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Essay published by Nexus Institute Tilburg, The Netherlands
I am very grateful for this opportunity to share my thoughts on a theme—the world crisis centered in, but by no means limited to, the Middle East—that has been the focus of my intellectual preoccupations for several years now, especially since the advent of the “Arab Spring.”
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Waiting for the Barbarians
Amine Gemayel[1]
President of the Republic of Lebanon, 1982-1988
Essay for the journal Nexus,
published by
Nexus Institute
Tilburg, The Netherlands
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I am very grateful for this opportunity to share my thoughts on a theme—the world crisis centered in, but by no means limited to, the Middle East—that has been the focus of my intellectual preoccupations for several years now, especially since the advent of the “Arab Spring.” Although it has been assigned to me, the title that appears above, “Waiting for the Barbarians,” is an unsettlingly apt characterization of the prevailing sense of helplessness that clouds the vision and thwarts the actions of too many political and thought leaders of the liberal world.[2] For this reason, the present essay will have achieved the modest goal set out for it if the author’s personal—and by no means scholarly or philosophical—reflections deposit in the minds of readers the lineaments of some key alternatives to waiting for the barbarians.
Waiting for the Barbarians - In the press
