly stated his opposition to any direct government involvement in such affairs as the “sale of food in every part of Ireland” or “arranging with the tenants the terms on which the rent is to be adjusted”. Trevelyan did not support any micro management of the official response, and relief of the starving poor by public works came as “too little too late and also slow, inefficient and sometimes corrupt”[12] The conservative protectionist policies that had prevailed under Robert Peel were superseded by the Whig Liberal policies under Lord John Russell, Trevelyan remaining at the Treasury until 1859.Trevelyan had also expresses openly racist views about the Great Famine as a deserved punishment from God to a undeserving (Roman Catholic) people:

The judgment of God sent the calamity to teach the Irish a lesson, that calamity must not be too much mitigated. …The real evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the Famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people.[13]

Eviction of a poor ''cottier'' class family by the local authorities on orders from the landlord. The results of such evictions were more misery, starvation, disease or emigration.

A very contentious issue during the Famine was the way the landlords were willing or rather refusing to cooperate with government devised relief schemes. Plans were proposed to improve the land, change the employment act and checking speculation in foodstuff to allow for a sustainable life for the poor cottiers. The government was adamant that the landlords show goodwill and do their fair share but the opposition from the landlords was overwhelmingly negative. Trevelyan’s correspondence with Lord Monteagle, an important landlord, was done within this context, as the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury felt strongly that the landlords “failed to fulfill their obligation”. [14] However, the government’s anti landlord feelings were not necessarily the result of any sympathy for the victims of the hunger. It was rather the result of the firm belief that government intervention must be absolutely minimal and the relief efforts must be executed locally in the communities. Therefore, Trevelyan firmly believed that the Irish people were to blame for their own misfortunes, but that did not prevent him of being openly critical of the landlords and their lack of good will, purely based on economic principles.

Jeanie Johnston Famine Ship in Dublin...

The Times of London, the influential newspaper published an article on 22 September 1846, strongly supporting the non interventionist policies of the government and did not hide its racist attitude towards the Irish. The newspaper firmly rejected any notion that London was responsible. The British government was required to procure subsistence to the peasants but nothing more, ward off starvation, and its duty was to “stimulate others to give employment, not outbid them, or drive them from the labour market”.[15] The Times went even further and put the blame squarely on the Irish peasants’ shoulders: “The Irish peasant has tasted of famine and found that it was good”, hoping to get free manna from the sky. Moreover, the religion of the peasants (Roman Catholicism) holds that “Man shall not labour by the sweat of his brow”.

Quarantine stations at Partridge Island (Saint John, New Brunswick) and at Grosse-Île (Québec, Quebec) were overwhelmed by the arrival of thousands of poor and sick Irish immigrants. Of the nearly 100,000 immigrants who came through Grosse Île in 1847, the plague year, more than half were Irish. At least 5,000 died on the island. Many perished in the immigrant sheds that were their first temporary homes in their new land. Grosse Île is now a National Historic Site commemorating the Irish who landed there during the famine years.

The Times also stated that the Irish were used to laziness, accustomed to potatoes and leeks and that they must change their diet and develop a taste for grains and meat. The Irish must therefore evolve, be less Irish and resemble more the English and the Scots. Likewise, Trevelyan had written that he seeing a bright light shining in the distance through the dark cloud of the famine. Likewise, the Times considered the potato blight as a blessing that will perhaps open the opportunity to the semi savage Irish to become more civilized and avoid future punishments.

Skibbereen mass graves in County Cork (above) and Armenian Genocide memorial in Deir el Zor (Syrian Desert, where hundreds of thousands Armenians marched to their death in 1915): While the Irish have had their very late apology from the British Government's Tony Blair in 1997, the Armenians are still waiting for such a courageous leader to emerge in Ankara.

Trevelyan is depicted by some as a non compassionate racist who let the Irish people suffer and die, a short distance away from all powerful England. It is very likely, however, that he was a “well meaning but officious civil servants with Whig sympathies”[16] carrying zealous economic policies: The relief efforts under his administration proved to be mostly inefficient and too little too late in face of the huge wave of tragedy that was taking place despite all the food imports, soup kitchens and other private and public relief efforts.

The question remains if Trevelyan and the government would have been much more “flexible” in their economic orthodoxy if the Famine was ravaging the countryside in England, Scotland, Wales or even Ulster, rather than the impoverished Catholic Connaught or Kerry. On the other hand, the vindictive and openly racist attitudes such as the ones expressed by the Times were indicative of the period: Very little sympathy or comprehension of the historical facts, the social, economic and political segregation and depravation that the victims and their communities had been subjected to during centuries of English colonial subjugation.

© Krikor Tersakian, Montreal, December, 2011

References:

[1] Cecil Woodham-Smith, (New York : Harper & Row, publishers, 1962. p. 15

[2] ibid, p. 15

[3] Cecil Woodham-Smith, (New York : Harper & Row, publishers, 1962. p.31

[4] R.Dudley Edwards and T.Desmond Williams, The Great Famine, New York: Ny University press, 1957. p. 89

[5] Cecil Woodham-Smith, p. 31.

[6] R.Dudley Edwards and T.Desmond Williams, The Great Famine, New York: Ny University press, 1957. p. 79.

[7] R.Dudley Edwards and T.Desmond Williams,p.79,

[8] It is believed that Daniel O’Connell himself opposed some relief measures, as he feared that any interventionist policies might dilute the power of the Catholic Church in a predominantly Catholic Ireland.

[9] Cecil Woodham-Smith, (New York : Harper & Row, publishers, 1962. p. 39.

[10] Cecil Woodham-Smith, (New York : Harper & Row, publishers, 1962. p. 41

[11] Charles Trevelyan, Letter to Lord Monteagle. (Oct. 9, 1846) in Kissane (ed.), p 51.

[12]University College Cork: Charles Edward Trevelyan: http://multitext.ucc.ie/d/Charles_Edward_Trevelyan

[13] University College Cork: Charles Edward Trevelyan: http://multitext.ucc.ie/d/Charles_Edward_Trevelyan

[14] R.Dudley Edwards and T.Desmond Williams, The Great Famine, New York: Ny University press, 1957. p. 151.

[15] The Times. Indolent preference of the Irish for relief over labour. (Sept.22, 1846), in Gray pages 154-155.

[16] R.Dudley Edwards and T.Desmond Williams, The Great Famine, New York: Ny University press, 1957. p. 215.

Religious Toleration and Dissenters

2011-11-28T21:26:00.000-05:00

Walls of intolerance separating Protestant and Catholic working class communities in Belfast. (photo via changesinlongitude.com)

Religious or ethnic toleration does not mean to agree with any minority. Toleration is the courage or the will to stop any majority in its attempts to crush the minority.

The “Letter Concerning Toleration” (1689) by John Locke was written after centuries of wars, persecutions and intolerance between various Christian denominations in Europe. The letter was published after the protracted and bloody wars of Religion, the Edict of Nantes and the English Act of Toleration, Westphalia. These were all attempts to regulate and bring an acceptable modus vivendi and peace to a divided European society. The major struggles were of course between Catholicism and Reformation churches, but there was also a continuing intolerance toward “non normative”, “heretical” or “dissenting” groups. John Locke belonged to a non Trinitarian sect, was constantly under suspicion, and naturally he was very much in favour of norms and guidelines for toleration under the protective arm of the state.

Dissenting and “heretical” groups have been part and parcel of Christianity from the very early days of Christianity and Christology. John Locke could not have written such a seminal work if he was not himself persecuted and living under extreme pressure, as a non –Trinitarian Socinian in exile in the Low Countries as a victim of intolerance. In those days Holland was, perhaps the only part of Europe “where a man could profess and even express unorthodox opinions without imprisonment or torture”.[1]

Who shall we burn next? Who's the target today?

Heretical or dissenting sects are not the preserve of Christianity. All major world religions have continuously experienced schisms, dissentions and theological disagreements from the group that eventually succeed in mustering the most followers. The majority religion is often a reflection of the governing secular power and its elites or vice versa, facilitating and even inciting intolerance and violence toward the minorities. The Age of Enlightenment was no exception with widespread tensions and war caused by and leading to religious intolerance.

Religious intolerance and violence terrorize more humans than we suspect. A toddler watches in horror the riots in Short Strand Catholic enclave in East Belfast. (Photo via CFP)

Dissenters (with a capital D), were the nonconformist and Free Churchmen[2] in England who “did not conform to the established Church of England (Anglican, after the 16^th century Reformation had reached England through special circumstances during the reign of Henry VIII). They did not belong to the state sanctioned Anglican church (Church of England) and therefore refused the orthodoxy of the religion followed by the majority. Dissenting or splinter groups were not a new phenomenon in seventeenth century Europe, nor were they an exclusively European challenge. From its earliest days, Christianity had an ambiguous start.[3] Christians were themselves considered undesirable by Jews, “a rival twin of unrepentant renegades and tainted heretics”[4]. Shaping of Christianity, as we know it today, was a long, arduous and often a very bloody process. The establishment of what became as the normative or orthodoxy went through endless phases: theological and actual wars of assertion and exclusion between all the tendencies and interpretations of the Scriptures and later “saints”, clergy or philosophers claiming to hold the absolute truth. The very nature of the eventually accepted Scriptures ,which became normative, was a matter of huge debates and struggles in early Christianity and a somehow sloppy process.

John Locke was an Arian Socinian, rejecting the Holy Trinity doctrine of Christian orthodoxy. His theory on Toleration is of capital importance.

In the absence of any absolute authority to decide on the matters, various early theologians and the secular authorities had to literally hand pick and “decide” which gospel or sacred writing would be qualified to be universally accepted as “normative” and which ones would be destined for the dustbin. Many Scriptures or otherwise interesting and valid theological opinions were rejected and discarded. Some texts were modified while others were retained as the “true and acceptable” words of God. The selection process used was arbitrary and greatly influenced by secular powers. The sects or philosophers and their followers that were left out of the emerging orthodoxy did not necessarily die. While the officially approved majority had the very difficult task of keeping “heretics” away, many of these marginalized Christian beliefs survived. On the other hand, the emerging orthodoxy, mostly in Constantinople and to some lesser degree in Rome, had to consolidate and enforce their beliefs through edicts, state intervention, councils and sheer persecution. Inter Christian intolerance was therefore well established by the fourth century.

The Nicene Creed was signed in modern day Iznik near Constantinople in 325 CE. It defined the Holy Trinity and rejected anti-Trinitarianism. The creed is still read today in most churches as affirmation of the form of Christian theology accepted by mainstream "established churches". The picture below is the Creed's version in Armenian, called Havadamk (Հաւատամք, Նիկիական Հանգանակ).

Manichaeism, Arianism, Donatism, Gnosticism Appollinarism, Montanism, Origen, Tertullian, Marcion and various other theological schools were therefore rejected and varying degrees. Their leaders and followers were persecuted during the early period of Christian orthodox consolidation period, especially up to the fifth century. These marginalized groups were excluded by the majority within what became considered and applied as the “accepted” Christology that gave itself rise to Heresiology or the study of the heresies.[5] The resulting intolerance started to became institutionalized and deeply rooted in popular and ecclesiastical behavior. The early ecumenical councils of Nicaea (325 CE), Constantinople (381CE), Council of Ephesus (Nestorian Controversy, 431 CE), Monophysitism and Chalcedon (451) were Empire-sponsored initiatives or machinations designed both by Church and by State, in perfect communion in case of Constantinople. These councils passed legislation and issues creeds and edicts to curb any perceived dissent to the young Christian theology. These attempts to standardize and crystallize the emerging normative theology were necessarily accompanied by fierce denunciation of any dissent with harsh penalties to the guilty groups or leaders.

John Toland:Christianity Not Mysterious (1696) appeared and created even more waves in the restless religious landscape in England.

The theological flood of ideas was overwhelming from all corners of the burgeoning Christian world around the Mare Nostrum, the Mediterranean Sea. Overlapping and diverging views about fundamental issues such as damnation, salvation and Christian were major challenges. Therefore the emerging Christian ultimate reality, social expressions, personal expressions and the ultimate transformation[6] of the swelling number of devotees had to be defined and refined. The definition of the Holy Trinity was probably the major contentious issue that divided the Christian early world. The nature of the Son, the Holy Ghost and their relation to God was never a unifying concept. The final definitions eventually adopted by the ecumenical councils, especially the Nicene Creed, set the standard of what it meant be a ‘real’ Christian and who gets accepted or left out as heretic. Those who do not accept the Nicean Creed and its concept of the Trinity were heretics and practically not even Christians.

Huguenots Protestants fleeing France from La Rochelle port- by Luykens, 1696: Up to 200,000 Huguenots are thought to have fled France in the years after 1685, ending up in places as far afield as North America, South Africa, Germany, Switzerland, Holland and England. (via Gravaud Family)

Anti Hate and Intolerance police task force in Glasgow, Scotland: Can brute force be the answer to stop hate? Can uniformed policemen help stop hate crimes and change attitudes? (Photo via theglaswegian.co.uk)

Arianism was a particularly divisive and unacceptable viewpoint, totally outside the acceptable parameters established by Nicaea. This theological school of thought was named after Arius (250-336), a presbyter from Alexandria (Egypt), then part of the Roman Empire. Arianism is of importance, because it was the philosophy adopted by Locke in varying forms. The teachings attributed to Arius were based on the total rejection of the divine nature of Jesus, and therefore the rejection of the Holy Trinity itself. Arians maintained “that Jesus was a creature, made from ‘nonexistence’ and had not always existed. Hence he was not quite equal to the Father. Jesus/logos was created and therefore could not be God himself and was human”.[7] The bitter rejection process of Arianism through the Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople helped define the major orthodoxy of Christianity that is accepted today by the mainstream Orthodox, Catholic and Reformation churches and their followers.
It is important to note that Arianism never died and was particularly strong in northern Europe with the arrival of the Germanic tribes of Goths and Vandals who adopted Arianism before converting to orthodox Catholicism. Nevertheless, the non Trinitarian doctrines were never completely wiped out until its marginal revival during the sixteenth and seventeenth century both in England and Northern Europe. Arius was eventually excommunicated after a very divisive battle but his ideas somehow thrived and continue to this day under various names such as the various Unitarian Churches.

The Armenian Genocide of 1915 "officially" started around 1895 with the indiscriminate killings and the deportation of Christian Armenian from their ancestral homeland. The Ottoman Empire was in total disarray and defeated during WWI, leading to centrally planned mass executions of the minorities within its sustainable borders (modern Turkey). The unprecedented massacres of around 1.5m Armenians has gone both unpublished and unrecognized by Turkey, the legal inheritor of Ottoman realm. This is a classic case of religious and ethnic intolerance pushed to its most extreme limits.

All those who call themselves Christians “agree that Jesus Christ is pivotal and indispensable to Christianity”: the question is “who Jesus was and is, and just how the moral significance of his life is supposed to be bear”[8] Does any disagreement over Jesus and his divinity enough grounds to exclude and persecute devotees who insist on call themselves Christians? Were Arian Socinian Christians and did they have legitimate claims to belong to the Faith? Divergences within the same family abound, but Trinitarian beliefs were considered to be fundamental and non negotiable to the majority.

Centuries later, the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century was led by Martin Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Knox and others who were to rattle the foundations of the Roman Catholic Church in Western Europe. Major social and political upheaval followed, with the European religious wars theoretically ending with the treaty of Westphalia in 1648. Europe was divided between those remaining loyal to the Pope’s authority and those who embraced some form of Reformed movement. However, finding a new orthodoxy even within the Reform movement and protestantism proved to be as elusive as it had been earlier within the ecumenical Christianity.

