Aside business, culture also unites Nigeria, Lebanon’
Professor Joseph Rahme teaches
part-time ethics at Notre Dame University (NDU), Lebanon and is the President
of The Cedars Institute, an NGO founded in 2012. He is also one of the primary
course instructors of the Study Abroad In Lebanon (SAIL) Programme of the NDU’s
Benedict XVI Endowed Chair of Religious, Cultural, and Philosophical Studies in
collaboration with The Cedars Institute and the Wole Soyinka Foundation. The
program aims to teach Nigerians world history through the eyes of Lebanon, but
with emphasis on Lebanese-Nigerian cultural relations, He speaks more about the
program, its impact as well as prospects in this interview. Excerpts:
What’s the genesis of the Study Abroad In Lebanon (SAIL)
program?
The genesis of the Study Abroad In Lebanon (SAIL) program is
also the beginning of my friendship with Professor Edward Alam [the second
major course instructor]. We met accidentally. My niece was a student of Notre
Dame University (NDU), and at the time I was a full-time tenured faculty at the
University of Michigan, United States. After earning my tenure in Winter 2000,
I began to visit Lebanon every summer. So, during that summer in 2000, my niece
tells me ‘Uncle, I know this Jesuit priest, Father Martin McDermott, and
there’s a party for him. Do you want to come? I said of course I would.
So, we went to the party in honour of Father McDermott, and
while we were there, my niece sees Dr Alam. She knows him because he was her
teacher at NDU. She introduced us. Dr Alam, at the time, was the Director
of International Relations at NDU. I was Director of the International and
Global Studies Program at The University of Michigan—Flint (UM-F), so my
position was both academic and administrative. His job was administrative, but
he also had an academic position. We met and hit it off well.
I said why not build a relationship between our institutions?
Why not set up a study abroad program by bringing American students to Lebanon
and have them take a world history course that we would both teach, and we
would get both our institutions, NDU and UM-F, involved. It was a grand idea.
Next time when Dr. Alam came to the US, I met him, and we brainstormed the idea
and agreed on the logistics. He goes back to Lebanon, we exchange emails, then
we get the Memorandum of Understanding ready, and the UM-F Provost at the time,
Dr. Renata McLaughlin, signed it. That was sometimes in Spring 2001.
By that time, I already got my tenure and was interested in
building ties to Lebanon. I travelled again to Lebanon during summer 2001. What
happened when I go back to the US? 9/11 happened! We suspended the program
because the University of Michigan is a public university; the flagship
university of the state of Michigan. It’s a research university and gets
funding from the federal, and the state of Michigan, governments. As a result
of 9/11, the Federal Government issued a warning stating that travel to Lebanon
is no longer advised. I think a Lebanese was among the terrorists and they
immediately put Lebanon on the list of countries Americans are urged not to
travel to. Given that my university follows the policy of the State Department,
we couldn’t proceed with the Study Abroad. It was scrapped.
How I got to meet Professor Soyinka was through Dr Ernest
Emenyonu, who is considered one of the foremost professors of African
Literature. He’s a close friend of Prof Soyinka. He brought him to the
University of Michigan, I think, in 2003 or 2004 and as a result I got to meet
him. After that, in 2003, I took a sabbatical. But instead of making it for a
half year, I took a full year at half pay. I decided to come to Lebanon
and got a position as a full-time faculty at NDU through the good auspices of
Dr Alam, who was still director of International Relations, so I became
involved with him, and I set up the idea of having a Study Abroad In Lebanon:
World History through the Eyes of Lebanon, and not only in the field of World
History but also Literature and many other fields of study. I built the
whole program around it. Then, what happened? Dr Alam, for one reason or
another, had a big difference with the administration and he resigned his
position. So, we really couldn’t implement this new Study Abroad: World History
through the Eyes of Lebanon.
I left in 2005 and returned to the US. Dr Alam was no longer
involved. I went back to Michigan and was planning to make a final move to
Lebanon, at that time. Fast forward 2011, I resigned my tenured position at the
University of Michigan and returned to Lebanon for family reasons. By 2012, Dr
Alam, myself and faculties from other universities established The Cedars
Institute as a legal NGO. Since then, Dr Alam and I have been working closely
to bring scholars, students, faculty from all over the world to the Cedars
Institute; supporting students who are conducting research but not in any
field. We support students who focus primarily on three areas: Environment,
Migration, and Religion.
Then, we began the Study Abroad In Lebanon, and our first group
came from Brazil in 2015. Our goal is to make the program permanent. So we had
to find funding for it and we got that through other institutions: a major
university in Sao Paolo, academics in Brazil, and different people who
supported the program. The University supported in kind. Like now, your stay
here is sponsored by the University. Your stay at the Cedars Institute is
supported by the Cedars Institute. Your travel to Lebanon is supported by Dr.
Habib Jaafar and The Wole Soyinka Foundation, and other donors. Everyone
contributes something to make your study in Lebanon possible.
Our goal, though, is to make the program permanent. If we had an
endowment, let’s say of a million dollars, that is raised from both Nigerian
and Lebanese businesspeople, and they invest it in a reputable, transparent
institution in Nigeria. They’ll get about a 10 per cent return on investment,
they re-invest five per cent and have five per cent left, or about $50,000.
