Dear Mr. Takache,
at last I can find a few moments of silence and peace to sit down
and write you these few lines.
First of all, Eid Mubarak...even if it is over. And many many
greetings to you, your family and your wonderful Academy.
After coming back to
Italy, we met more than once in order to re-think and
elaborate our Lebanese experience.
Our day with you has been a "special" day, profoundly touching and
emotional. Your Academy is a positive peak of
higher learning,
which offers education and professional training to life, forging a
young generation to know its own culture and its own cultural roots
on the one hand, and to understand diverse peoples through open
debate and critical
thinking, on the other. As a Scholar and a Teacher myself, I
have been deeply impressed by the academic standard, full of
admiration for the remarkable activities that you and your wife are
carrying out, for your personal integrity, civic responsibility, and
leadership. Lebanon
deserves such dedicated people! We enjoyed our lunch together,
learned more and felt...as being part of your "family".
Then, I wish to thank you also for the two visits you have organised
for us. You and your special Guide (please, convey him our warmest
regards and thanks) have enriched our knowledge through a new
"window", stressing a new, critical approach to the stern reality of
an endless conflict, which goes far beyond all information that
media can / or cannot / or don't want to offer. We could "touch"
grief and solidarity, we have been able to sense the deep love of
your people for a beloved land, the society that has supported you
and in which this love is founded..
To my students, You have taught to open new doors, to appreciate
differences in culture, the diverse peoples of Lebanon, aims,
objectives and values. You have taught to analyze - and critically
evaluate - individual situations in all their multifaceted
realities: this has resulted in a great strength, from which they
are drawing new cultural vigor.
I wanted to write you as soon as we came back...but academic
commitments have been diverting my mind and energies. To day, after
a constructive meeting with our Publisher, we have finalised a
publication on this Lebanese experience, which should be ready for
March-April
2011. If you have some words to add, I would personally be
very grateful.
In the meantime, my warmest personal gratitude, special greetings
and kindest regards
Sincerely Yours
Valeria Piacentini Fiorani
Prof. Dr. Valeria Fiorani Piacentini
Chair of History and Institutions of the Muslim World
Faculty of
Political
Science
Catholic University
of the
Sacred Heart, Milan - Italy
Director of the Athaeneum Centre of Research on the
Southern System
and the Wider Mediterranean