All denominations make symbolic but not very fruitful efforts, at least they often do not publicly voice their differences and pray together for inter-faith tolerance. (Photo via http://ivarfjeld.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/ecumenical-guests.jpg)

The religious landscape of Europe in the 17^th century was drastically different from the one that preceded the Reformation. Post- Lutheran Europe was different beyond recognition compared to the days when the Roman Catholic Church was the only acceptable orthodoxy in along with the Orthodox Church in eastern realms. The north European territories had for the most part fallen under Lutheran, Calvinistic, Anglican and other newly established Churches and parted ways with the Papal authority over secular and faith matters. Various dissenting sects, such as the protestant Huguenots in France were persecuted and massacred across the continent in the name of the True Church. However, all Christian denominations shared the same faith in the Nicean, Chalcedonian creeds, council decisions and the ecumenical precepts that made Trintarianism the only normative system, be it Lutheran, Roman Catholic or Calvinist or Puritan. Believing in the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit as three consubstantial elements is the common denominator of all “Christian” churches. Socinians were not welcome in that extended family.

Some are persecuted for their version of the "Bible" or their interpretation of the Scriptures. But which Church can claim to hold the "truest of the truths"? Is there an absolute Truth? Who can punish the other claiming to hold the only absolute truth?

Religious intolerance and persecution towards various Protestant groups came in two basic forms. The first was the persecution by the loyal Catholic powers against their own Protestant minorities, such as the Huguenots in France. The other form of intolerance was the within the wider Protestant movement: persecution of minority “sects” and dissenting views practicing their faith within the Protestant world but outside the Protestant orthodoxy. Minority groups such as Anabaptists, non-Trinitarian, Arminians, English dissenters (including rational dissenters as well as such groups as Presbyterians, Puritans) and newly emerging schools of philosophical thought such as followers of deism and pantheism were all under fire by the religious and secular authorities in Protestant Europe. They were seen nothing short but undesirable heretics by the “established” authorities, such as The Church of England (Anglican Communion). Therefore, toleration or the lack of it, was not a new phenomenon in Europe. The earlier massacres of the Cathars (twelfth century), the Waldensian tragedies and the massacres at Merindol, John Hus, and John Wycliffe were all notable victims of intolerance.

Intolerance continued well into the Age of the Enlightenment, with watershed events that shaped an age where the war of religious ideas was reaching new heights and taking new dimensions, such as atheism and deism. The Socinian Locke was himself exiled to the Low Countries for his safety. John Locke wrote his famous A Letter Concerning Toleration in 1689. He was writing to his friend Limbroch, a Dutch Arminian.

John Locke was born in 1632, educated in Oxford where he received a master’s degree in science and later was admitted to the prestigious Royal Society. He also got a degree in medicine, though he seldom practiced in that field. Locke became the family physician of Earl of Shaftesbury, a man with liberal political ideas.[9] When Lord Shaftesbury fled to Holland in 1682, Locke followed him there in 1683 and remained there until “after the successor, King James II, had been removed by the successful revolution of 1688”. Locke returned to England the following year in 1689. That was also the year A Letter Concerning Toleration was first published. Locke was known to be a Socinian, named after an Italian theologian Faustus Socinus (1539-1604) who rejected orthodox Roman Catholic religious doctrines and espoused Unitarian (non Trinitarian) theology seeing Jesus as fully human.[10] Socinian thoughts were later espoused by an Englishman John Biddle (1615-1662), whose teachings were instrumental in establishing the non Trinitarian doctrine in England in the seventeenth century and of which Locke was a follower.

The major arguments presented by Locke in his Letter were indeed far- reaching. He was not the first person to propose religious toleration, but he was certainly one of the most influential. The Letter was written in a period of intense debate on toleration as well as persecution of dissent under William of Orange. It was clearly written about and in support of the dissenters’ resistance to government imposition of Anglican uniformity and struggle for religious toleration, including civil equality, in Restoration England.[11]

The concept of Holy Trinity is both amazing and controversial. The schema above explains the Who's Who of that complex structure as understood by the Christian orthodoxy that includes Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and most Protestant faiths. Trinity has been the source of many controversies and several sects that were rejected as''heresies'' by the "established" churches.

The situation in England was very volatile in the Restoration (post –Cromwellian) period up till the restoration of Charles II in 1660, up till events that led to the reign of William II of Orange in 1689. There were various dissenting non conformist groups struggling under the Laudian clergy and their “rigid uniformity of religious worship”[12] during the Glorious Revolution: Baptists, Independents, Presbyterians and non conformist Quakers, making up to “ten percent of the national population”. On the other hand, the struggle between the Socinians and the orthodox opponents reached its climax in the 1690’s,[13] the same period that John Toland’s Christianity Not Mysterious (1696) appeared and created even more waves in the restless religious landscape in England.

The Molotov Cocktail ignited by poverty, rage, fear, hatred, desperation, unemployment and plain ignorance. (Photo via abc.net.au)

In Letter Concerning Toleration Locke defines the Church as being a “voluntary Society of Men, joining themselves together of their own accord to worship God”.[14] He stresses the freedom of all individuals to join any church they choose, “as nobody is born a member of any church”. Faith and belonging to a church are not therefore hereditary, nor are they certitude in terms of beliefs they behold and teach. Locke challenges the divine right of bishops or their right to succession, as there are different ways, all acceptable, to worship or organize congregations. He chastises the inventions and falsehoods and interpretations of Priests, “as if they were of Divine Authority”[15] He clearly states that violence should not be used or incited by Church as the clergy have no right to prosecute anyone. The reason given by Locke is an ethical one: joining a Church is a voluntary action and therefore “men do not renounce any of their natural rights” when they become a member of a congregation. The worst a church can do to an unorthodox member is to expel him from membership.[16] The concept of Church infallibility is an important building block in his logic limiting the powers of the church hierarchy and giving to the power and privilege of interpretation of the Holy Scriptures to the reader. In a separate document entitled “Infallibility”, Locke denies the necessity hence the powers grant to any interpreter (clergy). He writes:

Not after so many messengers is necessary to add an interpreter. Therefore it is agreed that it is not necessary to grant there be an Infallible Interpreter of Holy Scriptures in the Church... Besides, disagreements among Christians concerning divine things sufficiently show that there has been no infallible interpreter.[17]

The underlying message is that the clergy is not infallible and therefore the Church has no right whatsoever to persecute anyone who espouses dissenting views. A similar logic is applied to the limitation of powers of civil authorities in religious matters: religion is the preserve of church. Therefore the civil power of the magistrates must stay clear from interfering in places or worship, as long as the Commonwealth is not negatively affected by their behavior. The care of souls does not belong to the Magistrate, because “every man’s Soul belongs unto himself and is to be left unto himself”[18] The argument is to deny the civil authorities the right to prosecute any citizen in matters concerning his soul. Locke concludes by advocating total freedom of any Church from any kind of interference from the Magistrates, and presumably vice versa:

The Magistrates have no Power to impose by his Laws, the use of any Rites and Ceremonies in any Church, so neither has he any power to forbid the use of such rites and ceremonies as are already received, approved and practiced by any Church: because if he did so, he would destroy the church itself, the end of whose institution is only worship God with freedom, after its own matter.[19]

Toleration Gives Way to violence and hatred: Another Republican funeral in Derry, Northern Ireland (Photo via Paul Mcerlane, The Guardian)

Another important component of Locke’s arguments is the limitation of the Church’s power in its relationship with the rules and regulations of the Commonwealth. The Church cannot prohibit anything that the civil law permits in daily lives, while the magistrates must be very careful to restrict themselves to temporal issues as not to overuse their powers and oppress the church “under the pretense of public good”[20] Faith and worship of various sorts must be tolerated as long as they do not infringe on the rights of the neighbours. Locke concludes by stating that “every man may enjoy the same rights that are granted to others”.[21]

The strict separation between the temporal realm of the state and faith- related church jurisdiction produces interesting exceptions. Locke’s far- reaching toleration related arguments have their own restrictive limits and are not extended to everyone. He excludes all Catholics from his large blanket of toleration, because he sees them as untrustworthy because of their allegiance to the secular Papal power. England had a deep running opposition to the Church of Rome since Mary Tudor, “with the fear that the country would fall under the influence of foreign powers if Catholics ascend to power. These fears were somehow justified at the time of the Spanish Armada, but in later years the treat had little substance”[22] In any case the supposed allegiance of all Catholics to papal temporal and secular powers disqualified them from any toleration as suspect and untrustworthy. This was based on the premise that the Pope is the head of a foreign power and therefore potentially “Papists” could be traitors. Catholics lived in England but were believed to consider Rome as their true state. Moreover, Locke disqualifies the atheists along with the Catholics and does not see them worthy of any tolerance.

The views of Locke concerning heresy are particularly interesting and strong. The scope and the “limits of human knowledge being so narrow and the probability of error on speculative matters so great, that we can never know for certain that our religious opinions are correct and all others false and heretical”.[24] Locke explains that heresy is basically a separation made between men of the same religion. He says that when the stronger part or the majority separates itself from the minority with the help of the magistrates, the state can conveniently make anyone guilty of heresy. He defends the viewpoint that the majority does not determine the ultimate or absolute truth, especially when they espouse interpretations and teachings that are not expressly thought by the Scriptures.[25]

Catholics, depicted as crocodiles, not welcome in "Protestant America". Locke did not extend Toleration to Catholics either, arguing that they pledge allegiance to a foreign power, the Vatican.

There is a hint that Locke adopts an anti Cartesian attitude to base his toleration thesis upon, because he argues that “since belief is not under our voluntary control, it is not the sort of thing that can be influenced by threats, coercion or inducements”.[26] Therefore, he thinks that it makes no sense for the majority to prosecute or force people to change their beliefs.

Locke takes a very permissive and liberal view of all non orthodox sects, as the majority or established religions cannot prove that these dissenters are wrong in what they believe. Lutherans, Anabaptist, Calvinists and other sects are all entitled to their opinions, yet Locke does not specifically mention non Trinitarians like himself. Theses minority groups must be totally free to preach their teachings and interpretations directly from Holy Scripture[27], without undue intervention or intolerant action. He obviously dislikes the word “heresy”. Locke also thinks that the word religious “schism” should be avoided, as the ones separating from the larger group may not necessarily be wrong in their interpretation of the Scriptures, the unique source of Christian truth that can be interpreted freely by the faithful. Locke thinks that the real motives behind state-sanctioned intolerance are rooted in ignorance of theology and natural science. A ruler may be able to produce a semblance of outward conformity by prosecuting his subjects out of arrogance, cruelty and love of power. Moreover, persecuting “heretics” for the sake of their own spiritual welfare is sheer hypocrisy.[28]

Therefore Locke sought protection for minorities when persecution and intolerance was rampant. States, he says, are to regulate this temporal world. They cannot and should not save us or regulate our lives through other means such as salvation, dogma and faith. States should secure and enforce laws and regulations that secure liberties of the citizens as well as their earthly properties. It is interesting to deduce that states cannot impose or guide us as to which theological club to adhere to (sect, fringe religious group or the established majority church). This is the prerogative of each person as he or she believes or sees fit, according to his or her inner beliefs. Free exercise of religion is therefore a must to all the Protestant sects

It is important to note that in the Letter, Locke did not refer directly to his Socinian faith. He obviously wrote it as a dissenter, and went as far as discarding the very notion of heresy as a notion, but Socinian or Arianism was not dealt in a direct way. Perhaps this was because of the enormous risks involved if he chose to do so. In a late essay entitled “The Reasonableness of Christianity”(1695) Locke says that he is actually accused of being a Socinian by association or to the least an atheist that shares their views by not openly condemning their “faith”.

Locke seems to deny belonging to the faith by adding a one paragraph later: “I shall leave the Socinians themselves to answer the charges against them, and shall examine the proof of my being Socinian [29]

In The Reasonableness of Christianity, Locke was “silent about Christological and Trinitarian matters” and repeated the aforementioned position that he had never confirmed being a Socinian.[30] He was either very tired or simply afraid to pursue that debate in the public sphere.

Peace of Westphalia (1648) was a short term solution to bloody and most often absurd religious conflicts in Central Europe.

The Toleration professed by Locke is not “perfect by today’s standards, but extends well beyond all the Protestant Christians to other members of Abrahamic religions and beyond. Locke states that neither pagan, nor Mahometan, nor Jew, ought to be excluded from the civil rights of the commonwealth because of his religion”[31]. He basically pleads for toleration of all sects (with the exceptions we discussed above) and the separation of the state and the Church as they will all “suffer one another to go to heaven everyone his own way”. Individual freedoms and the rise of different dissenting sects and faith systems were a challenge to the established normative social orders, highlighted by the innovative ideas and rational thinking fostered by the Age of enlightenment.

The issue of religious toleration or the lack of it dates back to the early centuries of Christology when the normative orthodoxy arose, often violently eliminating the dissenting theologies. Just before the Age of the Enlightenment, the Christian Europe went again through shock waves as the Reformation movement further split Christianity into new normative churches, creating even more marginalized minority groups. Toleration is often described as a necessary evil that must be kept under control. The idea is not necessarily for the majority to agree with a minority, such as dissenters in England or Huguenots in France but rather to force a workable modus vivendi. Toleration does not mean agreeing with the minority, nor does it imply to espouse or condone. It simply meant that the majority does not prosecute, persecute or openly harass those who think or prey differently. The idea that toleration is a virtue is another fallacy. There is virtue in toleration: the virtue of restricting the majority and avoiding unnecessary tension and even bloodshed within a society. Therefore it can be strongly argued that toleration not only avoids tensions, but in fact it beneficial to the society it espouses. In the early days of Christianity, “from Paul to Origen the conviction widely prevails that heresies and dissent were necessary and useful for the construction of orthodoxy”. [32] This early convenient tolerance was unfortunately diluted with passing centuries and the exclusion and intolerance in order to ‘secure the contours’ of the established churches. Religious peace or nonaggression is essential for any political stability, a prerequisite for having the appropriate environment for commerce, travel, expansion and economic prosperity.

[1] John Locke. Dover publication, New York, 1667. p.211,

[2] "Nonconformist." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2011. Web. 08 Oct. 2011. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/417591/Nonconformists>.

[3] Gerard Vallée : The Shaping of Christianity, Pailist Press, New jersey, 1999. page 70

[4] Vallée, 20.

[5] Vallée, 20

[6] Frederick Streng. Nature and Study of Religion, Belmont, Ca, 1985 Chapter 1, page 4

[7] Vallée, 87

[8] Harvey Cox. What is “Christian” – Christianity in the World Today, Concordia University, page 361.

[9] Michael H. Hart. John Locke, 1632-1704, Hart publishing, New York, 1978. p. 261

[10] Faustus Socinus." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2011. Web. 14 Nov. 2011. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/551856/Faustus-Socinus>

[11] James H.Thully. Introduction to a “Letter concerning Toleration”, Hackett Publishing, Indianapolis, Indiana, 1983, p.2

[12] Thully, 2.

[13] Vere Chappelle, The Cambridge Companion to Locke, Cambridge University Press, 1994. page 22.

[14] Locke John: A Letter Concerning Toleration, Hackett Publishing Company, Indiana, U.S.A. 1983.p. 28.

[15] Locke, 29

[16] O’Connor, 212.

[17] John Locke, Writings on Religion, Edited by Victor Nuovo,Clarendon Press, Oxford, UK, 2004. p. 70

[18] Locke, 29

[19] Locke, 41

[20] Locke, 42

[21] Locke 53

[22] O’Connor, 214

[23] Locke, 56

[24] O’Connor, 212

[25] Locke, 57

[26] Nicholas Jolley. Locke: His Philosophical Thought. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, U.K. 1999., page 193

[27] Locke, 58

[28] O’Connor, 212-213

[29] John Locke. Writings on Religion, Edited by Victor Nuovo,Clarendon Press, Oxford, UK, 2004.p. 211-212

[30] Chappell, 184.

