Charles Malek

Charles Habib Malek was born in 1906 in the town of Btrram, in the Koura region of northern Lebanon. He's a politician, diplomat, and Lebanese thinker. He graduated from the American University of Beirut in 1927 and then earned a doctorate from Harvard University in 1937, he spent eight years at the American University of Beirut as a teacher of mathematics and physics, before he started his diplomatic career as a Plenipotentiary Minister and later as ambassador of Lebanon to the United Nations. He played a vital role in the formulation and preparation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in December 1948, and chaired the Third Committee of Economic and Social Affairs during studying the declaration, and in 1951, he was named Chairman of the Committee, the successor to Elianor Roosevelt at her death. He served as foreign minister between November 1956 and September 1958, also served as Minister of Education and Fine Arts from November 1956 until August 1957 in the Government of Sami Solh in the era of President Camille Chamoun. He presided over the General Assembly of the United Nations between 1958 and 1959. He Contributed to the founding of the Lebanese front in the beginnings of the war on Lebanon, and was a pioneer of Lebanese Nationalism, he answered the question, "Why do we fight?" in 1976, he said:
"First we fight because the war was imposed on us. Who heard in the whole history that Lebanon assaulted or attacked anyone, or conspired against anyone? It is us who have been attacked, and conspired against, we are fighting in self-defense.
Second, we fight because the Lebanese state collapsed in all, and the Lebanese people have replaced it...
Third, we fight because it is not a matter of who governs Lebanon, but who owns Lebanon: Lebanese or non-Lebanese...
Fourthly, we fight twenty-three trend factor who invaded us and took advantage of our land, each one for his own purposes and settlements.
Fifthly, we are fighting because we are one of the five peoples: Israelis, Palestinians, Jordanians, Syrians and Lebanese living in this great land extending from Turkey to Egypt and from the desert to the sea. Each one is fighting for survival and to appoint his position in the heart of the world, in the Middle East.
Sixthly, we fight to make peace because the latter goal of the war is always the hard right peace, peace between us and ourselves and between us and others and the world..., we are fighting for all this and for all more valuable and more sacred because we all know that Lebanon is an invaluable and not compensated treasure."

Charles Malek died in Beirut, 28 December 1987 after a struggle with cancer.