Lebanon, demanding autonomy, had finally been given that privilege. To start with, Lebanon was not self-sufficient. Now that it was being blockaded, it was deprived of the importation of food. Then the locusts came, for two solid years, to eat everything from the smallest blade of grass to the old oaks. The inhabitants died of starvation on the roads and sidewalks and inside their houses. The leaders were picked up and hanged in the public squares; if the war had lasted longer the extermination would have been complete and no one would have been left to tell the story.
Gibran, reacting to this tragedy, wrote in Arabic the article, “My People Died,” part of which follows:
My People Died
by Gibran
My people died of starvation and I came here alive, lamenting them in my loneliness.…
I am told, ‘The tragedy of your country is only a part of the tragedy of the world; the tears and the blood shed in your country are only drops in the river of blood and tears pouring night and day in the valleys and the plains of the world.’
This may be true, but the tragedy of my people is a silent one conceived in the heads of men, whom we should call snakes and serpents. The tragedy of my people is without music and without parades.
If my people had revolted against the tyrants and died in defiance, I would have said that death for liberty was more honorable than the life of servitude.
Whoever reaches eternity with sword in his hand lives as long as there is justice.
If my countrymen had entered the World War and were destroyed in battle to the last man, I would have said it was a wild hurricane destroying the green and the dead branches; I would have said death under the force of a hurricane is better than life in the arms of old age.
If an earthquake had swallowed my people and loved ones, I would have said it is the law of Nature directed by a power beyond the comprehension of man. It is foolish to attempt to solve its mysteries.
But my people did not die in rebellion, did not die in a battle and they were not buried by an earthquake.
My people died on the cross. My people died with their arms stretched toward both East and West and their eyes seeking in the darkness of the skies.
They died in silence because the ears of humanity had become deaf to their cry.
They died but they were not criminals.
They died because they were peaceful.
They died in the land that produced milk and honey.
They died because the hellish serpent seized all their flocks and all the harvest of their fields.
After the war France took over Syria and Lebanon, through a mandate from the League of Nations, to help them organize governments and become independent within three years.
The three years dragged into six, into twelve, and it appeared as though the French were to stay in Lebanon forever.
Gibran, in reaction to this situation, wrote his article, “You Have Your Lebanon and I Have My Lebanon.”
“You Have Your Lebanon and I Have My Lebanon”
by Gibran
You have your Lebanon and its dilemma. I have my Lebanon and its beauty.
Your Lebanon is an arena for men from the West and men from the East.
My Lebanon is a flock of birds fluttering in the early morning as shepherds lead their sheep into the meadow and rising in the evening as farmers return from their fields and vineyards.
You have your Lebanon and its people. I have my Lebanon and its people.
Yours are those whose souls were born in the hospitals of the West; they are as a ship without rudder or sail upon a raging sea.… They are strong and eloquent among themselves but weak and dumb among Europeans.
They are brave, the liberators and the reformers, but only in their own area. But they are the cowards, always led backward by the Europeans. They are those who croak like frogs boasting that they have rid themselves of their ancient, tyrannical enemy, but the truth of the matter is that this tyrannical enemy still hides within their own souls. They are the slaves for whom time had exchanged rusty chains for shiny ones so that they thought themselves free. These are the children of your Lebanon. Is there anyone among them who represents the strength of the towering rocks of Lebanon, the purity of its water or the fragrance of its air? Who among them vouchsafes to say, “When I die I leave my country little better than when I was born?”
Who among them dares to say, “My life was a drop of blood in the veins of Lebanon, a tear in her eyes or a smile upon her lips?”
Those are the children of your Lebanon. They are, in your estimation, great; but insignificant in my estimation.
Let me tell you who are the children of my Lebanon.
They are the farmers who would turn fallow field into garden and grove.
They are the shepherds who lead their flocks through the valleys to be fattened for your table meat and your woolens.
They are the vine-pressers who press the grape to wine and boil it to syrup.
They are the parents who tend the nurseries, the mothers who spin silken yarn.
They are the husbands who harvest the wheat and the wives who gather the sheaves.
They are the builders, the potters, the weavers and the bell-casters.
They are the poets who pour their souls in new cups.
They are those who migrate with nothing but courage in their hearts and strength in their arms but who return with wealth in their hands and a wreath of glory upon their heads.
They are the victorious wherever they go and loved and respected wherever they settle.
They are the ones born in huts but who died in palaces of learning.
These are the children of Lebanon; they are the lamps that cannot be snuffed by the wind and the salt which remains unspoiled through the ages.
They are the ones who are steadily moving toward perfection, beauty and truth.
What will remain of your Lebanon after a century? Tell me! Except bragging, lying and stupidity? Do you expect the ages to keep in its memory the traces of deceit and cheating and hypocrisy? Do you think the atmosphere will preserve in its pockets the shadows of death and the stench of graves?