[31] Hart, 261

[32] Vallée, 77

Oliver Cromwell: A short Biography and His Influence on Ireland

2011-06-13T10:57:00.033-04:00

Oliver Cromwell, the military leader of the Parliamentary forces during the English Civil War, is considered one of the most important figures in British, Irish and European history. Cromwell was eventually victorious in the establishment of a socio-political system dominated by Parliament in what we call Constitutional Monarchy. Although he was a devout Puritan and staunch anti- Catholic, he is thought to have been relatively tolerant in religious matters but unyielding to any concessions to the absolutist tendencies of the Stuart monarch Charles I.

The Cromwell mural in the Loyalist-Unionist Protestant working class Shankill neighborhood (Belfast). Cromwell is still a very dividing figure and is used in for political shenanigans. The message on the mural and the detail (below) show a deep sense of pride by the Protestants in Cromwell's heavy handed treatment and massacres of Catholics

Cromwell was a military and organizational genius who was catapulted to power through his sheer brilliance as a military leader, ruthlessness and zealous discipline that enabled him to ascend to the highest echelon of power as Lord Protector.Cromwell was born in Huntingdon, England in 1599, and was raised in a period when the country was in the midst of enormous social and religious turmoil with the Reformation, Counter Reformation and all the ensuing aftershocks. He lost his father when only 18 and was forced to look after his family, while gradually immersing himself in the Calvinistic values of Puritanism, but early on he was not a yet a “fully fledged Puritan” as he became later[1]. His religious views shaped his career and showed signs of being extremely subjective, rejecting not only Roman Catholicism, but also criticising Anglicanism and Presbyterianism[2]. He rather preferred to “wrestle with the Scriptures and other revelations of God”.[3] He eventually married the daughter of a London merchant and had nine children, and as a descendant of a minor aristocrat, he inherited some lands and became a farmer.

Cromwellian siege and massacre at Drogheda against the Royalist Confederate forcesin Ireland

Cromwell was elected to Parliament in 1628 when England and Scotland were basically ruled by King Charles I who had very strong monarchical tendencies[4] and even dismissed parliament for very long periods. Moreover, many detractors felt that the King, like some of his Stuart predecessors, was “ill-serving the Protestant cause, deserting the Reformation principles and refusing to confront Most Catholic Spain”[5] and France. As Ian Paisley, the fiery Northern Irish politician said in a 1999 address to the House of Commons in Westminster, referring to the ascent of Cromwell and the political situation of that epoch:

“No one has suffered more by such diabolical treatment than Oliver Cromwell. At the beginning of the seventeenth century our nation was on a steep decline which it seemed would inevitably plunge her into the overwhelming gulf of Rome. The Stuart monarchs were the leaders in that apostasy. Charles I (1625) was more opposed to the Bible and more inclined to tradition and hierarchy than James I (1603), Charles II more so than Charles I, while James I surpassed all his predecessors”.[6]

Cromwell during the battle of Marston Moor in July 2, 1644 (First English civil War)

King Charles I thought that he could rule without the Parliament, but in 1640 he finally ran short of money and convened a New Parliament to raise the funds he needed. Cromwell was also part of this new Parliament, but he was not part of the established aristocracy[7]. He was rather considered a farmer-gentleman who was Puritan in his views. The new Parliament set conditions demanding assurances against any future unilateral and unwarranted action by the monarch. King Charles I, however, was not in a mood to surrender any of his powers to the Parliament and war broke out between the two opposing sides.

The execution of deposed King Charles I, defeated by the Parliamentarian forces under Cromwell

Cromwell’s rise to the leadership of the Parliamentary side was unexpected. Once war broke out, he promptly returned to his hometown to raise a cavalry corps, and it was during the initial phases of the war that he established himself as a force to be reckoned with. His military ability, intensified by his religious fervor, enabled him to play an important role in the battles of Marston Moor (July 2, 1644) and later Naseby (June 14, 1645), which forced the King to abandon war, fall prisoner and pave the way for Cromwell’s ascent to power. A second phase of the civil war soon followed, triggered by the escape of King Charles I and his attempt to reclaim power through more warfare. The ensuing campaigns enabled Cromwell to crush the King’s forces yet again, at the same time fighting and eliminating relatively more moderate forces within the Parliamentary coalition that was opposing his policies. The net result of these events was the execution of the King in January 30, 1649 and proclamation of England as a Republic or “Commonwealth”. The Council of States was the highest body of authority and Cromwell was the chairman.

Oliver Cromwell

England was now under Cromwell’s de facto reign, but the Royalist forces in Scotland and Ireland soon emerged, regrouped and proclaimed their support to the future Charles II, son of the dead King Charles I and his French Queen Catholic Henrietta Maria. The immediate result of these developments was the prompt invasion of Ireland and then Scotland. The Royalists were defeated after these very bloody and controversial campaigns, but in the end, Cromwell still faced an enormous challenge to draft a new constitution and hence resolve the social and especially religious root causes of the War, namely the deep schism that existed between not only Protestants and Catholics, but also within the various Protestant denomination and sects.

This was a less successful phase for Cromwell’s career, as he attempted to rule with a wide support, but was able to hold onto power by the sheer force of the army. He had in fact become a military dictator[8], even though he refused to ascend to the throne himself and remained true to his democratic principles. From 1640 until his death various Parliaments were formed and dissolved proving a very difficult rapport of the existing forces. Cromwell ruled as Lord Protector from 1653to 1658 and is generally credited with rather good governance, and relative religious tolerance, despite his memory as a bloodthirsty zealot. He died in 1658 in London, of malaria and was succeeded briefly by his eldest son Richard[9]. Soon after, Charles II was restored as king but the absolutism was forever gone except in a brief period when James II tried to rule as an absolute monarch but was promptly deposed.

Kilkenny castle in Ireland was the center of Confederate/royalist forces stormed by Cromwell's invading forces. The castle was partly destroyed.

Cromwell arrived in Ireland on 15 August 1649 as Commander –in chief to “enforce the control of Parliament and ensure the progress of the new Protestant land settlement”[10]. He therefore implemented a discriminatory policy of transplantation and expropriation of Catholics. As usual, he firmly believed that he was spreading God’s word and enforcing His message. Cromwell therefore wasted no time to go straight to “what he saw as God’s work both to discipline the Irish, considered a race of savages, practicing Catholicism a “despised and corrupt religion”[11] He immediately launched a series of ruthless attacks with his New Model Army, by sieges and massacres that still divide historians today as to their barbarity and use of disproportionate force. Mass killings and terror from Drogheda (2 September), Wexford (2 October) and the siege of Waterford were all bloody affairs. He stormed Leinster and Munster, forced the surrender of all Protestant forces to abandon the Royalist factions. The Confederate royalist groups were headed by James Butler, Earl of Ormond[12]e, who lost most of his English and Protestant soldiers through desertion and was left with a Catholic core.

Cromwell's death mask

In 1650 Cromwell finally took Kilkenny, the confederate capital that had represented the native Irish and and the Anglo-Norman Catholics, functioning for six years as an independent Irish parliament, the first meeting being held in 1642.[13] Therefore the rebellion that had started in 1641 was crushed in a few months after the slaughter of thousands. Scores of Catholics, even those who were no part of the rebellion were sent to the West Indies as slaves.[14] Cromwell left Ireland on May 26, 1650 to become later Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, but the Ireland he left had changed forever and, but he left behind enough armed forces to enforce and expand his campaign against all opposition with most of the Island under his total control with the fall of Leinster, Munster and Ulster. The final phase of the actual campaign came to an end in 1652 when Galway, in the western Connaught Province, was captured by the Parliamentary forces.[15] Cromwell changed Ireland dramatically all in the name of revenge and religious zeal against the followers of “Popery”: just in matter of land ownership, Catholic- owned lands dropped from 60 percent to about 20, huge areas were decimated and “Connaught became a reservation populated by Catholic gentry”[16], English speaking, Catholic and loyal to the Crown (such as the Sarsfields of Kildare).

Cromwell's statue in London (Westminster Parliament building). He was instrumental in cementing Parliament's supremacy over the Monarchy.

Cromwell died on September 3, 1658 in London and was initially buried at Westminster Abbey. In 1661, after the Restoration of Charles II, a corpse presumably belonging to Cromwell, was exhumed and hung up at Tyburn, where criminals were executed. The head was stuck on a pole on top of Westminster Hall, where it is known to have remained until the end of Charles II’s reign.[17] He was “maligned in life, as he was maligned in death”.[18]

Cromwell's attack and massacre on Drogheda, Ireland (September 1649). Hundreds were executed after their surrender to the Parliament forces, led by Protestants.

Cromwell remains one of the most influential, divisive and somehow misunderstood personalities of British history. He has been described as a “brave bad man”, a “nauseating vagabond”, a “constitutional reformer”, a “regicide”, the winner of the war against absolutism and even a psychopath. [19] He is also seen as a more tolerant reformer than previously thought and possibly the greatest single contributor of constitutional government in England. There is truth in all of the above qualifications, and they all attest to the very complex nature of Cromwell’s character, campaigns, excesses and accomplishments. His statue in front of the Westminster abbey attests to his importance to the political traditions of a Great Britain controlled by Parliament and democratic principles. Furthermore, from an Irish perspective, it is widely agreed that very few men have left their “footprint so deeply imprinted upon Irish history and historiography”[20] as Cromwell. For centuries, the Irish would talk about the “Curse of Cromwell”. Another infamous saying, “Hell or Connaught”, summarizes the intransigent and arguably criminal actions of the Cromwellian politics in Ireland. Cromwell is still a hated figure by most Catholics and Republicans, while he is revered as a great hero, “Lord Protector of the Protestant faith” by loyalist / unionist masses, mostly concentrated in Ulster, off which Northern Ireland was carved. Ian Paisley praises Cromwell as follows:

“Cromwell knew what the Papacy really was about and was prepared to expose it and depose it at every turn... The language of Cromwell today is branded as prejudice and bigotry. Severe lessons will teach us to our cost who is right, the modern leaders in the church and state or the Puritan Colossus of the 17th century... Let me die the death of Cromwell; let my last end be like his”.[21]

Fake smiles as Protestant and Catholic sworn enemies sit side by side: Ian Paisley, a staunch Cromwell worshiping Unionist /Loyalist and Gerry Adams (right), president of Sinn Fein and the facto leader of the I.R.A.

The net and long term results of Cromwellian campaigns were the establishment of a constitutional monarchy, where the monarchs had to be respectful and even subservient to the elected representative body, the Parliament. The other direct influence and impact of Cromwell was that the defeat of absolutism helped pave the way for the French Enlightenment, the American Revolution and other parts of the world[22]. The direct influence of Cromwell has historically been a subject of intense and often very contradicting narratives. Despite the fact that a more balanced history was produced, Cromwell’s record is in Irish history is ‘still inextricably identified with massacre and expropriation’[23].

In any case, Cromwell was a unique personality, from his origins as an obscure and non- aristocrat farmer, to winning the English civil war, ruling England, Ireland and Scotland as a dictatorial ruler as Lord Protector, refusing the crown and the triumph of long lasting principles of Constitutional monarchy with the unquestioned supremacy of Parliament. The legacy of Oliver Cromwell may still be somewhat in dispute, but his enormous achievements and influence are never in doubt.

Bibliography

Durant, Will & Ariel. The Age of Louis XIV: Simon & Schuster, New York, 1963.

Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online Kilkenny. 2011. Web. 12 Jun. 2011.E

Fraser, Antonia. Cromwell, Our Chief of Men: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1997.

Foster, R.F. Modern Ireland 1600-1972: Penguin Books, New York, 1989.

Golway, Terry. “For the cause of Liberty”: Simon & Schuster, New York, 2000.

Hart, Michael. A ranking of the Most Influential: Oliver Cromwell, A&W Publisher, New York, 1978.

Paisley, Ian, Cromwell address: www.ianpaisley.org/article.asp?ArtKey=cromwell

[1] Fraser Antonia, Cromwell our Chief of Men, 23

[2] Ibid, 404

[3] Ibid, 405

[4] Michael Hart, Oliver Cromwell, 258

[5] Paisley, Ian: http://www.ianpaisley.org/article.asp?ArtKey=cromwell

[6] Ibid, http://www.ianpaisley.org/article.asp?ArtKey=cromwell

[7] Michael Hart, Oliver Cromwell, .258-259

[8] Michael Hart, Cromwell, 259

[9] Ibid, Cromwell, 258

[10] Ibid, 101-102

[11] Golway Terry, For the cause of religion, 26

[12] Fraser Antonia, Cromwell our chief or men, 460

[13] http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/317741/Kilkenny

[14] Golway Terry, For the cause of Liberty, 27

[15] http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/224700/Galway

[16] Golway Terry, For the cause of Liberty, 28

[17] <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/143822/Oliver-Cromwell

[18] Paisley Ian, http://www.ianpaisley.org/article.asp?ArtKey=cromwell

[19] http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/143822/Oliver-Cromwell

[20] Foster, R.F. Modern Ireland, 101

[21] Paisley Ian, http://www.ianpaisley.org/article.asp?ArtKey=cromwell

[22] Michael Hart, Cromwell, 259

[23] Foster R.F., Cromwellian Ireland, 101

The intra-Christian violence during the Lebanese civil war (1975-1989)

2011-05-09T08:34:00.013-04:00

photo: iranmilitary.net

The Lebanese civil war was a long and high intensity violent conflict that lasted from 1975 to the early nineties when the Taïf (Saudi Arabia) accords were signed and ratified in 1989. The tiny county of 10453 km^2, once known as the “Paris” of the Near East, still is a powder keg ready to explode in sporadic or sustained violence. The Lebanese civil war was in fact inevitable from the day the French Mandate took over the region known as Greater Syria. They carved a country out of historical Syria to create a homeland tailor -made for their traditional clients, the Christian Catholics called Maronites. The socio-political very complex and archaic system based upon religion that was worked out and survived to post colonial times, contained the seeds of guaranteed and interminable conflict and violence.

A maronite clergyman blessing a Lebanese forces tank before battle

It is very difficult to put a specific date to the end of the Lebanese civil war, but the official start has a very infamous date: April 13, 1975, when the Christian right wing Phalangist militiamen stopped a bus full of Palestinians returning from a celebration and passing through the working class suburb of Ain El Remmaneh. The Phalangist, in retaliation to an earlier attack on Christians, opened fire with automatic firearms, killing the mostly civilian passengers to death. The country was in total chaos and the civil war was “officially” on. The bus attack was the prelude to the indiscriminate attacks, killings and horrible violence.

Broadly speaking, the Lebanese civil war is often thought and described as an inter-sectarian bloody conflict between the mostly right wing Christians, against a coalition of Muslim and leftist forces allied with the P.L.O. The War left hundreds of thousands dead, naturally mostly innocent civilians (no available official figure is possible). A long war, where the conservative Maronites did their best to resist change and fight for their very survival against the mostly Sunni, Druze, Shia and Palestinians. Therefore, “Christian against Muslim” became a common and somehow simplistic description of the Civil War. This narrative, however, disregards the fact that the warring sides were not monolithic or “pure” along ideology and religious lines. In this essay, I will argue that some of the most despicable, unpredictable and yet highly significant violence in Lebanon occurred within the “Christian” camp. These intra-Christian violence left more long lasting political schisms and consequence than say Maronite – Sunni killings, if we are to judge by the political affiliations and coalition of present day Lebanese politics. Old foes like mainstream Sunni and Phalange are now very close allies, while the various Maronite factions attacked by the Phalange are still bitter enemies.

An iconic picture: refugees pleading with the gunmen amid the destruction

I will highlight the intra Christian violence mainly through the life of assassinated President-elect of Lebanon Bashir Gemayel (1947-1982), the son of the Kataeb (Phalanges) party founder and commander in chief of the Phalange- Lebanese Forces until his assassination. Bashir was a charismatic, visionary military and political leader with great conviction and frightening honesty. But he was also very ruthless and violent in achieving his goals. He took over the Phalange militia by late 1977, turned it into a formidable fighting force with the gradually direct and open help of Israel. He forcibly suppressed allied “rival” Maronite armed militias, did not tolerate any dissent outside his rule, attacked and massacred other Christians, fought the Left and Palestinians and dared to challenge the greatest taboo of it all: open and extensive political and military cooperation with Israel. As a direct result, he was elected President of Lebanon on August 23, 1982, while west Beirut was still under Israeli occupation. The P.L.O. was by then defeated and had left Beirut under U.S.A. guarantees, allowing the exile of the Palestinians leadership, cadres and thousands of fedayeen fighters to Tunis. (Fisk, p.609) The P.L.O stayed in Tunis until Arafat was allowed back to the West Bank after the Oslo accords in 1993.

