The book “Christians of the East: The Choice to Survive and the Will to Hope,” by Malfono Habib Afram, was recently published in its fourth edition as No. 73 in the Syriac Library’s Syriac Culture Series. Its introduction, which is written by former Minister Michel Edde, contains a brief explanation of the book’s contents while, on the thirteenth page, we read an introduction by the author. Habib Afram begins it with repercussions in which he recalls his childhood and tells us about his family’s past, as well as his and his people’s suffering in the Sayfo Genocide, which, along with its predecessors and subsequent ones, form an Eastern Christian mind that carries a passport within its folds. He has been imbued with and is convinced with the idea that he is a resident until further notice. He is an immigrant burdened by official channels, fraud, gangs, and hurtful pain, and this is in the words of the writer.
The book contains articles published in several Lebanese newspapers and papers presented at conferences held in order to promote openness and reject racism in every part of the world. Among the published articles is one delivered at the Chaldean-Syriac-Assyrian Popular Conference held at Ankawa, Erbil, in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region, on 12 March 2007. It was titled “Little New Rome” and he begins by writing: ““Whenever two of our people meet, and wherever they meet, we are always with them. So how about here, in Ankawa ‘Little New Rome,’ an area growing tenderly, in an unparalleled national urban, intellectual, and media renaissance? And how about all these good faces? And how about here, in a promising region that emphasises brotherhood between sects, nationalities, and ethnicities, and tries to present a living model of civilised coexistence. I, who come from the cedar of God, from Lebanon, feel that the region is like us, and I am proud of that. Isn’t Lebanon, my country, a good example of harmony? For it embraces not only its family.”
The book also includes appeals in the form of letters that tell stories of past and ongoing histories, and consists of 504 large pages.
The book is available in its electronic version via the link below: