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T. 🇫🇷🇦🇷🇲🇦🇪🇬

@levantophile • 6,872 subscribers

History, politics, culture & religion, with an eye on the Levant 🏺🍇🫒 // Pro-human, liberty-minded civilizationist 🗽🏛️ // From Mount Lebanon 🇱🇧🧉

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The new argument they’re trying to push about Suwayda, the mountainous extension of the highly fertile Hawran region, is that it is supposedly an entirely barren area with no viable agriculture whatsoever. It is an amusing claim, considering that (1) much of the region’s population historically depended on agriculture (and many still do, despite declining rainfall in recent years having severely affected local farmers), and (2) large parts of the region look like what you see in the video below. Then I suddenly remembered that one of the first complaints surrounding the impasse between the new authorities in Damascus and the local authorities in Suwayda, well before the massacres, came from local farmers demanding a resolution so they could resume exporting their produce outside the province. I looked into it further and came across this report by Sham TV from February 2025: apparently, farmers in Suwayda were complaining that they had 17,000 tons (yes, you read that correctly!) of apples stored in cold storage facilities, with no clear way to sell or export them because of the ongoing impasse. So much for an entirely barren region, after all… 🤦‍♂️ P.S. There are many reasons why a landlocked region with a relatively small population like Suwayda may not be viable as an independent state. The absence of viable agriculture is simply not one of them.

The new argument they’re trying to push about Suwayda, the mountainous extension of the highly fertile Hawran region, is that it is supposedly an entirely barren area with no viable agriculture whatsoever. It is an amusing claim, considering that (1) much of the region’s population historically depended on agriculture (and many still do, despite declining rainfall in recent years having severely affected local farmers), and (2) large parts of the region look like what you see in the video below. Then I suddenly remembered that one of the first complaints surrounding the impasse between the new authorities in Damascus and the local authorities in Suwayda, well before the massacres, came from local farmers demanding a resolution so they could resume exporting their produce outside the province. I looked into it further and came across this report by Sham TV from February 2025: apparently, farmers in Suwayda were complaining that they had 17,000 tons (yes, you read that correctly!) of apples stored in cold storage facilities, with no clear way to sell or export them because of the ongoing impasse. So much for an entirely barren region, after all… 🤦‍♂️ P.S. There are many reasons why a landlocked region with a relatively small population like Suwayda may not be viable as an independent state. The absence of viable agriculture is simply not one of them.

12,523 次观看

How is Mosab Hassan Yousef even real?! 😭 He sounds so deranged and psychotic that you couldn't even cast him as a villain in a movie. He would just come across as a ridiculous caricature of "the evil antagonist."

How is Mosab Hassan Yousef even real?! 😭 He sounds so deranged and psychotic that you couldn't even cast him as a villain in a movie. He would just come across as a ridiculous caricature of "the evil antagonist."

10,839 次观看

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This is a fascinating video. An Egyptian traveler visits Japan and praises the remarkably ethical nature of its society, while also admitting to a kind of cognitive dissonance at seeing people behave this way despite not being theists, and therefore not acting out of fear of divine judgment or eternal damnation. He ultimately asks whether it is “we” who are the hypocrites, publicly performing ethical behavior out of fear, while failing to fully internalize it in private life. It reminded me of the remarks of another Egyptian traveler, the great Muslim scholar and reformer Muhammad Abduh, some 150 years earlier. After returning from a brief stay in France, Abduh is often reported to have said: “I went to the West and saw Islam, but no Muslims; I returned to the East and saw Muslims, but not Islam.” Abduh would go on to become one of the leading figures of the late 19th-century Nahda and a champion of social and religious reform in the final decades of the Ottoman Empire. Admittedly, it is a bit disheartening to see a fellow Egyptian of Abduh’s expressing a similar kind of cognitive dissonance today. It is, in a sense, a reminder of the limited enduring impact that reformist thinkers like Abduh had in pulling much of the Arab-Muslim world, bar a few notable exceptions, out of its civilizational malaise. (Unfortunately, it was, instead, the intellectual currents that cast Western modernity as an enemy, from Sayyid Qutb’s Muslim Brotherhood to Salafism, that ultimately won, eclipsing Abduh’s reformist vision.)