Meanwhile, Bashir Gemayel seemed to have won it all: he had defeated the Lebanese Leftist coalition with Israel’s help, the P.L.O. was expelled, and he had subdued almost all his Christian allies and potential rivals in the territories he controlled with an iron fist. Then the previously unthinkable happened, as the most feared, admired and hated person in the country, Bashir Gemayel was officially elected President of Lebanon. (Fisk, p.329) He was promptly assassinated by a fellow Maronite before being sworn in (September 14, 1982). He still divides opinions sharply but he is respected as a unique personality by friend, foe and victim alike.

As a direct result of his assassination, the Phalangist forces entered West Beirut Palestinian camps and committed the Sabra and Shatila massacres on September 16, 1982 (Fisk, P444-446). Hundreds of unprotected Palestinians were murdered by the angry Christians, under the watchful eyes of Ariel Sharon and the Israeli army who allowed them in the camps (Fisk, p. 360, 372). (note: Bashir was killed by an enemy Maronite, therefore why were Palestinians murdered to avenge his death?).

Bashir Gemayel (Photo: lebaneseforces.com)

Historical background of the Lebanese Christian right to Bashir ascension:

“Part political idealist and part storm trooper, (Bashir) Gemayel, 34, has shown he will use whatever means necessary to achieve his nationalist goals. His supporters argue that Lebanon's dire condition requires just that sort of toughness. Opponents claim that he is a fierce political animal dedicated to narrow sectarian aims”. (Time article, Sept. 1982)

According to British ‘The Independent’ journalist Robert Fisk, the founder of the Lebanese Phalange party Pierre Gemayel openly admitted to him that it was during his participation at the Berlin Olympics of 1936 that he came to fall in love with Fascism. Gemayel was then the Football team captain of Lebanon and as a young Maronite under the French Mandate; he was very impressed by the rigor, strength and discipline of the Nazi youth. “When I was in Berlin, Nazism did not have the reputation which it has now”. (Fisk, p. 65) Gemayel saw appropriate discipline and thought ‘We need discipline in the Middle East’. There was the model to emulate to shape the Lebanese youth. Gemayel insisted he did not care about the Nazi ideology, just the discipline. Consequently, on his return to Lebanon, he founded the political and paramilitary Phalanges party , named after Spain’s General Franco’s Phalanx brigades. Pierre Gemayel was not a Nazi, but a staunch Christian Maronite who considered Lebanon should be part of the Western world and protect the catholic heritage by avoiding any Arab identity. He embraced theories that the Lebanese are descendants of the Phoenicians, Byzantine, and Levantine etc. In short, Lebanese Christians were anything but “Arab”. These views were of course not very absurd and were accepted by many other (but not all) Christians. However, the message was delivered often in a radical and isolationist rhetoric, pointing to an Arab discrimination from a minority! In sharp opposition to this Maronite rejectionist ideology, the Greek Orthodox (descendants of the pre-Arab conquest Byzantine Empire), and even the Greek Catholic have always been more moderate and accommodating to their immediate Arab environment. Some of the essential root causes of Intra Christian conflict can be traced to the tensions between the staunchly ultramontanist (papist) Maronites and the other Christians who beg to disagree and keep their proud historical roots in the Near East, not Europe.

The Kataeb (Phalange) party founder Pierre Gemayel with sons Amin and Bashir. Amin was elected President of the Republic upon the assassination of his brother Bashir in 1982.

The Phalange party grew stronger throughout the post WW2 era. It was the main pro-government force when pro-Nasserite Arabist opposition tried to topple the Government of Camille Chamoun in 1958, a short and bloody of the 1975 civil war. That conflict had once again opposed West-looking Maronites to the Leftist coalition that included many Christians. The Christians in the opposition thought that Lebanon was set up as a Maronite protectorate, a remnant of the colonial system and that Lebanon must take a more balanced view towards the Arab world and revise the religion based political system favouring the Maronites. The 1958 mini civil war was “resolved” by the landing of U.S. Marines to the shores of Beirut. The ‘Eisenhower doctrine’ of direct military support against any “communist” takeover threat around the world was in full force (Fisk, p. 71). Meanwhile, large numbers of innocent civilians were killed in blind sectarian executions and street fighting before the arrival of the western “peacekeepers”.

The removal of the P.L.O. from Jordan after King Hussein defeated the Palestinian guerrilla changed the situation dramatically in Lebanon. Arafat and thousands of fighters fled to Beirut where they swelled the refugee camps that were set after the 1948 al-Nakba. The arrival of these heavily armed Palestinian groups set the stage for a round of clashes with the Maronite controlled Lebanese National Army in 1971. The mostly Lebanese Sunni opposition saw the arrival of the P.L.O. as a major boost to their chances to upset the status quo in their favour: Palestinians are mostly Muslims; therefore, they would surely support the local Sunni insurgency against the State in case of a war with the “Christians”. The pre- civil war rhetoric started to shape up. For the leftist media, the Christians became “Zionist agents”, “fascists” and “isolationists”, surely in reference to the roots of the Phalange in the 1930’s for their opposition to the P.L.O and political change.

photo: iranmilitary.net

When the Civil War broke in 1975, the Lebanese Army stayed on the sidelines for a while then was paralyzed and split into several factions along religious lines. The Phalange filled the vacuum and very quickly became the de-facto government force in the Christian heartland along with Presidents Chamoun and Franjieh private militia in Beirut and in the North while the civil war escalated in 1975-76. In fact, the Christians would have been comprehensively defeated early on if not for the intervention of the Syrian Army. Syrian President Assad, himself a member of a minority group (Alawite) would not tolerate a defeat of the Christians and a P.L.O. victory / takeover of Lebanon. He promptly sent his tanks across the border to stop the Palestinians who had advanced and had appeared on the slopes of Mount Sannine, ready to overtake the Christian heartland in 1976 (Fisk, p. 81). Syrian military intervention saved the Christian heartland, paved the way for the emergence of Bashir Gemayel and definitely discredited the Phalangist / right wing historical arguments that the “Arabs are constantly plotting to destroy the Christians”.

By 1977 Bashir gradually consolidated his control of his father’s Phalange militia and then ruthlessly “unified” all the militant Christian right. He killed and alienated many by his extreme agenda and bloody hands. He succeeded in becoming the de facto ruler by the sword, shrewd leadership, directness, honesty. Because of the Israeli invasion, he was now president-elect, suddenly a great national hero for most Lebanese. This very fine line between a mass murderer and a national hero is often observed throughout history. Days before he was sworn in as President, President elect Bashir Gemayel was promptly assassinated by a fellow Christian Maronite opposed to his right wing policies. The rise and fall of Bashir are the mirror image of the difficult battle of survival of the Christians in their tiny country. It also highlights the unprecedented violence directed toward fellow Christians, a phenomenon practically absent in the Muslim and leftist camp.

Just one week before Bashir’s death, Time magazine published an article in 1982 entitled “Gemayel: Ruthless idealist” (Appendix I). This short article captures the essence of Bashir’s very violent trajectory and his propensity to use limitless force against fellow Christian rivals and allies to achieve a power in the name of preserving the Maronite country called Lebanon. His hatred towards the Palestinian armed presence in Lebanon and Nasser-style Arabism was matched by his intolerance of fellow Christians that did not share his views. The Time article summarizes all the paradoxes of a violent yet idealistic leader, just days before his assassination along with 23 of his comrades by a bomb planted just the floor above where he was having a meeting. It is telling that only a fellow Christian like Habib Shartouni could have access to such a secure building in the Ashrafieh Christian heartland of Beirut, the apartment of the assassin’s sister conveniently located for the purpose. Time sums it up best Bashir as “the man who lives by the sword”... , somehow predicting his inevitable assassination.

Background to Bashir Gemayel’s rise, the post Colonial Lebanese violence and the seeds of the perennial conflict

photo: iranmilitary.net

I will not explore the deep mistrust between the Maronites and the Druze in Mount Lebanon, the Civil war and massacre of the Christians in 1860, (Fisk, p. 56) the Ottoman Empire’s capitulation to the French and the setting up of a Mutasarifiyah (district governorate) approved and guaranteed by France. Nor will it expand on the constant pressure mostly urban and wealthy Sunni exerted to make Lebanon more “Arab” and remove the Christian label from the country. The French Mandate was established after the “fall” of the Ottoman Empire. The arrival of the French rule was not at all considered a catastrophe for the Christians, who saw their power base increase steadily. The French imposed new administrative rules in Syria and Lebanon that sparked revolts in Syria (The Great Syrian Revolt, Provence), but not much violent dissent in Lebanon. The real challenge to the French colonial authorities was to ‘expand Lebanon’s boundaries without making the Christians a minority in their own country’ (Rogan, p. 216) The Maronites, after all, were happy with the emergence of their new state and they shared the conservative Catholic faith with their colonial masters. It was a very effective symbiotic relationship. After a very short occupation by forces loyal to Vichy, the Allied armies occupied Lebanon once more in 1941. (Fisk, p. 67)

The nominal independent state of Lebanon emerged from the chaos in the French colonial world in November 22, 1943. France was a defeated nation and could not hold onto her distant colonies. The inevitable departure of the French army resulted in the Lebanese National Pact. This covenant guaranteed the Presidency of the Republic to the Maronites, The Head of the Government (Prime Minister) to the Sunni community, while the President of the National Assembly was a post reserved to the Shiites. This national “Pact” was drafted based upon a very inaccurate and outdated census completed in the 1920’s, which gave the Maronites a relative “majority” in the country they did not actually have.

The Lebanese independence was declared in 1943 while Paris was still witnessing Nazi military parades on her boulevards, but that independence was not “granted” with ease. The colonial French forces just imploded and even there were infighting between forces loyal to the Vichy Government and the Free France movement of General De Gaulle. Several prominent Lebanese national leaders were jailed in remote Crusade era castles in South Lebanon. Future Maronite presidents Bechara El-Khouri and Camille Chamoun were those among arrested and jailed for conspiracy to overthrow the colonial rule. However, when independence came, the new system bore all the future seeds of conflict. How long would the Sunni deal with a centralizing Maronite President? Lebanon was a beautiful yet very unworkable mosaic of conflicting loyalties between all confessional groups. Lebanese internal system was extremely delicate and fragile, and no one had predicted the arrival of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians refugees and later the P.L.O. after their expulsion from Jordan in 1970 (Black September). A situation that would tip the balance of power and military might in favour of the Left. How long the disinherited and disregarded Shiite will stay put and not ask reward for their numerical superiority in a nominally democratic but highly confession - based system?

A Lebanese is always supposed to carry the “hawiyya” or identification certificate issued by the Interior Ministry. After the Name, Date and Place of Birth, the fourth information clearly spelled is the religious confession of the citizen. All Lebanese have to necessarily belong to one of the 18 or so officially recognized religious groups (Maronite, Rum Catholic, Rum Orthodox, Assyrian, Armenian Orthodox, Sunni, Shiite, Druze, Assyrian, Chaldean, Alawite and Jewish etc). Therefore, the very symbolic personal identification document of the Lebanese citizenship becomes the source of such violence and many executions. The identification document made the killings of innocent citizen easy by all militia. Asking the Hawiyya document of a passenger would give the needed info to the gunmen, and the wrong timing and place could mean indiscriminate or retaliatory kidnapping or plain slaying.

That bazooka is designed to be mounted on a light truck, not on a human shoulder! Lebanon has always been special. (Photo credit :AFP/Ramzi Haidar)

Classical Inter confessional violence:

Lebanese civil war witnessed very changing sets of alliances, especially with Syria, the de facto major broker in Lebanon. Since the creation of Greater Lebanon, Damascus has always felt cheated and considered tiny and prosperous Lebanon a lost limb of the Greater Syria. Maronites and other minorities beg to differ, of course. The Druze and the Maronites had ruled Mount Lebanon for centuries and they had a series of bloody civil wars, most famously in 1860, when the Druze finally defeated the Maronites who had been encroaching on Druze influence and territories in the Chouf Mountains. (Fisk, pp, 56,57, 110,118) That civil war, like many other major Lebanese historical events are totally absent from the official History books used in the country, but has long survived in the oral traditions and psyche of hatred and violence.

The Sunni in Lebanon have always been mostly urban based, with a few scattered villages in the south and the Beqaa. The Sunni were protected by the successive rulers of Lebanon, from the early Islamic conquests under the Rashidun Caliphs, to the Ayyubites, Mehmet Ali of Egypt and the Ottoman Empire: all Sunni powers. Hence, they have had no need to take refuge in the Lebanese mountains like the regionally tiny minorities such as the Maronites and the Druze, and to certain extend the marginalized Shiite. The Near East was a Sunni dominated world, and the urbanization and prosperity of that community is a vivid example. The civil war in 1975 brought forward the deep divisions of opinion within the Sunni community, and beside some fringe groups such as the Mourabitoon and other Nasserite pan-Arabs, few Sunni militia were prominent during the civil war. Therefore, there was no “pure” Sunni violence in Lebanon, even though the community actively took part in the hostilities and violence within the general opposition to the status quo. Therefore, it is safe to assume that there was no significant intra Sunni violence.

The same applies for the Druze, an offshoot of Shia Islam with rather secretive eastern Hindu mystic elements known only to a few “informed intellectuals” called al-Uqqal. They are considered heretics by most Sunni and Shia scholars yet tolerated throughout the centuries. The Druze represent only 5% of the Lebanese population, but have a much higher influence both politically and militarily than their numbers may suggest. The intra Druze violence was again non-significant during the civil war, as most Druze rallied behind the charismatic anti- government leader Kamal Jumblatt (assassinated by Syria in 1977) and later to his equally maverick son Waleed. The political “front” of the Druze community is the “Parti Socialist Progressiste”, present in Beirut and the Mount Lebanon where they defeated the Maronite right wing militias and drove them out in 1980’s just as they had done in 1860.

The Shiite community was previously relegated to a secondary role in the social and political margins, but was first empowered by the organizational skills of an Iranian born cleric named Imam Musa Sadr, founder of the Movement of the Disinherited Hope (Amal), (Fisk, p,93-94, 449). Sadr was later kidnapped and disappeared while on a “friendly” visit to Libya’s Muammar Kaddafi in 1978 never to be seen again. (Rogan, p. 412). The Iranian revolution in 1979 gave renewed hope and resources to Lebanon’s most community and the Hezbollah was the net result. The intra Shiite violence was again almost nonexistent, and the first violence they were involved in was fighting the right wing Christians and also attack the Palestinians in the South to reassert Shiite control over areas lost to the P.L.O. since 1969. The Amal movement is always been quite liberal and secular, while Hezbollah is more Islamist in nature but with amazing overture towards other minorities such as Greek Orthodox and Armenian. Hezbollah has been staunchly anti Zionist but surprisingly malleable towards Christians, unlike their fierce opposition to Saudi influenced and funded local Sunni politics.

We can therefore note that the non- Christian communities (Sunni, Shiite and Druze) did not experience any significant internal fighting. They generally showed a much greater sense of community solidarity based on faith and the common hatred they shared towards the Maronite right wing politics.

