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Following are excerpts from an interview with Lebanese author Farid Salman, which aired on OTV on November 25, 2008.
Farid Salman: In Lebanon, we've become accustomed to refrain from saying the truth, in order to avoid provoking zealousness – whether sectarian, political, or anything. Only in Lebanon do you hear such a thing. Lebanon has been destroyed. We have been fighting and slaughtering one another for 30 years – but God forbid there should be any zealousness... Provoke zealousness?! Even rocks we've provoked against us.
[...]
Our president goes to New York, and suggests that Lebanon become a center for dialogue between civilizations. For 30 years, the name of Lebanon has not appeared in any newspaper, in any symposium, university, or any place in the world, unless it is to say that the Lebanese are fighting among themselves in the name of sectarianism and all that, yet we are not ashamed to present ourselves as the venue of dialogue between civilizations. Are we capable of even conducting a dialogue among ourselves, before we embark on a dialogue of civilizations?
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We have the two founding sects [of Lebanon] – the Druze and Maronite. Then we have the Shiites. Like the other two minorities, the Shiite sect was also a victim. The Sunni Muslim sect, on the other hand, was never a victim. This sect was the victor, the occupier...
Interviewer: Maybe we should call it "conquest" instead of "occupation"?
Farid Salman: Why not? It was an occupier. Why mince words? It was an occupier. By the sword. This is the truth. It was just like all the other occupying empires in the world.
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The Sunni Muslims in Lebanon are not in need of a homeland. The Middle East is Sunni in its entirety...
Interviewer: Maybe that was in the past, but now... That's not the issue...
Farid Salman: They are more than welcome here. I accept and recognize their Lebanese identity, but under one condition – that they accept the complexity of the Lebanese fabric, and be aware of its original and historical causes. They did not come to a new land, which had no history. They tried to impose their rule on this land, and eventually, they bought this rule, and today, they rule this land. That's what I am against.
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Sunni Islam has collapsed. Look around you – it has collapsed in all the countries. It has failed. The Islam that has survived, the Islam that looks towards the future, and cannot possibly collapse, because it is an ideology – is Shiite Islam. If the Shiite revolution had not taken place... Maybe some consider the revolution of Khomeini and Iran to be a tragedy, but one of these days, we will all have to acknowledge that if not for the new Shiite revolution in Islam... Before that, Islam was gone. Where is there Islam? In Saudi Arabia? In Pakistan? In Egypt? Where is there Islam?
Interviewer: You are talking in the sense of belonging to a faith...
Farid Salman: ...and to a civilization, and to the world. When a Saudi mufti says that we should fight Mickey Mouse...
Interviewer: Not the Mufti, just one of their sheiks.
Farid Salman: Okay, but the Mufti said something else. With the Wahhabis... He talked about the moon, and said that Man only imagined landing on the moon. Satan inflated himself, turning himself into a moon between Earth and the real moon. Thus, he deluded Man that he landed on the moon, but in fact, he landed on Satan.
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In the July [2006] war, wasn't it Saudi Arabia that assigned Israel the mission of driving the Shiites out of Greater Beirut? Who assigned the mission of this war? Who financed it? Saudi Arabia. Who collaborated with [Israel] on the ground? The allies of Saudi Arabia.
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Obama will not complete the plan of George Bush Senior. Obama was brought to power by the Jews. Let me tell you something. In my view, and I might be mistaken, the Jews brought Obama to power in order to take revenge... Before they establish the Semitic Middle East, they want to tear America to shreds, because they hate America. Obama will be the cause...
Interviewer: They want to rule...
Farid Salman: Of course. Obama will be the cause for internal strife in the U.S. In addition, they want to destroy the European Union, and thus, the Semitic Middle East will be established. It's the Jews, not the Zionists, that are doing this.
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