Do you believe life will accept a patched garment for a dress? Verily, I say to you that an olive plant in the hills of Lebanon will outlast all of your deeds and your works; that the wooden plow pulled by the oxen in the crannies of Lebanon are nobler than your dreams and aspirations.
I say to you, while the conscience of time listened to me, that the songs of a maiden collecting herbs in the valleys of Lebanon will outlast all the uttering of the most exalted prattler among you. I say to you that you are achieving nothing. If you knew that you are accomplishing nothing, I would feel sorry for you, but you know it not.
You have Your Lebanon and I have My Lebanon.
[As Gibran bitterly assailed the politicians in Lebanon he tenderly expressed his hopes and belief in the young people of Lebanese and Syrian origin in America. The following message is often found, framed and displayed on the walls in the homes of Gibran’s countrymen:]*
I Believe in You
by Gibran
I believe in you, and I believe in your destiny.
I believe that you are contributors to this new civilization.
I believe that you have inherited from your forefathers an ancient dream, a song, a prophecy, which you can proudly lay as a gift of gratitude upon the lap of America.
I believe that you can say to the founders of this great nation, “Here I am, a youth, a young tree whose roots were plucked from the hills of Lebanon, yet I am deeply rooted here, and I would be fruitful.”
And I believe that you can say to Abraham Lincoln, the blessed, “Jesus of Nazareth touched your lips when you spoke, and guided your hand when you wrote; and I shall uphold all that you have said and all that you have written.”
I believe that you can say to Emerson and Whitman and James, “In my veins runs the blood of the poets and wise men of old, and it is my desire to come to you and receive, but I s
hall not come with empty hands.”
I believe that even as your fathers came to this land to produce riches, you were born here to produce riches by intelligence, by labor.
I believe that it is in you to be good citizens.
And what is it to be a good citizen?
It is to acknowledge the other person’s rights before asserting your own, but always to be conscious of your own.
It is to be free in word and deed, but it is also to know that your freedom is subject to the other person’s freedom.
It is to create the useful and the beautiful with your own hands, and to admire what others have created in love and with faith.
It is to produce by labor and only by labor, and to spend less than you have produced that your children may not be dependent upon the state for support when you are no more.
It is to stand before the towers of New York and Washington, Chicago and San Francisco saying in your heart, “I am the descendant of a people that builded Damascus and Byblos, and Tyre and Sidon and Antioch, and now I am here to build with you, and with a will.”
You should be proud of being an American, but you should also be proud that your fathers and mothers came from a land upon which God laid His gracious hand and raised His messengers.
Young Americans of Syrian origin, I believe in you.
[Gibran did not live long enough to enjoy the realization of his hopes and dreams. The Lebanon of Gibran succeeded finally in becoming an independent nation.
In the summer of 1964, the Lebanese Government dedicated a four-lane boulevard stretching from Beirut to the gracious International Airport, the name of the avenue being Jadat Al Mogtaribeen (Lebanese Overseas). This boulevard is the path Gibran walked to meet his first love, and it encompasses the dreams toward which Gibran prodded his beloved homeland: the graceful resorts, modern skyscrapers and luxurious hotels of Beirut and the jet-age accommodations at the airfield. Each day, the emigrants born here in poverty travel Gibran’s path. “The young trees, rooted in the hills of Lebanon, transplanted to various parts of the world, return, and they are fruitful.”
In my mind’s eye, I see Gibran watching this new, passing parade. For did he not write:
“A little while, a moment to rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me.”]
* Sections in brackets are editor’s interpolations within Gibran’s text.
6. GIBRAN’S PAINTING AND POETRY
The religion of Islam prohibited the use of images and idols, even the image of Mohammed. In the Christian countries it conquered, Islam converted many of the churches into mosques. Statues and paintings were easily removed; mosaic walls were covered with plaster. Hence the art of painting and carving vanished from the Islamic world. To enhance the appearance of new buildings, architects and decorators resorted to lines, geometrical designs and scenery.
As a young student in Lebanon, Gibran was not influenced by the art of one particular man or school of painters. Studying the work of the Arab philosophers, Gibran imagined their appearances and for the first time etched likenesses of these men appeared in books. Gibran created these at the age of seventeen. In the early days of his career as a painter, he exhibited his work in a studio in Boston. A fire destroyed the building and the entire collection of drawings and paintings. This was a great shock to a young man who needed to sell his work for a living. In later years he remarked that it was just as well that they were destroyed because he was not fully mature when he painted them. The paintings and drawings of Gibran are now scattered all over the Middle East, Europe and America.
