Originally posted by Catharsis
And lots of people (even my dad) accuse Hezb of wanting to "Islamicize" Lebanon. I had an experience in Lebanon that changed my view 180-degrees. We were in the center of Beirut, a liberal area which is mostly Sunni, and were sitting at one of the many outdoor restaurants/cafes. My cousin's husband asked for a beer, and the waiter told him that he couldn't serve him beer because it was Ramadan. Yes, the Sunnis in Beirut were forcing everyone, including Christians, to comply with Ramadan traditions, as if it was an Islamic republic. And less than a mile from where we were sitting they had built the biggest mosque in Lebanon, overshadowing an Armenian church that had been there for decades. And Hezb gets accused of having an Islamic agenda by the western-backed Sunnis...
And there's more. When these western-backed Sunnis, most notably the Hariris (who are Saudis, but are considered Lebanese somehow...) were conducting building projects in Beirut at the end of the civil war, they kicked thousands of people out of their homes in order to make space for their building projects. Fair enough, it happens in lots of countries. There were two problems though: The compensation was so little, that according to my cousin's husband, it wasn't even enough to pay to move their stuff to another location, let alone to pay for a new residence. The second problem is they did this to thousands of Lebanese citizens, and the building complexes they built are so up-scale and expensive that only rich Saudis and Gulf Arabs can afford to live there. In essence they cleansed part of Beirut of Lebanese citizens and replaced them with fellow Saudi and Gulf Muslims, in the name of "rebuilding Lebanon".
Contrast the story I just told you with what Hezb did after the 2006 war: Any Lebanese who lost their home in the bombardment simply had to show Hezb that their home was damaged or destroyed, and Hezb compensated each family over $5,000 USD, a large sum of money in Lebanon.
So those Armenians who are not familiar with Lebanese internal politics, and are dumbfounded as to how ARF and Armenians in general are supporting Hezb, now you have a better idea.
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