Mirrors of the Soul (3 page)

When the Arabs conquered that part of the world from India to Spain and converted it to Islam, the mountaineers, Gibran's ancestors, were able to preserve their Christian religion, a tiny island of Christians in an ocean of Islam.

When Turkey overran the country, it divided Syria into districts (
Wilayah
), naming for each one a governor with the title of Pasha. The people during the Turkish rule of four hundred years, refused to be assimilated by their conquerors. Hence the country of Gibran remained its Achilles' heel, and its numerous revolutions were supported by one European country or another until 1860, when a civil war broke out. England sent her fleet and France disembarked on Lebanese soil an army of six thousand men. After the landing of these armies, a special committee composed of diplomatic representatives of France, England, Russia and Austria convened in Beirut with the First Minister of Turkey. The outcome was the conferring upon Lebanon of an internal autonomy guaranteed by these European powers. The Sultan was to appoint a Christian governor for Lebanon and the European powers were to approve the appointment. This autonomous area included neither the plains of Bekaa on the east nor the cities along the seashores, nor even Beirut, which is now the capital of Lebanon.

Therefore, the people who came to America from the eastern shores of the Mediterranean were classified as Syrian nationals regardless of whether they came from Damascus or from the mountains by the cedars.

After the First World War Turkey was ousted and France received from the League of Nations a mandate over Syria and Lebanon, while England took over Palestine. Even then, people arriving in America were listed as Syrian nationals.

During the Second World War, Lebanon and Syria overthrew the French mandate and became separate, independent countries with full representation in the United Nations.

Therefore the words in Gibran's book
My Countrymen the Syrians
include both the Syrians and the Lebanese.

Youth

“During the days of my youth I wrote enough prose and poetry to fill many volumes, but I did not, and shall not, commit the crime of having them published.”

Thus wrote Gibran to a friend. However, the admirers of Gibran are publishing anything and everything they can find. As a matter of fact, his best friend did the same thing while Gibran was still alive. Gibran protested, “Don't mention to me my past deeds, for the remembrance of them makes my blood into a burning fire.”

This does not mean that all the early works of Gibran were trivial or unimportant, especially when we consider that Gibran died at the age of forty-eight (December 6, 1883 — April 10, 1931).

A word of caution: Keep in mind that many items now in book form were originally written in a letter to a friend or in an article to a newspaper.

Reprints

Most, if not all, of Gibran's works have been through numerous reprints. Some of these reprints fail to carry the date of the original publication or the date and source of the material, particularly the Arabic editions, whose front page carries the year of reprint.

How can future biographers determine the time and circumstances under which a newspaper article was written?

For example, the Arabic edition reads: “
Spirits Rebellious
by Gibran, 1959.” The English edition, published by Heinemann, reads: “The Spirits Rebellious by Gibran, translated from Arabic; first published 1949.” But the introduction explains that the stories were completed in 1908.

Barbara Young wrote that the book was written and burned in the market place in Beirut between 1901 and 1903.

Quotation Marks

There are no quotation marks in Arabic writing. However, Arabic students of English or French do use quotation marks, often haphazardly.

One Lebanese biographer wrote some paragraphs in Arabic, using quotation marks, describing them as the work of Gibran. In reality, the quotation marks were meant to signify that they were figments of the biographer's own imagination. In translation these marks were not removed. A biographer writing in English, especially one who is not familiar with the Arabic language, accepts the quotation marks as an indication that the statements are Gibran's own saying and beliefs.

This confusion is unfair to Gibran, unfair to future writers and unfair to the reader. Therefore these words of caution become imperative.

1.
  See the book
One White Race.

5. GIBRAN'S DUAL PERSONALITY

Man is the product of his environment. When Gibran was born, the economic conditions of the Middle East were bad and political conditions were even worse. For many years Turkey had been involved in wars, of which she was always the loser. Thus, the boundaries of the Empire were shrinking. Meanwhile, inside Turkey, the government grew more and more tyrannical. Minority groups in all parts of the Empire were abused and persecuted. It was true that the Lebanese were exempt from military service because of the local autonomy granted them in 1860 under pressure of the European nations, but it was also true that many families were moving from the cities into the mountains to avoid the dreaded military service. Many Moslem families changed to Christianity.