Early in his career, Gibran wrote books, poetry and articles in Arabic. He created a new era in style, influenced by Western thought, and a revolution in the minds of the younger generation of his country. But all this did not give him a living income; therefore in his art he concentrated on portraits of famous or rich people. The illustrations for his books consisted basically of naked bodies, shadows drawn in gray and black. Their movements and the settings were a clear attempt to relate the known to the unknown, to depict love, sorrow, and life in their relation to man and God. He used no clothes, no trees, no buildings, no churches, and nothing to identify the scene with any section of the earth or any religious denomination. What is revealed is Gibran and his own connection with the handiwork of God. Gibran’s ancestors conceived of God as an ancient father with long beard and flowing clothes; this conception remained with the church which supported and financed the work of the great men of the Middle Ages. Gibran, not supported by the church, not affected by any specific style in his childhood, remained free to develop his own style.
Gibran left few poems because he learned how to write Arabic poetry before he knew how to write English. This has been the case of other Arabic writers in Gibran’s circumstances. According to the rules of Arabic poetry, what we call a poem in English is considered only a rhymed phrase. In other words, if we accept the Arabic rules as standard, the English language has no poetry.
Gibran wrote most of his Arabic poetry in the early years of his life. Arab poets prided themselves in using words that could be understood only after consulting the dictionary. Gibran’s Arabic poetry opened a new era and new horizons by using short and simple words.
In his later years, Gibran wrote for English readers. As we have said, according to Gibran’s education, writing poetry in English would be like taking the work of Shakespeare and rewriting it in ordinary language. Hence, we find very little poetry among the voluminous work of Gibran.
In what poetry he wrote, the philosophy was the same as in his prose. The following translation gives an example of this philosophy:
“During the ebb, I wrote a line upon the sand,
Committing to it all that is in my soul and mind;
I returned at the tide to read it and to ponder upon it,
I found naught upon the seashore but my ignorance.”
One of Gibran’s Arabic poems, The Procession, has been translated into English by two different writers. Comparing the two works we find great variation and we feel that something is missing. If I were to attempt a translation, I could probably do no better. There remains something inherently untranslatable in the basic use of words and language. One of the translators wrote: “By reason of the nebulous, untranslatable character of the Arabic language … it required occasional departure from strict translation in order that Gibran’s mighty message be captured intact.”
A commentator who knew Arabic has said: “Arabic is a forceful language with a prolific vocabulary of pregnant words of fine shadings. Its delicate tones of warmth and color form with its melodies a symphony, the sound of which moves its listeners to tears or ecstasy.”
Though we lose some of the forcefulness and melody, even a translation conveys the basic philosophy of Gibran, which reached its peak of expression in the later work, The Prophet.
The translator, G. Kheirallah, said of this work: “The poem represents the unconscious autobiography of Gibran: Gibran the sage, mellowed beyond his years, and Gibran the rebel, who had come to believe in the Unity and Universality of all existence and who longed for simple, impersonal freedom, merged in harmony with all things.”
7. THE PHILOSOPHY OF GIBRAN
“A philosopher is an ordinary person who thinks more deeply and obstinately than other people.”
The American philosopher, William James, defines philosophy as “an unusually stubborn attempt to think clearly.”
The word “Philosophy” comes from Greek and means “love of wisdom.” It is the process of observing the facts and events of life, in both the mental and the physical worlds, with intelligent analysis of their causes and effects, and especially the laws that govern them, for the purpose of deducing sets of general principles and concepts, usually with some practical application of these as a final goal.
Because we live in such a complex and distracting world, few of us see the effect of the principles of the great philosophers upon our lives, our relations with each o
ther and indeed upon the very concepts we take for granted. For example, even hunger is a much more sophisticated process to man today than in the past: he measures his desire for food not merely by his appetite and the accessibility of foodstuffs, but also by his ability to pay for it and his peculiar tastes. This self-control is the result, of course, of thousands of years of legal, religious and political training.
Our world is so complex that we take for granted engineering processes that would dwarf any of the ancient Seven Wonders of the World; we ride railroad tracks that do not follow faithfully the curvature of the earth, for the train would jump the tracks if they were level. We pass skyscrapers whose stress and strain are figured to the millionth of an inch, yet take for granted the fact that the Empire State Building actually sways constantly many feet. If we are religiously inclined, we take going to the church of our choice for granted; if we are non-believers, we give no second thought to the fact that we do not have to attend religious services if we do not choose. Yet the very privilege of non-belief represents the victory of philosophy; otherwise the non-churchgoer would still face the lions or the stake.
Gibran did not write treatises about philosophy; but as soon as he began his great book The Prophet, dealing with the question of birth and death, he placed himself within the Socratic maxim: “Know thyself.”
A woman hailed him, asking, “Prophet of God … tell us all that has been shown you of that which is between birth and death.”
As soon as Gibran wrote, “I did not love man-made laws and I abhor the traditions that our ancestors left us,” he placed himself in the sphere of the theologians, illustrating particularly one of the principles of St. Augustine: “One could not doubt unless he were alive and thinking and aware that there is such a thing as truth.”