Programs and activities to sustain the bond between the Diaspora and the mother land… and “a visit of loyalty” to the ones who came before him…
Vancouver – Mashriqiyat:
The World Lebanese Cultural Union ended the year 2011 with a series of events and activities that express a continuous vitality and service to its mission that this institution, with its international character, remains the link between the Lebanese Diaspora everywhere in the world with their mother land, Lebanon.
In the month of November alone, alongside the meeting of the Union’s world council in New York, there will be a celebration in which the unveiling of the Lebanese emigrant statue will take place in the city of Melbourne, the capital of the Australian state of Victoria, with the participation of Lebanese officials such as the minister of information, Walid Daouk, who answered the invitation of the World president Eid Chedrawi, in addition to officials from the Union and members of its world council, headed by the World Secretary General Dr Nick Kahwaji and the Chairman of the economic committee Antoine Menassa.
Mashriqiyat met Dr Kahwaji in Vancouver , where talked about such events and their meaning. He started by congratulating the Culture and Heritage affairs Committee for the success of its program that aims to raise an emigrant statue in every city in the world where Lebanese communities are present. In the province of British Columbia and its capital Victoria, a similar statue was unveiled in 2009. Vancouver is already home to a monument of Kahlil Gibran in one of its prestigious universities. Close to the monument, a Lebanese Cedar tree can be found, similar to the one at the famous Queen Elizabeth Park. Dr Kahwaji also announced the opening of a new website for the Union,
available in 5 languages – Arabic, French, English, Spanish and Portuguese – “to contact all the descendants in their own language, making it easier to interact with them and connect them to Lebanon and its matters, as well as deal with the problems of the Lebanese immigration and the Lebanese identity – which like the cedar seeds, it grows slowly to spread its roots deep in the lands of immigration and then stands proud and tall like the Lebanese mountains”. The website’s launching was accompanied by the launching of a Facebook page.
Dr Kahwaji adds that “those who have no past, have neither present nor a future… we have to learn from the past, its men and their sacrifices and transparencies, in this time of materialism, arrogance and nonsense”.
From this point, Dr Kahwaji recollects the meanings and motivations that led him to lately make a visit he calls “a visit of loyalty” to those who had taken over the responsibility and functions of the World General Secretariat since its beginning:
“It is a visit of loyalty and gratitude to those who have given part of their lives for the organization that the Diaspora wanted to represent their ambition and be their link to their mother land. We visit them to tell them that we appreciate your contributions, thank you for all what you have done for the expatriates, and bow for your sacrifices. You have sown and we have eaten, and here we are today sowing and the descendants will be eating…”
Dr Kahwaji with the former World General Secretary Badawi Abou Dib
After four decades of ideas and thoughts that crossed Dr Kahwaji’s mind on immigration and the spread of the Lebanese expatriates in all corners of the world, it was in Beirut that the following meeting occurred:
“I never liked immigrating and never thought of it, but I used to follow since my childhood the news of the Lebanese Diaspora and the WLCU, and the name of SG Badawi Abou Dib had caught my attention more than once. So I kept following his news and activities in the newspapers and the television hoping to meet with him. This was in the early seventies, and after forty years, I got the opportunity to visit him in his office in Beirut to tell him: I have come here to thank you for all that you have done for the Union, the Diaspora and Lebanon, and to tell you that the Union to which you have given from your heart and soul is still strong, pumping with the spirit of the youth in it. I came to greet you as secretary general, I who is honoured to have the same post as you in this third millennium. He kissed me on the cheek and told me that my visit means a lot to him, and that he is proud of us and secure that the Union is in good hands”.
From right to left: Anthony Ghanem, former WSG Nabil Harfouche, Nick Kahwaji
Then Dr Kahwaji goes on with his recollections to talk about meeting Nabil Harfouche in this year’s summer: “I came back to Lebanon after finishing my studies in Belgium and I opened a clinic in my southern hometown of Abra. The security situation was bad and I was following the news of the Diaspora and the SG and his frequent trips abroad to urge the expatriates to lobby and to support the country. He had many strong patriotic positions, and he was honest and mighty in the management of the Union. I was very happy to meet him this summer, as we are both from the south and are connected through our longing for the lands of our fathers. I will never forget his precious gift to me, his 3 books ‘The Lebanese Presence in the World’ and his permission to use it as an archive on the WLCU website”.
Dr Kahwaji with Engineer Joseph Younes
Dr Kahwaji then remembers the story of his joining the Union and assuming responsibility in it, which brings him to his meeting with Engineer Joseph Younes. He says:
“I heard of him when I was in Canada, when he had won as SG a lawsuit against the decision to dissolve the WLCU in the nineties. I met him in Lebanon in 1994 and he encouraged me to join the Union, and this was it. In 1997, he again was appointed as Secretary General and asked me to be the assistant SG in North America. My visit to him was to take advantage of his long experience in the laws of the Union. It was he who in the era of President Anwar Kury placed a new modern By-law – at that time – and replaced the 1985 By-law with the 93 and 94 By-law, on which the Union is still based to this day with a few adjustments”.
The WSG Dr Kahwaji concluded his meeting saying that the former World Secretary Generals were delighted that “their” Union has become recognized in the United Nations’ circles and it now has the status “Accreditation” given to it by the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.