This is a fascinating video. An Egyptian traveler visits Japan and praises the remarkably ethical nature of its society, while also admitting to a kind of cognitive dissonance at seeing people behave this way despite not being theists, and therefore not acting out of fear of divine judgment or eternal damnation. He ultimately asks whether it is “we” who are the hypocrites, publicly performing ethical behavior out of fear, while failing to fully internalize it in private life. It reminded me of the remarks of another Egyptian traveler, the great Muslim scholar and reformer Muhammad Abduh, some 150 years earlier. After returning from a brief stay in France, Abduh is often reported to have said: “I went to the West and saw Islam, but no Muslims; I returned to the East and saw Muslims, but not Islam.” Abduh would go on to become one of the leading figures of the late 19th-century Nahda and a champion of social and religious reform in the final decades of the Ottoman Empire. Admittedly, it is a bit disheartening to see a fellow Egyptian of Abduh’s expressing a similar kind of cognitive dissonance today. It is, in a sense, a reminder of the limited enduring impact that reformist thinkers like Abduh had in pulling much of the Arab-Muslim world, bar a few notable exceptions, out of its civilizational malaise. (Unfortunately, it was, instead, the intellectual currents that cast Western modernity as an enemy, from Sayyid Qutb’s Muslim Brotherhood to Salafism, that ultimately won, eclipsing Abduh’s reformist vision.)

T. 🇫🇷🇦🇷🇲🇦🇪🇬

28,542 次观看 • 1 个月前

This is fascinating. Aley, the largest Druze city in Lebanon (and the second largest after Suwayda worldwide), is now publicly celebrating Christmas! 🎄 Although Aley has a Christian minority, one that was substantially larger before the civil war, I don’t recall there ever being a major Christmas tree lighting ceremony or the opening of a Christmas market there in my lifetime. (Such events are typically confined to Beirut and to predominantly Christian areas.) The Druze have had a whirlwind of a year that has pushed them to reexamine their identity and rethink their political and cultural orientation. This is a clear, if subtle, hint of that shift.

This is fascinating. Aley, the largest Druze city in Lebanon (and the second largest after Suwayda worldwide), is now publicly celebrating Christmas! 🎄 Although Aley has a Christian minority, one that was substantially larger before the civil war, I don’t recall there ever being a major Christmas tree lighting ceremony or the opening of a Christmas market there in my lifetime. (Such events are typically confined to Beirut and to predominantly Christian areas.) The Druze have had a whirlwind of a year that has pushed them to reexamine their identity and rethink their political and cultural orientation. This is a clear, if subtle, hint of that shift.

73,083 次观看 • 7 个月前

Syria’s Druze feel deeply betrayed and abandoned by much of the country’s resolutely pro-Jolani population, despite having shown solidarity by hosting 10,000s of refugees, organizing protests that grew over time, and refusing to send their young men to fight in Assad’s army. (More than 50,000 Druze men are believed to have evaded military conscription.) However, one tangible positive outcome of this long-standing neutrality, which eventually turned into open opposition to the Assad regime, has been the emergence of a large, media-savvy, English-fluent Syrian Druze diaspora, particularly in Europe. Young voices like this woman’s are now able to effectively advocate for their families and communities from abroad - and to do so safely, far from the sectarian jihadist militias of the Jolani regime that massacred their people and continue to besiege them.

Syria’s Druze feel deeply betrayed and abandoned by much of the country’s resolutely pro-Jolani population, despite having shown solidarity by hosting 10,000s of refugees, organizing protests that grew over time, and refusing to send their young men to fight in Assad’s army. (More than 50,000 Druze men are believed to have evaded military conscription.) However, one tangible positive outcome of this long-standing neutrality, which eventually turned into open opposition to the Assad regime, has been the emergence of a large, media-savvy, English-fluent Syrian Druze diaspora, particularly in Europe. Young voices like this woman’s are now able to effectively advocate for their families and communities from abroad - and to do so safely, far from the sectarian jihadist militias of the Jolani regime that massacred their people and continue to besiege them.

65,234 次观看 • 1 年前

I just came across this video of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, and one can’t help but admire the beauty of its details. It should easily rank among the most beautiful buildings in the world. The greatest monument built by the greatest of all Arab kingdoms - and it’s no mystery why an Arabian prince, a son of Saud, would choose to pray there. It is destiny calling.

I just came across this video of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, and one can’t help but admire the beauty of its details. It should easily rank among the most beautiful buildings in the world. The greatest monument built by the greatest of all Arab kingdoms - and it’s no mystery why an Arabian prince, a son of Saud, would choose to pray there. It is destiny calling.

