Early Days of AFS in Lebanon
AFS today is well known for building bridges between cultures. This also means that AFS participants are often hosted by families of a religion that is different than their own. This close encounter of religions can also be an opportunity for interesting dialogue and learning. For AFS, connecting people of different religions is not something new; in fact such experiences started with the AFS ambulance drivers during the World Wars.
One example of this is from World War II, when two AFS ambulance platoons served with the British Ninth Army in the territory of Syria and Lebanon. The A Platoon was headquartered in Aley, Lebanon (and later in Aleppo, Syria). In August 1942, B Platoon’s headquarters were moved from Damascus, Syria to Baalbek, Lebanon. Baalbek is famous for its Roman temples and ruins, which together with the Cedar of Lebanon, are the symbol of Syria.
Although they were actively involved in relieving the suffering of those affected by the war, the AFS ambulance drivers visited the temples and documented the daily life in the local communities. AFS ambulance driver John C. Cobb II took many photographs while in Lebanon and observed local religious customs, noting that the families were quite large, and that the “population of Lebanon was about 50–50, Muslim and Christian.” Cobb also photographed a Suq, the typical Arabic market, where you can find anything from food to clothes. He noted that the Suq contained people of “many cultures,” from “Arab [B]edouins, British soldiers, French engineers, Christian women, Jewish tradesmen, Danish missionaries, and many others” who “all lived and worked together in relative peace after the War shifted to North Africa.” Such meaningful and key observations of all AFS ambulance drivers influenced their decision to launch the AFS exchange programs after the war.
AFS programs today have put individuals from different cultures and religious beliefs in contact with each other for more than sixty years. In its years as an active AFS office (1948–1949 and 1957–1976), Lebanon sent and hosted a total of 198 AFS participants, a remarkable number for such a small country. Today, Lebanon is again involved in the AFS programs thanks to the Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study (YES) Program, which is run by many AFS member organizations around the world. The YES Program sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, provides American students with full merit-based scholarships to study for one academic year in countries with significant Muslim populations, and vice-versa. Once again, Lebanon is serving as a site for AFSers to experience different cultures and religions coming together in peace.
Note from the AFS Archivist: This is the second in a series of articles from staff and interns in the Archives of the American Field Service and AFS Intercultural Programs (AFS Archives), the official repository for AFS Intercultural Programs. The AFS Archives contains a multitude of original documents, photographs, and memorabilia from World War I through the present day, and the Archives staff work to preserve and make the history of AFS accessible to researchers around the world. Visit www.afs.org/archives for more information.
Written by Elena Abou Mrad, Fondazione CRT Intern, AFS Archives.
All photographs are courtesy of the Archives of the American Field Service and AFS Intercultural Programs. The holder of copyright for the 1973 photograph is unknown. Please contact AFS if you can identify the copyright holder(s) or would like the image removed.
