Bechara el khoury biography definition

Beshara Khalil al-Khoury (Arabisch: بشارة الخوري) (Aley, 10 augustus1890 – Beiroet, 11 januari1964) was een Libanees politicus.

Opleiding en vroege carrière

Beshara al-Khoury was een maronitisch christen. Hij studeerde rechten in Beiroet en Parijs. Daarnaast haalde hij een academische graad in de Arabische taal. Na de Eerste Wereldoorlog werd hij raadsheer aan het gerechtshof te Beiroet. Daarnaast werd hij in de Nationale Vergadering (Libanees parlement) gekozen. In de jaren 20 was hij minister van Onderwijs. Toen de Fransen (Libanon was een Frans Mandaatgebied) de grondwet van Libanon opschortte, richtte het Constitutioneel Blok op. Hij werd voorzitter van het Constitutioneel Blok, een van de twee losse groeperingen in het parlement. De partij streefde naar onafhankelijkheid van Frankrijk (Libanon was een Frans Mandaatgebied) en nauwe samenwerking tussen christenen en moslims. De andere groepering in het parlement, de Unionistische Partij (later Nationaal Blok Partij geheten) van Émile Eddé was pro-Frans en streefde naar christelijke hegemonie. Tussen Khoury en Eddé ontstond een grote persoonlijke rivaliteit.

Beshara al-Khoury werd voorzitter van de Senaat en was van 5 mei1927 tot 10 augustus1928 en van 9 mei1929 tot 11 oktober1929 premier. In 1936 werd Khoury verslagen bij de presidentsverkiezingen. Zijn rivaal Émile Eddé werd tot president van Libanon gekozen.

Nationaal Pact en onafhankelijkheid

Beshara al-Khoury voerde aan de vooravond van de Libanese onafhankelijkheid gesprekken met Riad as-Solh, een andere nationalistische leider en een soennitische moslim. Khoury en as-Solh kwamen overeen dat Libanon een onafhankelijke republiek moest worden. Khoury beloofde namens de Maronieten dat de republiek geen nauwe toenadering zou zoeken tot de westerse wereld, terwijl as-Solh namens de (soennitische) moslims beloofde het idee van een Arabische staat zouden laten varen.

For many years, the Lebanese have marked the anniversary of November 22 with a sense of disillusionment, reflecting on the advanced state of decline of Lebanon’s independence, proclaimed in 1943. This feeling of bitterness has been exacerbated by a series of regional interventions, which have fostered a chronic climate of instability and discord within the country.

From Nasser's Egypt in the late 1950s to the Iranian mullah regime, as well as Yasser Arafat's PLO and Hafez el-Assad’s regime from the 1960s to the 1990s, the core principles of the state's sovereignty have been consistently undermined over time. A retrospective glance at history reveals the underlying causes that have steadily eroded the national autonomy process. 

When, in 1943, the two fathers of independence, Bechara el-Khoury and Riad Solh, alongside other prominent figures, succeeded in ending the French mandate, they had to establish the character of the new Lebanon and define its political system. This task was particularly challenging, as the country was divided by two conflicting lines: the Christians, generally aligned with the West, and the Muslims, who were drawn to calls for Arab nationalism and unity. 

To reconcile these two divergent sensitivities, Bechara el-Khoury and Riad Solh crafted a historic approach that would shape the foundation for the new Lebanese entity. They thus reached an unwritten pact, which later became known as the National Pact of 1943. This pact entailed a dual commitment: the Christians would turn away from their Western orientation, while the Muslims would relinquish their aspirations for Arab unity. The essence of the pact was encapsulated in the equation "neither East nor West," or more precisely, neither Westernization nor Arabization.

In short, borrowing a term commonly used in contemporary political discourse, Bechara el-Khoury and Riad Solh had opted for Lebanon’s neutrality as a strategy to defuse the tensions by the two opposing views: the pro-Wester

My work deals with the deconstruction of the complex social artifact of identity to reach for the common loneliness of the human condition that rather paradoxically connects us all. Through an intuitive trance-like "collaboration" with medium, where the paint is left to express its qualities as much as I do, my process has evolved into an almost shamanistic ritual where nature takes an equal part in the making of the final product. Wedging into the crack between abstraction and representation, my paintings tend towards a depoliticization and decontextualization of the image as identity signifier, breaking it apart to peer into the topographies and landscapes within. BIOGRAPHY: Omar Khouri was born in London, but spent his childhood in Lebanon. In 2002, he graduated from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston with a BFA in illustration. After spending a year in Los Angeles working in cinema and television, he returned to Beirut. In 2006, Omar founded Samandal Comics Magazine, the first experimental comics periodical in the Arab world. He is currently Samandal’s Editor-in-Chief and one of its many international contributing artists. In 2010, Omar's sociopolitical satire "Utopia" won Best Arabic Comic book at the Algerian International Comic Book Festival (FIBDA). Omar’s work spans many art forms including painting, comics, animation, theatre, film, and music. He lives and works between Beirut and London.

Artist Recognition