This sum will then be used to fund the Study Abroad In Lebanon Program. So,
funding the program becomes automatic. Every year the money is ready, all you
have to do is select the students. And we leave that, of course, through the
Wole Soyinka Foundation because it all started in 2014 when Professor Soyinka
came to Lebanon.
After the Nobel Laureate’s visit to Lebanon, we brainstormed how
to build cultural relations between Nigeria and Lebanon. We strongly believed
that the relationship should go beyond just business, that it should be
cultural and educational. Our first Nigerian group came in 2016, the second in
2017. You are the third Nigerian group participating in the Study Abroad
program. Our goal, as I said earlier, is to make this program permanent and its
financing automatic through an endowment that Dr Habib Jafar and his associates
are working on with the cooperation of The Wole Soyinka Foundation.
This program is meant to be for three weeks, but given the time
limitations that many participants have, we made it 12 to 14 days. It’s a very
rich program, and unfortunately you haven’t experienced the original full
program, meaning that there are other topics of world-historical importance
that we did not incorporate because of time constraints. This program is
unique. I don’t think there’s any travel abroad program on world history where
you go to the site and see it first hand; The fusion between world history and
experiencing the world historical sites, I think is unique to our program.
SAIL
participants with Prof Rahme
Are you happy with how the program has fared so far?
For us, the key criteria that tells us if what we’re doing is
good, is the impact on the students. That is our most important indicator; not
what we think. Of course, we believe we are trying to give the best possible
program within the constraints we have; in terms of time or financing but
ultimately, who decides how good this program is are the students. The impact
we get from the students at the end, and the follow-up. I give you an example.
Dr Alam and I went to Brazil this May, and we met some of the students who
participated in the SAIL program. And they were saying, “you don’t know, this
changed our lives. I wish I could come and work in Lebanon. What are the
possibilities; maybe get a postdoc?”
It’s incredible when you get that sort of responses. That means
you’re doing something right. And we got the same from the Nigerian group; the
first group. And we got the same from the Ukrainian group. The Ukrainian group
was very different because it was composed of senior, established scholars. We
have a group coming at the end of October from Brazil. We tailor the program to
the interests of each group though there are basic topics and sites that we
cover in all the programs. We have another SAIL in the works, and it’s going to
be on The Shia in World History. For this edition, we are working with
universities in Iran, Lebanon and Germany.
We were at the performance of Prof Soyinka’s Death
and the Kings Horseman at the American University of Beirut (AUB). It was the
first time I would see a foreign interpretation of an African play, but I know
it’s been going on, what’s your take?
I think it was a fantastic event. I guess it is bringing
African Literature to Lebanon in a serious way, and in a way that will have an
impact on the students. Already, it has had an impact on the African students
who were there and indeed raised their interest in Prof Soyinka. Some of them
were aware of him, many were not, but it was kind of an entry to explore
African literature more seriously and also to be involved in building strong
links between Africa and Lebanon.
Profs
Rahme and Alam
What made you interested in world history?
Before I left Lebanon, I was trying to get a joint degree. One
in Law from Saint-Joseph University and another in Economics from AUB. Since
the Civil War began in 1975, and I was close to graduate from high school, I
really couldn’t apply. Things were terrible. The university was very close to
the dividing line between Muslims and Christians, but I had a brother and an
Uncle in the US. So, I went to the US, but my main languages were French and
Arabic, so I did a course in English and later studied Economics at the
University of Michigan. When I graduated, I became more interested in politics
because of the Civil War in Lebanon. This led me to enroll in a joint Masters
program in Economics, Middle Eastern Studies, and Comparative Politics. After
doing that, I decided to get a PhD in Political Science at the University of
Chicago. The reason was that things were getting worse in Lebanon so I could
not return. After my first week or so, I couldn’t make sense of Political
Science because of the way it was taught in a highly abstract manner.
Then, I meet this wonderful faculty who tells me that in order
to understand politics, you need to understand history. He convinced me,
and I moved to the History Department. Two of us; myself and an Iranian student
with whom I later became friends, were the only ones admitted into the PhD
program out of 125 applicants. Why? Because we were fluent in multiple
languages.
In the history department, there was a famous world historian.
His name was William McNeill. He is one of the founders of academic World
History. I took his seminar, Introduction to World History whereby we had to
read the writings of world historians from the beginning (with Herodotus) to
the 20th century. So, I became fascinated by this topic because you’re looking
at the big picture and World History became one of the fields I focused on. I
also concentrated on Islamic Thought, Christian-Muslim Relations and Ottoman
History, and US diplomatic history. All the faculty with whom I took courses
were top scholars in their field on a global level. So, I was very fortunate to
get an excellent education at the University of Chicago, which I strongly
recommend to those who are serious about their education.
Faculty
and SAIL participants with Prof Wole Soyinka and his wife
You have your hands in many pies, what drives you?
I think it’s vital that you like what you do. You never work a
day in your life if you enjoy what you do. To anyone who has an interest in
their future, I say follow your passion. I don’t care what it is. Do what you
love doing. Discover your passion as early as you can in life, then focus on
it. You’ll be a happy person. That way, you’ll succeed in whatever you’re doing
because you love it. The most important decisions of your life are based on
that: your work and your family; who you marry and the work you do. So, passion
is, in my belief, one of the foundations of virtue. Passion leads to
perseverance and patience. The three Ps; passion, perseverance and patience.
These are what drive me.
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