The 1936 Berlin Olympics were an inspiration to Pierre Gemayel, founder of the Christian Phalange party and militia. He was then captain of the Lebanese football team and he admired the discipline of the Nazi youth, without necessarily espousing their racist theories (Photo credit: http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/olympics/detail.php)

Maronite domination of the Christian: The rise of Bashir Gemayel and the cycle of intra Christian violence:

“The man who lives by the sword has very nearly died by it. In March 1979, a bomb was defused in his car. In February 1980, his 18-month-old daughter and three bodyguards were killed by a car bomb that did go off. Nonetheless, Gemayel continues to appear openly in public and insists on driving around alone, although he changes cars as often as ten times a day as a precaution. His security measures will almost certainly be tightened now that he has reached the pinnacle of national power: in a violent land, Bashir Gemayel has many enemies”. (Time magazine)

Bashir Gemayel started to become a household name as the new rising star of the Phalange militia in 1976-1977. Until then, a glass maker by the name of William Hawi was commander of the Phalange until he was killed at during the siege and later massacre of the Palestinian camp of Tel el-Zaatar. From the onset Bashir had the advantage of being the party president’s son. His older brother, the more pragmatic Amin was later himself elected and served as president to replace the assassinated president elect Bashir. Forming a military structure independent from his father’s party and forcibly integrating the other allied Christian militia under the “hygienic” (Fisk, p. 182) title of Lebanese Forces became Bashir’s main accomplishment and also the source of the most violent acts. Time calls him “liberator, warlord. Patriot and Power mad”. Certainly all of these were true and applied to the staunchly nationalistic Bashir. His forced “mergers” lasted up to 1982 until he succeeded in silencing all dissent. This internecine Christian infighting resulted in massacres, deportations and Bashir finally emerged as the only Za’im, effectively transforming the Lebanese Forces / phalangist militia into a very well armed and deadly fighting force that continued its “struggle” against the Muslim leftist forces.

Bashir Gemayel reviewing Phalange militia during the early days of the civil war

Here are some of the major events of this forcible subjugation of rival Christian forces in the areas under Phalangist control under Bashir:

-The forcible takeover of Byblos and the eviction of the Eddé:
Jubail or Byblos is a region that has given the word “Bible” to the world. Byblos was the traditional fiefdom of the prominent Maronite Eddé family. The Eddé were mostly liberal and centrist and were regarded as ‘weaklings’ by the right wing Christians. Émile Eddé was the patriarch of the family and was elected President of Lebanon from 1936-1941 during the French Mandate, founding the centrist and multi-faith Lebanese national Bloc (Al Kutlah al Wataniah). His son, Raymond Eddé (1913-2000), was very influential and respected minister, one of the rare Lebanese politicians held in high esteem by all Lebanese, regardless of faith. The open mindedness and centrist positions of Eddé were targeted by the right wing Phalange early on during the war. Eddé was the only Christian political figure to live in Muslim West Beirut, until his permanent self-imposed exile to France, as he lost his power base to the militant wings of his own Maronite community. The Druze leader Walid Jumblatt has said that the only politician worthy of respect and not have committed war crimes is Raymond Eddé. That respect and honesty Eddé enjoyed were perhaps the reasons he was not tolerated by his own allies.

Byblos (Jubail) was the fiefdom of the Eddé family but fell under phalange influence at the start of the civil war

The overtaking of the mostly Greek Catholic town of Zahlé:

Zahlé is called the ‘Bride of the Beqaa’ valley, the largest exclusively Christian city in the Middle East, mostly Greek Catholic. Zahlé is the administrative centre and the economic hub of all agricultural produce of the Beqaa, the world famous Kesara wine cellars and all the agro-alimentary business so essential to the Lebanese economy. That explains the historical close business and social relationship that had existed between the Zahlé and the surrounding Sunni and Shia communities. Zahlé had no interest to isolate herself from the Muslim grain, potatoes and fruits producing villages, and had been moderately right wing in politics but not enough to Bashir’s liking. The local leading families, such as the Skeif, were notoriously reluctant to harm the symbiotic relationship with the Muslims countryside (a situation very reminiscent of the Maydan / Jabal Druze situation 'The Great Syrian Revolt’ in Provence). Zahlé could prosper only through trade, and trade was possible only through the Muslim farmers of the area. Therefore, the Islam-Christian good neighbors relationships were too precious to break. Nevertheless, the Lebanese forces of Bashir Gemayel effectively took control of the city, introduced hundreds of armed fighters from across the Mount Lebanon through the gorges of Sannine Mountain. Bashir “unashamedly encouraged the Phalangist inside the town to attack the Syrians in the area, and in 1981 Zahlé was effectively under Syrian siege”. (Fisk, p. 188-189)

The town of Zahlé is both picturesque and strategically located in the rich Beqaa valley. The Sannine Mount Lebanon christian heartland lies behind. It is the largest purely Christian town in the middle east.

The net result was the alienation of the locals and the very heavy price they paid when the Syrian army violently attacked the town in December 1980 to evict the Phalangist that it considered ‘alien’ to the region. Bashir’s forces were eventually evacuated to Mount Lebanon but the town suffered very heavy destruction. The Greek Catholic influence had given way to the military control of the Maronite forces and the result was heavy property and human losses. The centuries old tradition of peaceful coexistence if the locals and the Muslim neighbours was another major casualty.

-The assassination of President Suleiman Franjieh’s son Toni and 23 members of his family.

“In June 1978, Gemayel's forces lashed out brutally against former President the Suleiman Franjieh, who was one of his chief political opponents among the Christian population. In a lightning raid on the Franjieh summer resort village of Ehden, Phalangist soldiers murdered the ex-President's son and political heir Tony, along with his wife and two-year-old daughter. Gemayel coldly dismissed the episode as a "social revolt against feudalism." (Time article)

The Maronites of the north are deeply divided into two competing zones. The Franjieh (President Suleiman Franjieh) control the area just east of the Sunni city of Tripoli. They have always been very moderate and pro-Syrian proud Maronite nationalists, with good ties to the Baathist Hafez el-Assad. It is said the future president Suleiman had participated in the machine gun massacre of the rival Douaihy family near Zghorta in 1957 and that he had fled to Syria and forged a close relationship with his Baathist protectors (Fisk, p. 76). These ties helped Suleiman get elected President of the Republic the same year Assad grabbed power in Damascus in 1970 after a bloodless coup. Farther up the mountains from Zghorta and towards the Cedars, the Maronite families are traditionally on the extreme right of the Maronite militancy. Samir Geagea, who after the death of Bachir became leader of the Phalangist – Lebanese Front militia, boasted from the town of Besharreh (also the birthplace of Gibran Khalil Gibran).

The victims of the Ehden massacre: Toni Franjieh, his family and relatives.
In June 1978 Bashir had started to assert control over all Christians and targeted ex-President Suleiman Franjieh’s son and political heir Toni. The Franjieh were long time allies to the Phalange and now Toni had suddenly become a “legitimate” target for Bachir. It is thought that Franjieh clan’s close ties to Syria were totally unacceptable to Bashir, who ordered a very daring and unprecedented violent military expedition against a Maronite ally. In a surprise attack, the Phalange commandos attacked the town of Ehden and murdered Tony along with his wife, daughter, and dozens of guards and family members. The operation was executed under the command of Bachir’s lieutenants Samir Geagea (later a convicted war criminal) and Tony Hobeika (of Sabra and Shatila massacre fame). This atrocious massacre was done in the name of unification of Maronite forces under one command, but did nothing to bolster Maronite unity. The two clans are still harsh enemies and espouse diametrically opposed position in national politics. Interestingly, the Time article mentions that Bachir later justified these attacks as a “social revolt against feudalism”. He meant to say that the Franjieh were “feudal”, implying that the Gemayel were not.

-The elimination of the Chamoun clan:

“And in July 1980, Gemayel's troops virtually wiped out the Christian militia of ex-President Camille Chamoun's National Liberal Party for refusing to accept the Phalangist line”. (Time article)

It was during President Camille Chamoun’s reign that the 1956 had taken place. Chamoun was a staunch nationalist and charismatic leader, with his roots in Druze dominated Mount Lebanon. He was thought to be more Anglophile than the Francophile Gemayel, and had extraordinary close relations with Jordan’s King Hussein. Chamoun was as committed as Gemayel to use whatever means necessary to keep Lebanon under the control of the Maronite elite, he heritage of the French Mandate. His National Liberal Party (Al Ahrar) at a time included ‘conservative Shiite and Sunni political leaders and members (Fisk, p. 71), but this was by and large Chamoun’s private party and militia. During the civil war, Chamoun’s militia, Noumour al-Ahrar (Liberal Tigers) was as hard line as the Phalange fighting in the Beirut suburbs against the Muslims, but less powerful. By 1980 the ailing Chamoun had given the control of his private militia to his horse and fun loving son Dany. Bashir had little time for his rival Dany and was tired of sharing power with him (Fisk, p.165) and sent shock troops in a surprise attack and eliminate the Noumour as a fighting force at the massacre of Safra on July 7, 1980. Dany Chamoun’s life was spared unlike 83 of his followers who were killed on the spot; Dany fled to Muslim West Beirut for refuge, and was finally assassinated along with his family by the successor of Bashir, Samir Geagea in 1990. (Fisk, pp. 167-168)

Chamoun and Gemayel families were the closest of possible allies, having formed the very axis of Maronite right wing nationalism and militancy. Bashir, however, decided to simply finish off the Chamoun family as a force within the Christian camp. Perhaps, he was aiming to kill two birds at the same time by eliminating Dany Chamoun as potential future rival for the post of President of the Republic.

-The attacks on the neutral Armenian community:

After the massacres on the Maronite Tigers and the massacre of Ehden, the Phalange under Bashir had less appetite to the slightest dissenting voice within the Christian areas he firmly controlled while fighting the overall war against the Left and the Palestinians.

The Armenians were rather prosperous second and third generation survivors of the 1915 Genocide perpetrated by the Young Turks (Fisk, 59). Therefore, they were historically very grateful to the Muslim Arabs for their very survival and could not imagine sending their militia to attack Muslims under orders from the Maronites. Fighting and shelling Muslims would have been simply unthinkable. Armenian refugees were not abused by the Arabs while fleeing the Turks and were mostly welcomed throughout the Arab world during and after the Genocide. Being so ungrateful to the Arab Muslim hospitality and generosity just to please Bashir was not an option, even if it meant being killed and shelled.

Armenian neighborhood in Beirut -Arax street, Bourj Hammoud (Photo: http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Middle_East/Lebanon/West/Beyrouth/Bourj_Hammoud/photo437536.htm)

Hence, the Armenians political leadership adopted the famous “Positive Neutrality” policy, trying to be a moderating force within the total chaos of the civil war and avoid being subjugated by the nationalist Christian camp. The Maronites, however, saw this Armenian ‘positive neutrality’’ as cowardice or simply betrayal to the Christian values and mounted an all out war. Fierce street fighting broke out after Maronites refugees from the southern town of Damour encroached into Armenian neighborhoods in East Beirut. Heavy military attacks were launched against the Armenian populated areas, resulting in dozens of dead on both sides and utter destruction of property in these working class areas. Paradoxically, wounded Armenian fighters were smuggled into Muslim controlled West Beirut Hospitals to avoid being killed by the Christian enemies while hospitalized. Wounded Christian Armenians finding safe haven in Muslim areas was a powerful reminder that violence can take incomprehensible twists, especially considering the official Maronite rhetoric that their war was fought in order protect Christianity in Lebanon against Muslims.

Thousands of Armenians attend the service to commemorate the 96th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide in Antelias, Lebanon (Holy See of Cilicia) (Photo Aztag daily / Ashnag)

-The Greek Orthodox and their uneasy relationship with the Maronites:

The Christians in the Middle East have always been split between the ones looking to Latin West for leadership and guidance and the “Orientals”. The Maronites, a staunchly Catholic sect named after the fifth century monk called St. Maroun, had “unwisely associated themselves with the Crusades” (Fisk, p. 55); and have always been on the margins of the Arab world. Their archbishop is headquartered in Bekerké, Lebanon, but he is in full communion with the Vatican. On the other hand, the Greek Orthodox community, legacy of the Byzantine Empire’s orthodoxy, is deeply rooted in oriental Arab pre-Islamic culture. “They instinctively possess the best intuitive feel for the psychology and politics of the Muslims”. The Greek Orthodox have always had more understanding of the Muslims and enjoyed their confidence more than any other Christian sect (Fuller, p.162), another source of jealousy and propensity for violence. Muslims traditionally see the Latin West as somehow evil since the Crusades. The Orthodox (Greek and Armenian) are not Latin and have deep roots in the Middle East way before the Islam conquest of the Rashidun Empire. Together with the Greek Catholic, the Orthodox form what is called as the Melchites, divided from the Maronites over the single divine nature of Christ during the Byzantine Empire. (Fisk, p, 56)

Interestingly, Lebanon has traditionally reserved the Foreign Affairs ministry post to a Greek Orthodox and that is not a coincidence. Greek Orthodox, with their archbishop in Damascus, are much open to pan Arab-ism, prone close cooperation with Islam and often act as a bridge between eastern and western clashing ideologies in the Middle East. The Greek Orthodox Christians were in fact mostly sympathizers of a ‘third way’: rejecting Maronite isolationism and hegemony, and steering away from an Islamic oriented pan-Arabism. The result is the concept of a ‘Greater Syria’ and a secular homeland for all the peoples of the Fertile Crescent, regardless of faith. This “third way” had its main expression in the creation of the Syrian Social National Party (SSPN), known as Kawmi Souri, very strong in some Mount Lebanon villages and the caza of Batroun in the north. The dedicated membership of this surprisingly tenacious and militant party is drawn mainly from the Greek Orthodox and some more secular minded Druze, Maronites and even Shiites. Kawmis are the fiercest enemies of the Phalange. This has been a decade long visceral and very bloody enmity preceding the civil war and that continues to date. Habib Shartouni, the assassin of President Bashir Gemayel was member of this party. Note that the Lebanese Communist Party also had some prominent Christian leaders (e.g. Georges Hawi). However, that party was marginal in a country where Communism is seen as a dangerous, alien, anti Islam and anti Christian concept.

“The SSNP was established in Lebanon in the 1930s by (the Greek Orthodox) Antun Saadah who hoped to unite the Levantine nations and form a "Greater Syria." Even though it fought in alliance with the Muslims and leftists in the Civil War, its membership was primarily Christian and its political stance was right-wing; in fact, its red hurricane symbol was modeled after the Nazi swastika. The SSNP has a long history of terrorism and subversion in Lebanon. Saadah was executed by the Lebanese government in 1949, after launching an abortive coup attempt. The SSNP was active in the 1958 Civil War, where it fought on the pro-Western side. In December 1961, an SSNP armored battalion commander staged the Lebanese Army's only significant attempted coup d'état against the government”. (Library of Congress)

Antun Saadah was the Greek Orthodox founder of the staunchly anti right wing party SSNP (Kawmi Souri). He dreamed of uniting peoples of all confessions in a secular Greater Syria.

Therefore, it is clear that the Maronite right wing and the Greek Orthodox have often been at odds, and that is a perennial source of violence plaguing the Christian heartland. This has divided communities, split families, caused fratricidal murders because of opposing visions of what Christianity should be like in an overwhelmingly Aram Muslim environment.

Concluding thoughts:

Religion in Lebanon is not just about pure faith. Religion has become the only factor upon which a person becomes a known entity in his living environment and become part of the larger society. Religion gives “identity” to a Lebanese. Knowing a total stranger’s religion is often more important than knowing his name. The person you meet on the street is first a Christian or a Sunni, and then his name happens to be “Georges” or “Ali”. Other details can follow, like the region he originates from etc. This is the very unfortunate legacy of both old and recent history, especially since the late Ottoman period of reforms and the French Mandate, where all boundaries were drawn along confessional lines rather than practical administrative considerations. The Lebanese constitution was drafted on the sorry assumption that a quota system based on confession is the only way to guarantee stability and insure the survival of the Christians. Religion is enshrined in the Constitution, and in the psychology of every Lebanese, carrying the dangers of violence.

