LEBANON-AKL/FUNERAL Mass funeral honours prominent Lebanese poet Said Akl in Beirut

Record ID: 432018

  • Title: LEBANON-AKL/FUNERAL Mass funeral honours prominent Lebanese poet Said Akl in Beirut
  • Date: 2nd December 2014
  • Summary: BEIRUT, LEBANON (DECEMBER 2, 2014) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF CONVOY WITH SAID AKL'S COFFIN ARRIVING TO POLICE ESCORT AT CHURCH AKL'S COFFIN CARRIED OUT OF CAR AKL'S COFFIN CARRIED INTO CHURCH (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) LEBANESE ARTIST, RUDY RAHME, WHO SCULPTURED SAID AKL'S COFFIN, SAYING: "He made us love Lebanon and its greatness. He made us love this small Lebanon with all its ships, we made him leave today in a small ship, inside all the letters and books he loved, he went in their scent, in his knowledge. Few are the people who lived his life." EXTERIOR OF SAINT GEORGE CATHEDRAL WHERE FUNERAL IS HELD (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) LEBANESE SINGER, NICOLA AL-OSTA, SAYING: "Those people dying are totally irreplaceable, but they are staying. They are leaving in their bodies but they remain in their conscience and through their work. I am glad I lived during the times of Said Akl and the greats who passed before him. We will sure bid farewell to the people who preceded us, and we have to keep to their level, be it in our children's mind or in our discipline. God bless their souls everyone, and bless mister Said." MAN WALKING BY LARGE POSTER FOR SAID AKL OUTSIDE CHURCH (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) LEBANESE WRITER AND POET, HENRY ZGHEIB, SAYING: "Today, we don't bid farewell to Said Akl. Today, we welcome Said Akl. Today, we welcome the text of Said Akl that is staying and is immortal, and we bid farewell to the body of Said Akl that had to leave someday. What is important is that the work of Said Akl remains."
  • Embargoed: 17th December 2014 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Lebanon
  • Country: Lebanon
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA2AJRY83J9GFIRGO74YZ3JK7AN
  • Story Text: PLEASE NOTE: THIS EDIT CONTAINS CONVERTED 4:3 MATERIAL
    Lebanon bid farewell to one of the country's most prominent literary figures on Tuesday (December 2) at a mass funeral in Beirut's Saint George Cathedral.
    Said Akl, one of Lebanon's most distinguished 20th-century poets, died on Friday (November 28) at over 100 years of age.
    Born in the eastern town of Zahle in 1912, Akl published his first play in his early 20s and went on to write epics, poetry and lyrics including pieces performed by Lebanese singer Fayrouz, who once called him "the voice of the glory of Lebanon."
    His funeral was attended by some of the country's top political, artistic and literary figures including politician Michel Aoun, former Lebanese Presidents Amin Gemayel and Michel Suleiman as well as renown Lebanese singer Magda al-Roumy, who once sang Akl's lyrics.
    "He made us love Lebanon and its greatness. He made us love this small Lebanon with all its ships, we made him leave today in a small ship, inside all the letters and books he loved, he went in their scent, in his knowledge. Few are the people who lived his life," sculptor and poet Rudy Rahme told Reuters. Rahme designed the coffin that carried Akl's body throughout the funeral, sculpted from the rocks of Lebanon's mountains in the form of a Phoenician sarcophagus - with a cover made of cedar wood engraved with the late poet's name in the shape of a flower.
    Funeral services for Akl started Monday (December 1) at the Notre Dame University (NDU) where he used to give courses.
    Hundreds of instructors, students and relatives attended the university service.
    On Tuesday, Akl's body arrived in a convoy escorted by police from the university grounds in Louaize to downtown Beirut for the funeral, before leaving to his hometown of Zahle where he will be buried.
    "Those people dying are totally irreplaceable, but they are staying. They are leaving in their bodies but they remain in their conscience and through their work. I am glad I lived during the times of Said Akl and the greats who passed before him. We will sure bid farewell to the people who preceded us, and we have to keep to their level, be it in our children's mind or in our discipline. God bless their souls everyone, and bless mister Said," Lebanese singer Nicola al-Osta said.
    Akl died one day after the Lebanese artist Nahawand and two days after legendary singer Sabah.
    "Today, we don't bid farewell to Said Akl. Today, we welcome Said Akl. Today, we welcome the text of Said Akl that is staying and is immortal, and we bid farewell to the body of Said Akl that had to leave someday. What is important is that the work of Said Akl remains," Lebanese writer and poet, Henry Zgheib, said.
    Akl's coffin was carried out of the church to crowds who clapped. Many wore red scarves distributed by NDU as a symbolic gesture of the famous red-colour ties Akl was known to wear.
    "I consider this a cultural celebration. (Said Akl) is a treasure. It is true that we lost his body, but his soul is staying, immortal like the cedar of Lebanon. Said is a phenomenon that cannot be repeated. Said, the writer, the poet, the philosopher, the unique, the eagle in Lebanon's sky, there is no way that he leaves, he will go but then come back, he can't leave the sky of Lebanon - not in his life and not in his death," Lebanese journalist, Sonia al-Achkar told Reuters.
    Akl sparked debate with the idea that colloquial Lebanese Arabic should be seen as a separate language to the more formal Arabic commonly used in literature. He saw Lebanese as equally worthy and proposed using a 37-character Latin alphabet to write it instead of Arabic script.
    He courted controversy with some of his political views, such as when he criticized the presence of armed Palestinian groups in Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war and said he backed the Israeli army fighting them.
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