The whole Arab world became honeycombed with secret societies working to throw off the Turkish yoke. The Turkish government, trusting no one, systematically discharged non-Turks from government offices and replaced them with Turkish citizens; even judges were removed from their high offices. These secret societies even dared to send delegates to an Arab conference held in Paris. Many Syrian and Lebanese men from America attended the conference and made demands for reform. Many of the leaders paid with their lives. They were hanged in public squares for others to see and take heed.

Gibran, a young man in the United States and beyond the rope of the hangman, called his countrymen to revolt. He wrote articles for Arabic publication, using the words, “my countrymen.” These articles translated into English without benefit of explanations gave the impression that Gibran was calling the people of his adopted country of America to rebellion. Hence we find in Gibran a dual personality; he wrote in Arabic calling for arms, and in English calling for contentment and peace.

The following is an example of Gibran's writing to his countrymen, published in translation without explanation:

My Countrymen

by Kahlil Gibran

What do you seek of me my countrymen?

Do you wish that I falsely promise to build

For you great palaces out of words, and temples roofed with dreams?

Or would you rather I destroy the work of liars and cowards and demolish the work of hypocrites and tyrants?

What would you have me do, My Countrymen?

Shall I coo like a pigeon to please you,

Or shall I roar like a lion to please myself?

I sang for you but you did not dance;

I lamented but you did not cry.

Do you wish that I sing and lament at the same time?

Your souls are hungry and the bread of knowledge is more plentiful than the stones of the valleys, but you do not eat.

Your hearts thirst, yet the springs of life pour around your homes like rivers, and you do not drink.

The sea has its ebb and tide, the moon its crescent and fullness, and the year has its seasons of summer and winter, but Justice never changes, never falters, never perishes.

Why, then, do you attempt to distort the truth?

I have called you in the quietness of the night to point out to you the beauty of the moon and the dignity of the stars. You arise, frightened, and unsheathing your swords, cry, “Where is the enemy — to be struck down?”

At dawn, when the horsemen of the enemy arrived, I called again, but you refused to rise. You remained asleep, at war with the enemy in your dreams.

I told you, “Let us climb to the summit of the mountain where I can show you the kingdoms of the world.” You answered saying, “In the bottom of the valley of this mountain our fathers and forefathers lived; and in its shadows they died; and in its caves were they buried. How shall we leave and go to places to which they did not go?” I told you, “Let us go to the plains and I will show you gold mines and treasures of the earth.”

You refused, saying, “In the plains lurk thieves and robbers.”

I told you, “Let us go to the seashore where the sea gives of its bounties.” You refused, saying, “The tumult of the abyss frightens us to death.”

I loved you, My Countrymen, yet my love for you distressed me and did not benefit you.

Today I hate you, and hate is a flood that carries away the dead branches and washes away crumbling buildings.

I pitied your weakness, but my pity encouraged your sloth.…

What are your demands from me, My Countrymen?

Rather what are your demands from Life,

Although no longer do I consider you children of Life.

Your souls cringe in the palms of soothsayers and sorcerers, while your bodies tremble in the paws of the bloody tyrants, and your country lies prostrate under the heels of the conquerors: what do you expect as you stand before the face of the sun? Your swords are rusty; the points of your spears are broken; your shields are covered with mud. Why, then, do you stand upon the battlefield?

Hypocrisy is your religion; Pretension, your life; dust, your end.

Why do you live? Death is the only rest for the wretched.

Life is determination in youth, strife during manhood, and wisdom in maturity. But you, My Countrymen, were born old and feeble, your heads shrunk,

Your skin withered, and you became as children, playing in the mire, and throwing stones at one another.…

Humanity is a crystalline river, singing, in a rippling rush, and carrying the secrets of the mountains to the depths of the sea. But you are as a swamp with worms in its dregs and snakes on its banks.

The soul is a sacred, blue-burning flame, illuminating the faces of the gods. But your souls, My Countrymen, are ashes for the wind to scatter over the snows, and for the tempest to dispel into the deep abysses.

I hate you, My Countrymen, because you despise glory and greatness.

I vilify you because you vilify yourselves.

I am your enemy because you are enemies of the gods and you do not know it.

The day of reckoning came during the First World War. Turkey entered the war on the side of Germany and the troops of both countries occupied the shores east of the Mediterranean. This action was to prevent a landing by the Allies and, more important, it was to protect the railroad line that carried food to Turkey and Germany, preventing a complete blockade of Germany.

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.