Bashir Gemayel' Funeral (Photo: Corbis)

It is almost impossible to be just a Lebanese Nationalist without mentioning religion. Ideology and the formation of a common belonging fail repeatedly to transcend religion. Herewith lays the trap of intra Christian violence. The Maronites and the mostly right wing nationalist have traditionally been very reluctant to tolerate or even contemplate dissenting views from other Christian minorities within the context of a national belonging. Greeks Orthodox, Armenians, Greek Catholics, Assyrians etc are all expected to rally behind the Maronites. The Greek Orthodox, as we noted, are historically a community much more open to a pluralistic and inclusive Middle East, and they are often victimized and alienated. Greek Orthodox intellectuals and militants have therefore opposed the Catholic Maronite hegemony with some of the longest violent saga since 1940’s. Any dissent is seen as betrayal and massacres or retaliation usually the result.

We can see that in order to counter violence, the Christian right wing militia had to use further violence to grab and keep control of a minimal geographical “Christian heartland”, that included at most of 3500 Km^2, (about 30% of Lebanon). The classical patters of dehumanizing the enemy were fully exercised in Lebanon throughout the civil war. The Palestinians were “alien intruders”, the leftist Christians were simply “traitors” or “Jackals”. Sunni Nasserites were “Egyptian agitators” polluting Lebanon with Arab-ism. No enemy was seen or talked about as a legitimate “Lebanese” fighting for a valid belief. The Muslim / leftist front used similar tactics to demonize the Christian far right. The most common way to describe the Maronite-led Christian forces was terms like “Isolationist” or Franj (French), meaning that they are sold agents of the West. Moreover, they were also called “Zionist agents” for their opposition to the P.L.O.

Unfortunately, The Christians under Bashir Gemayel and after his assassination reserved some of the ruthless violence to their follow Christian allies. In a certain sense, fighting against the Druze or the Muslims and especially the Palestinians was seen as ideologically necessary to preserve a certain Lebanon. On the other hand, annihilating the allied Christians in organized and bloody military raids and ambushes and muzzling any dissenting voice within the Christian communities was done in utmost disregard for any acceptable principles.

Lebanese civil war was very violent yet predictable. The dubious colonial legacy, double standards and post-colonial struggles of the Nation to achieve true independence were impossible to handle without violence. Numerous sources of violence were pre-existing before the outbreak of war in 1975: a tiny country with more than 18 religious groups infighting for power and subject to regional and international pressures from the Damascus, Cairo, Baghdad and Riyadh to the Vatican, Paris, London and Washington. The Intra-Christian sustained violence was much more surprising than the classical fight against the Muslims.

The Historiography of Lebanon would be very incomplete and flawed every time the Christians are depicted as a monolithic entity that fought for their survival in a sea of “ill-willing” Arabs. The right wing Christians did fight a war of survival for their economic and socio-political privileges, which gradually eroded long after the end of the war to the Muslims, both Shiite and Sunni. However, they were ruthless and increasingly violent against fellow Christians, making the Lebanese civil war much more complex, divisive and damaging than a simple “Christian against Muslim” explanation.

Krikor Tersakian, Montreal, 2011

Bibliography:

-Fisk, Robert Fisk: “Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War”. Oxford University Press, 1991

-Fuller, Graham E: “A World without Islam: Little, Brown and Company, Hachette, 2010

-Rogan, Eugene: “The Arabs: A History: Eugene Rogan”. Perseus Book, 2009, New York, ISBN 978-0-465-07100-5

-Time magazine article: Gemayel : Ruthless Idealist: Monday, Sept. 06, 2011 http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,949550,00.html

-Library of Congress : http://www.country-data.com/frd/cs/lebanon/lb_appnb.html

Appendix I

Time magazine article:

Gemayel : Ruthless Idealist: Monday, Sept. 06, 1982

Liberator. Warlord. Patriot. Power-mad. Those are some of the terms that Bashir Gemayel's deeply riven countrymen have used to describe their President-elect during his years as a leader of the Christian militia forces. Part political idealist and part storm trooper, Gemayel, 34, has shown he will use whatever means necessary to achieve his nationalist goals. His supporters argue that Lebanon's dire condition requires just that sort of toughness. Opponents claim that he is a fierce political animal dedicated to narrow sectarian aims.

Gemayel made his reputation for ruthlessness by the way he imposed his leadership over the diverse Christian militia groups during and after the 1975-76 civil war. In June 1978, Gemayel's forces lashed out brutally against former President the Suleiman Franjieh, who was one of his chief political opponents among the Christian population. In a lightning raid on the Franjieh summer resort village of Ehden, Phalangist soldiers murdered the ex-President's son and political heir Tony, along with his wife and two-year-old daughter. Gemayel coldly dismissed the episode as a "social revolt against feudalism." And in July 1980, Gemayel's troops virtually wiped out the Christian militia of ex-President Camille Chamoun's National Liberal Party for refusing to accept the Phalangist line.

The baby-faced Gemayel consciously cultivates a macho image, often appearing in public in military fatigues, his feet squared in the "at ease" position, his arms folded across his chest. To his Phalangist followers, he projects the personal magnetism of a combat leader who has fought and suffered with them on the battlefields. After his family, he is most comfortable with his troops.

The President-elect's father Pierre Gemayel was the founder and original leader of the Phalangist Party, a hard-line, fervently nationalistic faction of the country's large Maronite Christian community. The youngest of six children, Bashir Gemayel enthusiastically embraced his father's conservative ideology, which was inspired by the nationalist movements of Francisco Franco and Benito Mussolini.

Gemayel fervently believes that the departure of all foreign forces is a prerequisite to solving his country's problems and forging national unity. He was particularly anxious to see the Palestinians go. Says an Arab diplomat who has known Gemayel for many years: "He is absolutely obsessed with the Palestinians."

Gemayel launched his military career when he was still a boy. During the brief age war of 1958, he officially joined the Phalangist militias at the age of eleven. He began regular military training two years later, and by 1969 was commander of a 100-man militia in his family's native village of Bikfaya, east of Beirut. Educated by the Jesuits, Gemayel took a law degree at St. Joseph's University of Beirut in 1971, but abandoned a short-lived law practice at the onset of Lebanon's civil war. In 1976 he became commander in chief of the Phalangist militias when his predecessor was killed in action. Soon afterward, he took charge of the Lebanese Forces, the unified command of all the Christian militias. The man who lives by the sword has very nearly died by it. In March 1979, a bomb was defused in his car. In February 1980, his 18-month-old daughter and three bodyguards were killed by a car bomb that did go off. Nonetheless, Gemayel continues to appear openly in public and insists on driving around alone, although he changes cars as often as ten times a day as a precaution. His security measures will almost certainly be tightened now that he has reached the pinnacle of national power: in a violent land, Bashir Gemayel has many enemies.

The Irish Ghetto of Montreal: Griffintown

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Montreal Irish ghetto during its "Golden Age": Griffintown was the Irish working class neighborhood near the old port and Lachine Canal. The canal was first dug in 1925-26 mostly by the Irish workers who dug the canal to bypass the St. Lawrence rapids (photo credit: public domain)

Griffintown today is a disaster. Few visitors to these desolate and cold streets of Montreal can even imagine that the area used to be the very heart of a vibrant Irish working class community called Griffintown. A community that has marked life in Montreal, Quebec and Canada and its sad decline and the eventual death. A recently published book, An Irish Heart by Dreidger (1) makes it clear that knowing and understanding Griffintown means recognizing the hardships, failures, successes and the enormous challenges faced by waves of Irish immigrants and their descendants in their quest to build a brighter future for themselves and their families. And they did survive and thrive against all odds.

Digging the Lachine Canal to bypass the St Lawrence rapids. The Irish emigrants excelled in digging and the mega project provided jobs the the unskilled emigrants. The Lachine Canal, built in 1823, enlarged in 1843-48, then again 1873-74, enabled shippers to bypass the rapids along the St. Lawrence River. (Photo: http://canadachannel.ca/HCO)

The emigration of the Irish to Canada can be traced to way before the first macabre famine ships started to bring their human cargo to North America in 1847. It is therefore a misconception to assume that the first Irishmen were necessarily catholic or poor. Some Irishmen had arrived as early as in the early 1600’s, while others later had established fishing and trading communities in the Maritimes and the St. Lawrence estuary. The final decades of the 18^th century had seen a number of Protestant Irishmen from the mostly Northern Counties (Modern Northern Ireland): Ulster Scots, Calvinist Presbyterians and others Protestant groups, who were themselves under some pressure from the official Anglican Church in Ireland. They had chosen to leave Ireland, despite their privileged position as opposed to the suppressed and dispossessed Catholics.

Port of Montreal in the 19th century not far from the Griffintown ghetto.
(Photo credit: Supplied Photo, The Ottawa Citizen)

St. Ann’s Church was the heart of Griffintown’s Irish Catholic community. Built in 1854, it was Montreal’s second English Catholic church after St. Patrick’s (1847). Whereas the “lace-curtain” Irish around St. Patrick’s consisted of merchants, skilled workers and professionals, St. Ann’s parishioners were known as “shanty Irish” - unskilled laborers. The population of Griffintown began declining after World War II and in the early 1960s the city decided that Griffintown no longer had a future as a place for people to live. It was zoned as an industrial area in 1963. Then in 1967, part of the neighborhood was demolished to make way for the Bonaventure Expressway. Having lost most of its parishioners, St. Ann’s church was torn down in 1970. The site of the church is a park today, the park benches showing the structure's original site. (credit: montealmosaic.com, photo: Krikor Tersakian)

St Ann's church (photo credit: Krikor Tersakian)

Some of these early Irish emigrants did find some success in Canada. Others, like John McCord would became very wealthy and influential and their descendants were later closely associated with the future Griffintown community. The Napoleonic wars (1803-1815) and the resulting trade embargo against the British slowed the Irish emigration to almost a halt. The final defeat of the French emperor in 1815 eventually re-opened the trade routes and the Irish emigration increased exponentially with the arrival of waves of poor Catholics from the south counties. These emigrants were mostly the victims of sporadic crop failures (before the Great Famine of 1845-50). This post war period gave the cross Atlantic timber ship operators the opportunity to increase their profits by transporting tens of thousands of poor Irishmen to the New World on their return voyage from Europe.

The Black stone near the Victoria bridge marks the mass graves of 6000 famine and typhus victims who were buried near Griffintown in the 1840's. The huge stone was dug from the bottom of the St. Lawrence river while digging for the foundations of the bridge (Photo: Krikor Tersakian)

The low fares to Quebec and the Maritimes made the La Belle Province an attractive choice for these would be emigrants. Most of these lowly early emigrants initially stopped in Quebec City, but the eventual opening of the original Lachine canal in 1825 made Montreal an accessible destination: The origins of Griffintown can actually be traced to this period and developments, when the young community at the mouth of the Canal became the jumping off point for the new emigrants en route to Upper Canada (Ontario). This young working class Irish community started to grow against all odds, while John McCord’s son Thomas was managing to have considerable control over the Griffintown district. He lived in his mansion just north of Griffintown in the leafy area of of Mount Royal, while thousands of Irish, French and Scots were sweating to completing the Lachine canal and therefore helping transform Montreal into a modern metropolis.

Fifty years after the Famine the Irish remember: Grosse Ile was a quarantine, where thousands of famine emigrants were processed and thousands more died from hunger, typhus and cholera as they arrived from Ireland. The dead were buried on this tiny island in the St Lawrence estuary, 30 km east of Quebec. Countless others died on the coffin ships and the corpses thrown to the sea. Photo depicts the religious ceremony at the inauguration of the Celtic cross in 1909, celebrated in the 1847 cemetery.

(PhotoLibrary and Archives Canada, archiveshttp://collectionscanada.gc.ca/grosse-ile)

In the 1840’s, Phytophtera infestans fungus brought from the Americas struck at full force in the Irish countryside. The calamity that followed was the Great Famine that decimated almost all western and southern counties of the Erin Isle. Whole communities were cruelly evicted from their homes, as they could not feed themselves nor pay the rent to their mostly wealthy Protestant landlords. Successive potato crop failures and the resulting man made cruelties completely decimated Ireland. Countless victims were buried in mass graves, while hundreds of thousands survivors left on ships such as the Avon, the Voyageur or the Triton and many came to Quebec.

The official quarantine station at Grosse Ile (30km east of Quebec City) was overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of the arriving sick and the dying. The dead were simply thrown to the sea or buried in mass graves on the island. The several sheds housing the sick were simply inadequate. More than 3000 died on the island, excluding the unaccounted death en route. The survivors eventually made it inland and some came to Montreal.

St. Patrick's Minor Basilica is a neo-Gothic church located just outside Griffintown, near modern downtown Montreal. (Photo: Krikor Tersakian)

Nonetheless, it has to be underlined that Griffintown had already become an important stopover for the destitute immigrants since the 1830’s, before the Great Famine hit. Cholera and typhus were widespread and uncontrollable, mostly “attributed” to these Irish newcomers. Some emigrants would continue their journey inland, while thousands were simply too ill or poor to even contemplate a move to farther destinations. The situations worsened starting 1847 as most new immigrants coming to Montreal either stopped or established in Griffintown, if not sick enough to be sheltered in one of the numerous sheds constructed across the Canal in an area known as Windmill Point in the Goose Village / Victoriatown (at the foot of the future Victoria Bridge). There were definite efforts to curtail the free movements of the Irish immigrants housed there in order to limit the spread of the endemic diseases.

Is this trumpet player the only happy person still in Griffintown? Graffiti on a wall (photo: Krikor Tersakian)

Griffintown was in turmoil. This young and already poor community was further burdened by this influx of problems, increasing poverty levels and disease. There were some sympathetic helping hands, as people were blaming Griffintown as a whole for all the diseases brought to Montreal, making life so precarious. If the Irish were to blame, then Griffintown was the arch villain. The Grey Nuns and the Sulpicians opened shelters to rescue orphans and accommodate survivors. In 1848, these death sheds were finally closed, but it was hardly the dawn of a “Golden Age” for Griffintown. Hundreds were still dying; poverty and famine were still widespread.

Fallen balconies and total abandon of the neighborhood (Photo: Krikor Tersakian)

Then Mother Nature struck again: On January 1848, the icy St. Lawrence River spilled over its banks and literally flooded Griffintown and the neighboring Point St Charles under several feet of icy water. Hundreds of residents and orphans were thrown out to the streets. Even some mass graves totally disappeared under the icy water. Nevertheless, Griffintown would somehow rise from her ashes and become the “mythical heart of the Irish of Montreal and Quebec”.

Pigeons and Desolation. (Photo: Krikor Tersakian)

Griffintown since the earliest days was known as Nazareth Fief, a district granted to Jeanne Mance in 1654. Mance was a pious nun who built the Hotel-Dieu hospital, and the sisters of her congregation owned the lands of future Griffintown. Eventually, the Gentlemen of Saint Sulpice (Sulpicians) took over these lands from the Societé Notre Dame, while the area was already being exploited by farmers and fur traders. In 1689, the Sulpicians made the first attempts to build a much-needed canal to bypass the Lachine rapids. These initial attempts were disrupted by Iroquois attacks killing 24 colonists. The Lachine canal would be built a century later through the hard working Irish labor. Meanwhile in 1697, Pierre Le Ber purchased some land at the end of the Nazareth Fief, and the now demolished St Ann chapel was built there. The chapel would give her name to the Nazareth Fief, while the area around was being increasingly populated by “hard-drinking and hard working” Irishmen. So much so, that in 1736 the sale of alcohol was banned in the district to avert further problems...

Downtown Montreal from Griffintown: prosperity is so close yet so far (photo: Krikor Tersakian)

The fall of the French regime in 1759-60, did not bring much change to Griffintown, as the Sulpicians were allowed to keep their properties and therefore collect taxes. New investors and their capital soon followed, while the McCord were extending their influence in the area and new wealthy families were moving away from the flood-prone banks of St. Lawrence to the upper slopes of the Mountain (present-day Westmount and the Golden Mile). Mary and Robert Griffin, owners of the Griffin Soap factory, gave their name to Griffintown as they also leased about a third of the original Nazareth Fief from the Nuns at the same time as the financial troubles of the McCord were mounting.