39,503 次观看 • 1 年前

This is the Venezuela that captured the hearts and minds of Syrian and Lebanese Druze from the 1950s onward, giving rise to the first - and for a long time, the largest - sustained Druze diaspora. There had been earlier waves of immigration, especially among Lebanese Druze, to countries such as Brazil, Argentina, and the US in the early 20th century. These, however, largely consisted of young men who either sent remittances home and eventually returned, or who stayed and gradually assimilated. By contrast, those who settled in Venezuela achieved a level of comfort and prosperity that led them to bring their wives, children, and other relatives with them, creating a durable and thriving diaspora community. This situation endured until Chávez, and especially Maduro, ran the country into the ground, forcing many to disperse in all directions, while those who remained grew increasingly impoverished.

This is the Venezuela that captured the hearts and minds of Syrian and Lebanese Druze from the 1950s onward, giving rise to the first - and for a long time, the largest - sustained Druze diaspora. There had been earlier waves of immigration, especially among Lebanese Druze, to countries such as Brazil, Argentina, and the US in the early 20th century. These, however, largely consisted of young men who either sent remittances home and eventually returned, or who stayed and gradually assimilated. By contrast, those who settled in Venezuela achieved a level of comfort and prosperity that led them to bring their wives, children, and other relatives with them, creating a durable and thriving diaspora community. This situation endured until Chávez, and especially Maduro, ran the country into the ground, forcing many to disperse in all directions, while those who remained grew increasingly impoverished.

14,351 次观看 • 7 个月前

Suwayda is under ferocious bombardment as we speak, and it’s being decimated before our eyes. This is too much to bear. 💔 The genie is out of the bottle, and there’s likely no putting it back in. We’ve become the scapegoat onto which all of Sunni Arab resentment is now being projected: decades of repressive Assad family rule, Israel’s genocide in Gaza and occupation of Palestine, the humiliation of Arab military impotence. All of it. Jolani is cynically exploiting this moment to consolidate power and unite Syria’s Sunni Arab population, in all its diversity - urban, rural, and Bedouin - under his iron fist. And he’s channeling their pent-up rage and frustration onto a single target: the “traitorous” Druze minority. I’m traveling to Lebanon today with a deep sense of foreboding. I took off my Druze star necklace and hid it in my bag. I can only hope that if (or when) this chaos spills into Lebanon, the state or other communities, especially Christians and Shias, will offer shelter and protection. Let’s not forget that the 1860 massacres began in Mount Lebanon but reached their nasty conclusion in Damascus. The heartbreaking truth I’m coming to is that coexistence with our Sunni compatriots may no longer be possible. If we are to survive as a people, we will need either an autonomous province or an independent state. To all my Arab Sunni friends and followers: I implore you - speak out. Publicly, if you can. There may still be a small window to prevent a total catastrophe. Don’t look away while your coreligionists carry out these atrocities against us.

Suwayda is under ferocious bombardment as we speak, and it’s being decimated before our eyes. This is too much to bear. 💔 The genie is out of the bottle, and there’s likely no putting it back in. We’ve become the scapegoat onto which all of Sunni Arab resentment is now being projected: decades of repressive Assad family rule, Israel’s genocide in Gaza and occupation of Palestine, the humiliation of Arab military impotence. All of it. Jolani is cynically exploiting this moment to consolidate power and unite Syria’s Sunni Arab population, in all its diversity - urban, rural, and Bedouin - under his iron fist. And he’s channeling their pent-up rage and frustration onto a single target: the “traitorous” Druze minority. I’m traveling to Lebanon today with a deep sense of foreboding. I took off my Druze star necklace and hid it in my bag. I can only hope that if (or when) this chaos spills into Lebanon, the state or other communities, especially Christians and Shias, will offer shelter and protection. Let’s not forget that the 1860 massacres began in Mount Lebanon but reached their nasty conclusion in Damascus. The heartbreaking truth I’m coming to is that coexistence with our Sunni compatriots may no longer be possible. If we are to survive as a people, we will need either an autonomous province or an independent state. To all my Arab Sunni friends and followers: I implore you - speak out. Publicly, if you can. There may still be a small window to prevent a total catastrophe. Don’t look away while your coreligionists carry out these atrocities against us.

12,109 次观看 • 1 年前

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