Author: W

Wissam, Wesley, or simply W, is an educator, writer, entrepreneur, engineer, activist, ex-Imam, humanist, liberal thinker with interest and mediocre attempt at many takes of life. A modern confused Renaissance man, who uses doubt as a path for emancipation and science as a road towards enlightenment.

Robert de Caix

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One of the most important players in designing the Arab World like we know it today, and doesn’t have even a Wikipedia English page.

Eldest son of the historian and archaeologist Amédée de Caix de Saint-Aymour, bearing the courtesy title of Viscount, he spent his childhood in the family estate of the Château d’Ognon. He studied at the Free School of Political Science on rue Saint-Guillaume in Paris.

Was influenced by 1870 French defeat, and became a journalist specializing in Asia, then joined several colonial organizations, He is one of the historical personalities who participated in the birth of the French mandate in Syria and the French mandate in Lebanon in the 1920s. An eminent member of the colonial party, he made it evolve: at first essentially “African”, during the time of Eugène Étienne’s magisterium, it became more clearly “Asian” or “Syrian”. A fierce defender of France’s mandate in Syria, he was chosen to become the civilian collaborator of General Gouraud, the new High Commissioner in Syria and Lebanon in 1919. Before being appointed Secretary General of the High Commission in Beirut, he had been instructed by Clemenceau to deal with Middle Eastern issues with the Emir Faisal (head of the Arab government in Damascus) to counter British agenda.

He worked hard against Wilsonian principles and fought against the establishment of Arab State. Luck worked in his path after Wilson’s stroke and Clemenceau’s defeat in the elections (mostly because he was a public atheist while his opponent was a devout Catholic).

He issued the Syrian Question and later the Manifesto on Syria, in which he undermined The Arab Army by calling it “Sharifian” army, and converting the image to be Muslims vs. Christians. He said: “the very existence of a United Syria under Sharifian rule would constitute for us an obstacle and a danger. It will strengthen the kind of nationalist movements that the Wilsonian declarations have inspired across the world”.

He called the Arab Parliament in Demarcus an “absurdity in a society deprived of political or civic education”.

أحد أهم اللاعبين في تصميم العالم العربي كما نعرفه اليوم وليس لديه حتى صفحة ويكيبيديا باللغة الإنجليزية.

الابن الأكبر للمؤرخ وعالم الآثار Amédée de Caix de Saint-Aymour ، الذي يحمل لقب Viscount ، قضى طفولته في ملكية العائلة في Château d’Ognon. درس في المدرسة الحرة للعلوم السياسية في شارع سان غيوم في باريس.

تأثر بالهزيمة الفرنسية عام 1870 ، وأصبح صحفيًا متخصصًا في آسيا ، ثم التحق بعدة منظمات استعمارية ، وهو من الشخصيات التاريخية التي شاركت في ولادة الانتداب الفرنسي في سوريا والانتداب الفرنسي على لبنان في عشرينيات القرن الماضي. كعضو بارز في الحزب الاستعماري ، جعله يتطور: في البداية “أفريقي” بشكل أساسي ، خلال فترة تعليم أوجين إتيان ، أصبح أكثر وضوحًا “آسيويًا” أو “سوريًا”. مدافع شرس عن الانتداب الفرنسي في سوريا ، تم اختياره ليكون المساعد المدني للجنرال غورو ، المفوض السامي الجديد في سوريا ولبنان في عام 1919. قبل تعيينه أمينًا عامًا للمفوضية العليا في بيروت ، تلقى تعليمات من كليمنصو للتعامل مع قضايا الشرق الأوسط مع الأمير فيصل (رئيس الحكومة العربية في دمشق) لمواجهة الأجندة البريطانية.

لقد عمل بجد ضد مبادئ ويلسون وحارب إقامة الدولة العربية. عمل الحظ في طريقه بعد جلطة ويلسون وهزيمة كليمنصو في الانتخابات (في الغالب لأنه كان ملحدًا علناً بينما كان خصمه كاثوليكيًا متدينًا).

أصدر “السؤال السوري” ثم “البيان الخاص بسوريا” الذي أضعف فيه الجيش العربي من خلال تسميته بالجيش “الشريفي” نسبة للشريف حسين وتحويل الصورة السياسية إلى مسلمين مقابل مسيحيين. قال: “وجود سوريا الموحدة في ظل الحكم الشريفي سيشكل لنا عقبة وخطورة. وسوف يقوي نوع الحركات القومية التي ألهمتها تصريحات ويلسون في جميع أنحاء العالم “.

ووصف البرلمان العربي في دمشق بأنه “عبثي في مجتمع محروم من التربية السياسية أو المدنية”.

Certified Secular Celebrant

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Dear friends. I have become a certified Secular Celebrant to help whoever want to celebrate life events in a way that is personally meaningful to the participants, and isn’t restricted to a script provided by a judge or religious leader. I will work with the couple to create a custom ceremony for their wedding or other life event that is deeply personal and meaningful for everyone involved.

The Arab World – A Preamble from the Instit du Almode Arab

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The term “the Arab world” evokes vast territories marked by the footprints of a great diversity of civilizations. In today’s world, twenty-two states define themselves as Arab and share a certain number of common cultural traits.

It was in the Arabian Peninsula that the first elements of Arab culture slowly developed over the first millennium BC, leading to the emergency in the 3rd century, of an Arab identity based principally on a common language.

After the appearance of Islam in the 7th century and its implantation outside the Arabian Peninsula, spoken and written Arabic were adopted in various ways by these local populations.

The use of Arabic has not always led to the Arabization of the local population. Within this great landmass, languages of many diverse origins are spoken, such as Aramaic, Amazigh (Berber), and Kurdish… All of these carry their own ways of thinking, value systems, cultural perceptions and collective imaginations, anchored in the distant past, in different environments and through a variety of founding experiences. There are then the different religious practiced, some of which originated in pre-Islamic times, most notable Judaism and Christianity.

“Arabness” denotes a multi-faceted, modern and complex identity, influenced by a wide range of socio-cultural, historical and political factors and the diversity of the regions it encompasses.

From the wall of the Permenant Exhibit at the World Arab Institute