Ruins by the Lachine Canal (Photo: Krikor Tersakian)

Upon the completion of the original Lachine canal in 1825, several Irish workers left to seek new employment, such as the Rideau Canal project linking Kingston to Ottawa. Others stayed and settled in or around Griffintown, which was gradually being industrialized by the addition of factories such as distilleries, brickyards, shipyards and a tannery. The Lachine Canal transformed the area dramatically and the Griffin soap factory was no longer the only dominant force. Moreover, the proportion of Irish inhabitants was increasing steadily. The sanitary conditions, however were not necessarily improving in this booming district and therefore the inevitable epidemics throughout the 19^th century were believed to be caused by the Irish.

During this period in 1825, the charismatic Father Patrick Phelan would emerge as the hero of the Irish community in Griffintown. He was born in Kilkenny, Ireland, and was later known as the soggarth aroon or “dear priest” of the Irish emigrants. He was very close to his people and would influence and protect his Irish flock through the 1832 epidemic and the initial frictions with the French Canadians, with whom they used to share the Bon-Secours church in the east by moving to the St. Recollet chapel. Father Phelan was also a visionary and arranged for a large tract of land some 40 km north of Montreal belonging to the Sulpicians to establish a now defunct Irish farming community in St Columban, west of St Jerôme.

Griffintown flood. The St Lawrence was a perennial danger, and a retaining wall was constructed much later in 1903 after years of flooding (Photo credit: Montreal Mirror)

The political loyalties of the young Griffintown community were tested during the 1830’s political upheavals and the armed rebellion against the British colonial realm: The Irish were torn between the Catholic French and the dominating Protestant British. Meanwhile, Griffintown was somehow booming, despite the arrival of the Famine emigrants. By 1860, more than half of the 30,000 Irish living in Montreal were in St. Ann’s ward, in and around Griffintown.

A major fire destroyed nearly a third of Griffintown in 1850. Both the negative and positive effects of the Industrialization were being felt across North America, and the booming working class Griffintown was no exception. The industrial boom continued with the construction of new factories with mostly unskilled Irish laborers, while the more qualified jobs went to English and Scottish workers. Pollution, unsafe conditions and child labour were common. This is the period demands for better working conditions led to strikes and formation of Unions. The Victoria railway bridge (1854-59) linking nearby Windmill point to Montreal’s south shore across the St Lawrence was another turning point in Griffintown’s history. The construction of this very important bridge provided abundant jobs and transformed Montreal into a railway hub. By that time, the community of St. Columban was already disintegrating, and many middle class Irishmen were integrating into the larger Québec society. They mostly gathered at the newly erected St Patrick’s neo-Gothic church (1947), northeast of Griffintown and closer to the fashionable districts near the protestant bastion of the Golden Mile. The Irish community was not as united as it seemed, and Griffintown was still rooted in relative poverty and hardship.

Victoria Bridge railway bridge: Montreal became a transportation hub (photo credit: http://canadachannel.ca)

Eventually it was becoming obvious that Griffintown badly needed her own church. Bonsecours, Recollet and St. Patrick were a bit far and even felt somehow alien to the locals. The answer was St. Ann’s church, built in 1854 (now demolished). The Irish Catholics were getting organised and making slow but steady progress despite numerous community problems (e.g. the well-documented murder case of Mary Gallagher). The constant struggles and fights for jobs did not slow down their love for earthly pleasures. Meanwhile, sports (such as lacrosse) were gaining in popularity, and the local team called the Shamrocks was making everyone proud as they clinched the local championship in 1870.

The stables of the Old Montreal tourist carriage horses are in nearby Griffintown (Photo credit: catalyse urbaine portfolio)

The perennial flood saga led to a record-breaking disaster of April 14, 1861. Dreidger describes Griffintown as “an unlikely Venice”, when gigantic ice blocks completely overwhelmed Griffintown causing total chaos and writing another chapter in the long list of sufferings endured by the community. In 1886 and1869 yet another series of inundations brought the best out of the surviving community’s fighting spirit and demonstrated the ineffectiveness or lack of care of the local governments. The authorities, however, were still resisting calls to finally approve and erect a permanent wall to prevent floods. Such a wall was finally erected by 1901 and Griffintown ceased to be the victim of these horrible natural tragedies.

Orange order march in Toronto. Fortunately, the presence of these archaic groups is mostly history in Québec. They still somehow thrive in Ontario and some parts of the Maritimes, spreading their extremist Protestant /loyalist message while celebrating their ''Glorious Revolution''. (Photo: 3rd world first blogspot)

The very intriguing issue of the Irish catholic community’s interaction with the Orange Order was further deteriorated when a anti Catholic populist agitator called Alessandro Gavazzi came to town, causing riots and deaths. Age-old enmity, hatred and resistance against the oppressing Orangemen had never died among the Irish Catholics, even after decades in Montreal. The Protestant extremists were as usual intimidating and condescending toward the “popish” residents and did not miss any chance to carry on with their traditional aggressive stance as they did in Ireland.

A Canadian Father of Confederation D'Arcy McGee's commemorative plaque at St. Patrick's Basilica, Montreal (Photo: Krikor Tersakian)

Parnell Monument in Dublin. The Irish national hero visited Montreal in 1879.''No man shall have the right to fix the boundary to the march of a Nation'' (Photo credit http://irelandposters.com/dublin)

Griffintown, understandably, was also a hot spot of fierce rivalry and clashes between the Protestants and the Catholics. The fiery presence of a fiery and provocative Italian preacher called Gavazzi had sparked widespread riots leaving six deaths and causing more tensions. The reaction of the Irish Catholics against any perceived or real intimidation was deeply rooted in history back to the days of the planters in Ireland and the plundering genocide perpetrated by Oliver Cromwell against the Catholics. The Catholics were dominated by the Protestants since the days of William III of Orange and his “Glorious Revolution”, turning Ireland into an apartheid style administration where the Catholics were mere subjects with not much civil or religious rights or freedom. The transposition of these age-old tensions and mutual mistrust had simply never died in the New World. These tensions constantly resurfaced during the St Patrick’s parades each March 17 (since 1824) and each July 12 (Glorious Twelfth, when the Orangemen celebrate the Battle of the Boyne).

Battle of the Boyne: Protestant forces vanquished Catholics. William of Orange and his English wife, Mary, daughter of James II, both Protestants, were invited to replace the Catholic James II as joint monarchs in 1689 in what came to be known as the ‘Glorious Revolution’. James did not accept his ouster and led an army to try to claim his birthright. The rival forces met in Ireland in 1690 at the River Boyne.(photo public domain)

Griffintown was always closely implicated in politics, even though by 1830 most of the Irish Catholic men were ineligible to vote because of elitist voting requirements linking vote to property ownership. During elections, local churches became targets of attacks on both sides and the tensions increased even more when the Canadian Parliament moved from Kingston to Montreal just at the edge of Griffintown. The local Irish community was now even closer to “real action”, taking part in fierce electoral battles between Tories, Reformers, French, English, Upper Canada and Lower Canada. The political mix was highly explosive and Griffintown did not disappoint, with a background of the classic tensions between Orangeman and Catholics.

Fenian Raids on Canada in the 1860's (photo credit: Canadian War Museum)

The Father of Canadian Confederation D’Arcy McGee was not the “product” of Griffintown. He was born in Ireland and lived there for long years, but his political heritage is closely associated with Griffintowners. McGee arrived in Montreal in 1857, witnessed the hard conditions of the Irish in Montreal and “undeserved” bad reputation and decided to act. He launched his political career facing six candidates vying for the Montreal seat as “representative” of the Irish and won a much-contested election. Riding high on Griffintown support, he left for Ottawa as an MP, but was already under fierce attack by Orangemen and other Protestant groups. Shortly afterward, McGee was locking horns with Irish Catholic radicals known as the Fenians, who advocated the use of force to achieve independence for Ireland. McGee launched ferocious attacks on the Fenians publishing letters and trying to stop their infiltration into mainstream organizations such as the St Patrick’s society in 1861. The Fenians actually staged armed attacks on Montreal and were determined to undermine their powerful enemy, McGee. In 1868, the treat of Fenians plots was still very much alive, and on April 7, 1868, the astute and charismatic Canadian Confederation founding father was shot dead in Ottawa in front of his home (probably by the Fenians). McGee had become a Canadian hero, forging alliances with the Protestant ruling elites (Sir John McDonald), but he had also frustrated many Griffintowners and Orangemen with his visionary views for a more inclusive Canada. His funeral was very impressive, with hundreds of thousands people lining the streets from St Patrick’s to Notre Dame and the Mount Royal cemetery. He had helped build new nation but was unable to stop the hatred between his own Irish people.

The author also mentions about the visit of the great Irish politician Charles Stewart Parnell to Montreal in 1879, where thousands of Irish well-wishers greeted him and that he met with some Griffintown students.

St. Patrick's Minor Basilica in Montreal: Opened in 1847, the very year the Great Famine struck Ireland (Photo credit: Krikor Tersakian)

The Irish and French speaking catholic communities shared a religion but the power struggles for money and influence was incessant throughout the 19^th century. This was best illustrated by the struggle between the St. Sulpice Order and the Bishop of Montreal. The Sulpicians were the Seigneurs of Montreal since 1663 and were both powerful and wealthy. However, things got complicated starting 1821 with the appointment of Jean Jacque Latrigue (first Bishop of Montreal) and then his more hard-line successor Ignace Bourget. In 1866, Bourget announced a plan to subdivide the Island into several Parishes, all directly under his control. This was a dangerous plan for St Patrick’s, because it would dilute the Irishness and decrease the resources of the parish. The priests simply refused to cave in to the Bishop. The Montreal Irish, at the time, represented almost a third of the city’s population, and even pressed for a third Irish church. They were constantly fighting off the Bishop, who had also influenced the decision to close the St Patrick’s hospital, creating instead two Anglophone wards in French Hotel Dieu Hospital. There was widespread discontent about Bourget’s plans, and father Patrick Dowd, the priest of St. Patrick’s launched a counterattack against the Bishop. He was given a helping hand by politician and parishioner D’Arcy McGee. McGee even went to the Vatican as part of a delegation to plead with Pope Pius IX and save the Irishness of St. Patrick’s church. Vatican’s response was positive, but came only five years after McGee’s assassination.

Stained glass at St. Patrick's basilica (Photo credit Krikor Tersakian)

In the 1880’s Montreal was firmly the leading industrial and economical power center in Canada, and the Irish had to play a balancing act between the Francophone and the Anglo-Protestants. During that Golden Age period, the Irish were also becoming more influential and better organized as a community: The St. Patrick’s day parades were growing larger and more popular. Sport teams and cultural associations were sprouting, such as the Nazareth Street Club (Griffintown Boys Club). The Home Rule in Ireland associated with Parnell had brought a new organization called the Ancient Order of Hibernians, which had an increasing support in Griffintown and notable influence in the Irish community’s affairs, campaigning for more equality and social justice. Late 19^th century saw Montreal’s Francophone become a majority, while transport facilities helped many Irish to leave for the suburbs (Verdun, Notre Dame de Grace etc), therefore creating conditions for assimilation.

During WWI, the Irish responded to the calls to join the fight on the side of the allies in Europe: Four thousand Irishmen joined the Canadian Expeditionary Force, despite initial mixed feeling about helping the British. Things changed with the tragic events in Ireland in 1916, when Whitehall brutally suppressed the Easter Rising. The Irish nationalist feelings rose, and in 1919, the American-born Éamon de Valera (future Taoiseach and President of the Republic), paid a visit to the U.S.A. He drew support for the Irish cause from visiting Griffintowners. Tensions were boiling on all sides and eventually even the St Patrick’s Parade’s very existence was at risk. Meanwhile, the post war Spanish flu pandemic took at least fourteen thousand lives in Quebec alone.

American-born Éamon de Valera (future Taoiseach and President of the Republic of Ireland), paid a visit to the U.S.A. He drew support for the Irish cause from visiting Montrealers. He was captured during the failed Easter rising in 1916 and his life spared by the British mainly because of his American passport. (photo: public domain)

During the 1930s, The Great Depression took a heavy toll on the Canadians: an estimated 30% of Montrealers lost their jobs. The Stock market crash forced the Government to launch public Works, in order to stimulate the economy and provide wages to the unemployed. As a result, Griffintown got the Wellington Tunnel, dug under the Lachine Canal, replacing the old Wellington Street Bridge. This project required the eviction of hundreds of Griffintown residents from near the St Ann’s Church. Many more were displaced as the result of the construction of an elevated CNR railway track linking the nearby Victoria Bridge to the new central Station (1938-1945). These public works accelerated the Griffintown demise, even though on the social and cultural fronts, the community was somehow still alive and kicking. St. Ann’s Parish dramatic society, the Young Men’s Society, the fighter named Joe Kid Coughlin, the baseball players or even the majority Protestant Griffintown Club were all contributing to the social life. Griffintown was alive and kicking, even though the end of this fabulous adventure was fast approaching.

The depression lasted well into 1939 when World War II broke out. Paradoxically, the war gave hope to thousands in Griffintown, who were lured to the army with the promise of some financial protection. Montreal was transformed by the mobilization and the security measures. In 1944 Griffintown even experienced a tragic accident when a bomber plane from nearby Dorval airport crashed at the corner of Shannon and Ottawa streets. This tragedy was followed by a major fire and even an earthquake that shook Montreal on September 5, 1944!

The Lachine Canal today: Parts revitalized with condominiums, parts still in desolate state (Photo Credit: http://www.bcee.concordia.ca/index.php/Lachine_Canal)

Griffintown narrowly voted for the Government referendum to introduce military conscription: Quebec voted massively against the proposal, while Canada in general supported it. Griffintown results showed an even split. The War naturally brought some economic benefits, but Griffintown was still changing beyond recognition through demolition of houses and expropriations. The end was near as Griffintown was starting to disintegrate. Many residents were leaving permanently and the district was falling victim of the ‘modern times’ in the post war economic boom. The preparation for the Montreal Expo ’67 and the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway (rendering the Lachine Canal obsolete), were other fatal blows. The Dorval Airport and the new Port of Montreal drew economic activities away from Griffintown. Montreal Mayor Drapeau was actively ‘modernizing’ the city, including the destruction of poorer neighborhoods like Griffintown. The Quebec francophone Quiet Revolution did not help the cause of the Irish, nor the fortune of the local politician named Frank Hanley.

Remembering Griffintown, a lost part of Montreal (Photo credit: www.remembergriffintown.org)

In 1964, Victoriatown was bulldozed and the former Goose village became a ‘sea of asphalt’ with new French street names. By 1970, Griffintown was almost finished. In 1969, the Bishop of Montreal asked the Redemptorist to close their St. Ann parish. On June 15, 1970, the church was tragically demolished. That was the final nail in the coffin., and the community had become a ghost town, ‘just like a ghost village of Ireland during the Famine’.

The recent projects to revitalize Griffintown are merely a romantic mirage as the Irish spirit is long gone and is impossible to recreate. There is new interest in rediscovering and somehow preserving the memory of this very interesting community, but at the official level, there is a lack of substantial efforts to revive the lost spirit and the Irishness of these empty streets. Opposing real state and commercial developments in Griffintown will certainly not suffice to bring back to life that almost epic community.

Griffintown rubble and the modern city not far behind. (Photo credit: http://www.griffinsound.ca/griffintown)

Griffintown became a vibrant Irish community for more than a century and a half. It was more than lucky survivors of the famines or epidemics, the “navvies” who built the canals and the nearby Victoria Bridge and other skilled or unskilled laborers. Griffintown was also more than a bunch of underprivileged and persecuted mostly catholic working class people. The community as a whole was energetic, had a vision and an eye for upward mobility, somewhat disdaining authority and their quest for survival. They thrived to find work, provide for their families and have fun. They took care of themselves and their community the best they could through arts, music and sports. Griffintowners had also an insatiable appetite and passion for politics, always along the religious divide. Long live their memory.

