Persecution & Struggle
Maronite Christians felt a sense of alienation and exclusion as a result of Pan Arabism in Lebanon. Part of its historic suffering is the Damour massacre by the PLO, which was a response to the Karantina massacre by Phalangists. Until recently, the Cyprus Maronites battle to preserve their ancestral language. The Maronite monks maintain that Lebanon is synonymous with Maronite history and ethos; that its Maronitism antedates the Arab conquest of Syria and Lebanon and that Arabism is only a historical accident.. The Maronites also felt mass persecution under the Ottoman Turks, who massacred and mistreated Maronites for their faith, disallowing them from owning horses and forcing them to wear only black clothing. The Druze also persecuted the Maronites for their identity, and massacred in excess of 50,000 of them in the mid-1800s. Yet the Maronites later prevailed, and ushered Lebanon into its golden age, which was followed by the sectarian conflict that resulted in the Lebanese Civil War
Read more about this topic: Maronite People
Famous quotes containing the words persecution and/or struggle:
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