Firing weapons in the air is a local custom rooted in tradition and history and nurtured by more than a century of frivolity and intercommunal love. The British Consul General in Beirut, Henry Alfred Cumberbatch, coined the word “revolverism” to describe it:
At Easter the usual firing of revolvers and rifles surpassed the noise made on the Prophet’s Birthday Anniversary, as described in my previous report of this series, and it would seem that, merely out of a spirit of defiance towards the authorities, many Mussulmans assisted the Christians on this occassion.
(Foreign Office Records 195/2312, July 15, 1909)
May 15, 2008 at 10:59 pm
[...] and history and nurtured by more than a century of frivolity and inter-communal love,” states Ms. Tee, while posting a 99-year-old report written by the British Consul General in Beirut at the time. [...]
June 26, 2009 at 3:55 pm
[...] And in the spirit of stretching Lebanon’s history back to where we dare not look, here is a little reminder about revolverism from the archives. [...]