St Patrick's Basilica stained glass. Irishness in sad decline, in an increasingly mixed and hyphenated society of Canadian-Irish (Photo: Krikor Tersakian)

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Bibliography

Dreidger, Sharon Doyle: An Irish Heart, Harper Collins Publisher, 2010

Dreidger interview with Brent Holland, May 26, 2010 http://www.brenthollandshow.com/index.html

Krikor Tersakian, March, 2011, Montreal

Murex: The Imperial Purple Dye of Tyre

2010-12-28T02:12:00.054-05:00

Dye Murex, Trunculariopsis (Murex) trunculus can be frequently seen on the muddy-rocky and/or algae covered intertidal-sub-tidal zones of the Mediterranean - Aegean system. A gland situated under the gills secretes a mucous liquid which may produce yellow, green, blue, red or the famous "royal purple" colors of the ancient Mediterranean peoples, according to the method used. (Photo credit: Mehmet Atatur http://www.treknature.com

For Kings only: the Tyrian Purple

The Emperors of Byzantium made a law forbidding anybody from using Tyrian Purple except themselves. The expression ‘born in the purple’ rose from this practice. But what is the amazing story behind these prohibitively expensive and legendary dyes today costing over 3 Million US$ a liter?

Three thousand years ago the Phoenicians controlled trade in purple dyed silks. The gland of the sea-snail Murex trunculus secretes a yellow fluid that, when exposed to sunlight, turns purple-blue. A similar dye, the Tyrian Purple was made from the Murex brandaris yielding purple red colors. Both dyes were extremely expensive.

Ancient Phoenicia is renowned to have given the world the first phonetic (non syllable) based alphabet, a Mediterranean mercantile tradition with colonies like Carthage, and flourishing civilization the ancient Greeks owed a lot to. One lesser known contribution of the ancient "Lebanese" is the Purple Dye which came to be known as the Imperial Purple, that the Phoenicians of the city state Tyre extracted from the sea snail mollusks called Murex".The word 'purple' comes from the Old English purpul which originates from the Latin purpura. This in turn is derived from the Koine Greek πορφύρα (porphyra), name of the Tyrian purple dye manufactured in classical antiquity from a mucus secreted by the spiny dye-murex snail such as Murex trunculus and Murex brandaris. This extremely expensive dye was prized since ancient times and by the time of the Romans, the noblemen had already used it to color ceremonial robes and that became a royal "tradition" around the world. The most unusual aspect of Tyrian purple is the extracted color itself and its variations. In solution, the snail secretion color is blue but as a dye in the solid state it is purple. Just in case you just have to touch up an original Roman textile you can get genuine Tyrian purple dyes for $3,900 a gram or more than $3,000,000 a liter (2)!

Silk and Murex Dye:

Among the more unlikely “marriages” arranged by human ingenuity is the one between the Chinese domesticated silk moth, Bombyx mori, and the Mediterranean sea snails Murex. The Murex dye, when brought together with silk, led to the world’s longest-lasting fashion statement.This fragment from an 11th-century Byzantine robe shows griffins embroidered on a delicate silk woven of murex-dyed threads. (6). Sion Switzerland, Église de Valère, Riggisberg (Philippa Scott, Saudi Aramco World)

Harvesting The Tyrian Purple Murex:

The mollusks needed by the Phoenicians were obtained with great difficulty. The Mediterranean sea has no tides and therefore does not uncover its shores at low water like the oceans. The mollusks prefer tolerably deep water and to procure them in any quantity it was necessary that they should be fished up from a certain depth: A long rope was let down into the sea, with baskets of reeds or rushes attached to it at intervals, constructed like lobster-traps baskets, with an opening that yielded easily to pressure from the outside, but resisted pressure from the inside, and made escape, when once the trap was entered, impossible. The baskets were baited with mussels or frogs, both of which had great attractions for the Murex /Purpuræ/, and were seized and devoured with avidity. At the upper end of the rope was attached to a large piece of cork, which, even when the baskets were full, could not be drawn under water. It was usual to set the traps in the evening,and after waiting a night, or sometimes a night and a day, to draw them up to the surface, when they were generally found to be full of the coveted Murex. (3).The snails were collected in large vats and left to decompose.
Not much is known about the subsequent steps, and the actual ancient method for mass-producing the two murex dyes has not yet been successfully reconstructed; this special “blackish clotted blood” colour, which was prized above all others, is believed to be achieved by double-dipping the cloth, once in the indigo dye of H. trunculus and once in the purple-red dye of M. brandaris (5).

The Phoenicians established also a production facilities outside their traditional Lebanese shores, such as the one at Iles Purpuraires at Mogador, in Morocco.

Murex Purple dye and closely associated "royal" colors, so difficult to get in ancient times. There has been much speculation as to the precise colour the process actually produced by the Murex. Because of many variables in the process, Murex didn't produce any one colour. Sometimes the colour was the same as the flower “violets”, sometimes very similar to fuchsia. But garments of Tyrian Purple were supposedly produced by double-dyeing the fabric, which gave a darker colour. Consequently, the colour produced in that process wasn't “purple” as we understand purple but a dark crimson or even maroon (8).

Worth its Weight in Diamond

It is believed that it generally takes 12,000 snails to produce just 1.4 grams of this dye. Because of this, it was so expensive, that the historian Theopompus reported that,“Purple for dyes fetched its weight in silver”. Yet, there was a craze for this dye as a status symbol. In fact the Emperors of Byzantium made a law forbidding anybody from using it except themselves. The expression ‘born in the purple’ rose from this practice.

Dyes ancient, Dyes modern

Until modern times, all dyes were made in a similar manner, from animal sources and more often, plant sources. For example, cochineal (which gives a crimson colour) was made from the scale insect Kermes vermilio. To make one pound of dye, 70,000 insect bodies were boiled, dried, powdered and boiled again in ammonia. The red dye was then extracted by filtration and precipitation by alum. Indigo was extracted from leaves of the indigo plant (Indigofera tinctoria).

In 1909, Paul Friedländer discovered the chemical structure of Tyrian Purple (now called 6,6-dibromoindigo) and by then, the nature of the dye industry had completely changed. New dyes were now being made from the by-products of coal extraction. The first of these was mauve, synthesized by the British chemist William Henry Perkin from coal tar in 1856. As these dyes were cheaper and offered a wider range of colors, the need for natural dyes disappeared. And that’s why the clothes we buy today and no longer priced on the basis of colour! (1)

"Born in the Purple": Aristocracy and Power

Born in Purple: Byzantium Emperor Justinian I dressed in a robe dyed with Tyrian Purple. Interestingly, unlike other dyes that faded in sunlight, Tyrian purple would become darker.

Imperial Purple: From Constantine: until the half of Fifthcentury, the emperors were buried in immense red porphyry sarcophagi . Marcian (450-457) was the last to be honored with such a burial. For many emperors this stone was the first thing they saw, and the prestigious title “Porphyry Born” common within the emperors of Constantinople, meant they saw the light in the magnificent room called “born in the purple room”. It was a squared room of the Imperial Palace, roofed with a pyramid, all covered with red porphyry, where the empress gave birth to the imperial heirs. (Photo credit: http://dragons-intl.com)

The Imperial Purple tie of Prince William is surely not a random choice, nor the robe of the Pope Benedict XVI. Traditions continue, even if they go unnoticed by the general public. Here, William in an official photo with bride-to-be Kate Middleton at Buckingham Palace, 2010. http://www.celebitchy.com.

The oldest known murex-dyed textile is a fine wool tapestry woven during the fifth to fourth centuries bc in Persia. Originally a garment, it was later adapted—in a well-worn condition—as a felt-lined horse trapping, which was buried with its owner (Philippa Scott - State Hermitage Museum, Saudi Aramco World)

It's a purple world!

Beyond the Mediterranean, there are a number of other sea snails useful for dyeing but none equalled Murex. Some 140 species flourish off the shores of North and South America. Of these, Purpura patula, Purpura persica and Purpura aperta inhabit the Gulf of Mexico, and these are still valued today in Central America, where women use them to color yarn. Sun and saltwater cause the pigment to oxidize on the fibers into an attractive but uneven purple. Unlike the Mediterranean types of Murex, which must be crushed in order to obtain the tiny sac of pigment, the gland on the American shellfish is closer to the surface, and the creature can be persuaded to squirt its secretion onto the yarn. Afterward, the shellfish can be put back into the sea, given time to recover, and used again. Threads colored in this way tend to retain a fishy smell, however. The dyes in many pre-Columbian textiles and the purple paint in the Nahuatl codices have been analyzed and found to be shellfish purple.

In ancient Japan yet another type of shellfish was used. In the waters around Scandinavia and the British Isles, the Anglo-Saxons called purple dye "fiscdeag" (“fish dye”), and in the seventh century the Venerable Bede wrote about red and purple dyes obtained from sea snails. In Australia, although there are equivalent shellfish, no evidence has yet been found that these were ever used for textile dyeing.(7)

Phoenicia gave us more than the Purple Dye: Phonetic Alphabet, sea trade and Carthage.

According to legend the first purple dye was discovered by Herakle-Melqart city god of Tyre) who was walking along the Levantine shoreline with the nymph Tyrus. His dog found a Murex snail and devoured it, which left a beautiful purple color around the dog's mouth. Tyrus saw the color and told Herakle-Melqart she would not accept his courtship until he brought her a robe of the same color. So he collected the Murex shells, extracted the dye, and tinted the first garment purple.

Byblos, Sidon and Tyre were the main Phoenician cities and traded with many countries round the Mediterranean, especially Italy. The Phoenicians first traded in Italy with the Etruscan, a society of artisans skilled in the art of jewelry making. However, it was with the creation of Imperial Rome by Romulus in 753 B.C. that the Murex’s purple dye began to be synonymous with power,wealth and position.

The exports of Phoenicia as a whole included particularly cedar and pine wood, fine linen from Tyre, Byblos, and Berytos (ancient Beirut), cloths dyed with the famous Murex Tyrian purple, embroideries from Sidon, metalwork and glass, glazed faience, wine, salt, and dried fish. They received in return raw materials, such as papyrus, ivory, ebony, silk,amber, ostrich eggs, spices, incense, horses, gold, silver, copper, iron, tin, jewels, and precious stones. The name Byblos is Greek; papyrus received its early Greek name (byblos,byblinos) from its being exported to the Aegean through Byblos. Hence the English word Bible is derived from byblos as "the (papyrus) book." (3)

The ancient Phoenician city of Tyre was named after after the rocky formation on which the town was originally built. Tyre means “rock”, adjective for Tyre is Tyrian. Tyre was a Phoenician island city founded around the third millennium BC and known as Queen of the Seas. In the 10th century BC, King of Tyre, Ahiram, joined two peninsulas by landfill and extended the city further by reclaiming a considerable area from the sea and built two ports and a temple to Melkart, the city's God.

Tyre grew wealthy from its far-reaching Phoenician colonies and its industries of purple-dyed textiles in the first millennium BC. The Phoenician expansion began about 815 B.C. when traders from Tyre founded Carthage in North Africa, of which Hannibal is the famous historical leader challenging Rome.

Eventually Phoenician colonies spread around the Mediterranean and even the Atlantic, bringing to the city a flourishing maritime trade. In 332 B.C. Alexander the Great set out to conquer this strategic coastal base in the war between the Greeks and the Persians. Unable to storm the city, he blockaded Tyre for seven months. Alexander was so enraged at the Tyrians' defense and the loss of his men that he destroyed half the city. The Romans later built great important monuments in the city, including an aqueduct, a triumphal arch and the largest hippodrome in antiquity.

Taken by the Islamic armies in 634 Tyre strong fortifications enabled to resist to the Crusaders until 1124. After about 180 years of Crusader rule, the Mameluke retook the city in 1291, and then it passed on to the Ottomans at the start of the 16th century. With the end of the World War I Tyre was integrated into the new nation of Lebanon, a few miles north of the highly volatile border with Israel.

The legendary shell Murex.This is a specimen of Haustellum haustellum, sometimes named as the Mouse Murex also known as Snipe's bill Murex and Woodcock Murex, a denizen of the Indo-Pacific region(Photo: Mehmet Atatur: Trek Nature)

Murex dye with different shades: an example of Suzani Bokhara, Uzbekistan Silk on cotton, circa 1840. Trellis design on center field;murex dye used in flowers on border; irises, pomegranates and carnations throughout. 90 in x 57 ( http://www.estherfitzgerald.com)

An example of a manuscript (Trinity College, Dublin) of the Palimpsest Codex of Isaiah, St. Matthew’s Gospel. The letters are written on purple vellum and the letters are gold. The manuscript is from the 6th century.

But what is the secret of this color purple and why was it so unique in history?

There is simply no other color so closely attached to Greeks and Romans but royal purple very well known and as Porphyra (πορφύρα) . It was a custom during the early ages of Christianity, to write their most important manuscripts in gold or silver letters upon vellum stained with royal purple. These manuscripts were produced in this manner in order to be able to present the stronger proof of the high degree of respect with which they were made.(4)

The color of your robe indicates your social class

Today, clothes of all colors cost the same. But did you know that a few generations ago, the cost depended on the color of the cloth? This was because dyes were expensive to obtain. Tyrian Purple was a dye so expensive that only kings could afford it!

The imperial robes of Roman emperors were Tyrian purple trimmed in metallic gold thread. The badge of office of a Roman Senator was a stripe of Tyrian purple on their white toga. Tyrian purple was continued in use by the emperors of the Eastern Roman Empire until its final collapse in 1453. In medieval Europe, blue dyes were rare and expensive, so only the most wealthy or the aristocracy could afford to wear them. (The working class wore mainly green and brown.) Because of this (and also because Tyrian purple had gone out of use in western Europe after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in AD 476), Europeans’ idea of purple shifted towards this more bluish purple known as royal purple because of its similarity to the royal blue worn by the aristocracy. This was the shade of purple worn by kings in medieval Europe.

Shades of the Murex: Thistle Lilac, Mauve, Violet, Orchid, Magenta, Fuchsia, Dark Magenta, Purple, Plum, Dark Orchid, Dark Violet Indigo, Lavender, Wine, Heliotrope, Royal Purple, Mulberry, Aubergine… No matter what the name is they all have in common the blended colors of blue and red. (http://slovenian.wunderground.com/blog)

Jesus, too, is Born in Purple?: depicted and dressed as a Roman soldier but wearing royal purple and gold. He is "trampling" the devil (snake) as well as Rome (the lion), and is holding the scriptures which read "I am the way, the truth and the life." By the 5th Century, such a claim would have been acceptable. (photo credit: Alamo.edu)

The port city of Tyre (Today's Sour in South Lebanon) was the ancient capital of Phoenicia and was best known for the production of purple dye extracted from the murex sea snail. The city's strategic and commercial value made it a target of many conquests, and several civilizations have left behind their architectural and cultural legacies. Roman ruins in the Al-Bas district include the largest and best-preserved Roman hippodrome—or horse racing arena—in the Middle East, which held more than 20,000 spectators.(Photo credit 1996- National Geographic Society).

The first phonetic alphabet was the most important gift of the Phoenicians to the world. The Greek alphabet was directly inspired from these. Complicated and non practical Alphabets based on syllables rather than sounds were out.

References:

1: Human Touch of Chemistry http://www.humantouchofchemistry.com/purple

2: www.most-expensive.com

3, 4: http://Phoenicia.org

5: Greek Heraldry Society 6: Philipa Scott: http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200604/millennia.of.murex.htm:

7: Philipa Scott, Saudi Aramco World, p. 30-37, July/August 2006.

8: http://www.lexorandi.es/Aliturgico/colorviolaceo.htm

Krikor Tersakian, 2010 Montreal, Canada