São Paulo – Next week, two lectures will introduce aspects of Lebanon’s history, culture, archeology and religion to Brazilian tourists currently visiting the Arab country. This Monday (23), the group “I Love Lebanon”, who traveled to the country with travel agency Líbano Tour Agência de Viagens, will attend of the lectures, and on Friday (27), a group of tourists organized by the Maronite Church of Campinas (94 km from São Paulo) visiting the country will attend the other.
The speaker on both lectures will be Brazilian writer and researcher Roberto Khatlab (picture above), who lives in Lebanon and is the director of the Latin American Studies and Cultures Center (LASCC) of Lebanese university Holy Spirit University of Kaslik (USEK). Khatlab will speak in Portuguese.
The researcher will talk about the Lebanese immigration across the world and, particularly, in Brazil, which was attracted to the country by the trips to the Middle East taken, in 1871 and 1876, by Brazilian emperor Dom Pedro II. The perception of Lebanon as a country with a continuous emigration will also be discussed. “An internationalist Lebanon since old times,” explains Khatlab.
Most of the Brazilians of the two tourist groups are of Lebanese origins and the flow of this type of tourism has been the source for most of the trips from Brazil to the Arab country, according to Khatlab. “The tourist trips that they take to Lebanon have their emotional side, it’s a search for their roots, of getting to know the land of their ancestors. Those that don’t have Lebanese origins get emotional,” says the writer.
Khatlab has seen an increase in the flow of Brazilian tourists to Lebanon and believes that, among the causes, are many TV shows that feature the country with its culture, history, archeological sites and leisure, a place accessible to all. “Brazilians and other Latin-American tourists are ‘invading’ Lebanon,” says Khatlab.
The lecture to the group “I Love Lebanon”, this Monday, is scheduled for 8 pm, at Hotel Coral Beach, in Beirut. The group includes one of its founders, Luciano Aschkar. The one on Friday, to be given to the group from the Maronite Church, will take place at 4 pm, at USEK, in Jounieh. This group is headed by priest Silouanos Chamoun.
00Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
