The book has been designed to reflect on the reasons of the current conflicts in but also on opportunities for reconciliation in a country like Lebanon, where, despite the years of war experiences, live together Shiite and Sunni Muslims, Maronite Christians and other denominations, Druze.
From the speech of the Minister Buttiglione during the presentation of the book at the Chamber of Deputies:
“I am proud that Italian international cooperation department wanted to recognize, support and promote an initiative like this, a peace initiative. I invite you to look at these photographs that wisely has been exhibited in this room. I believe that the fundamental element that characterizes the images is the man’s face: each reflects a continued focus on the man’s face and reminds us of a fundamental fact too often forgotten: the other, before being Muslim or Christian ally or opponent is always a human being and as such has rights, is the bearer of extraordinary wealth, is somehow at the center of the universe “what is more perfect in nature,” he said St. Thomas Aquinas.
This attention to the image of man, I think, give the opportunity to approach the problems in the place where they are and that is in the human heart, avoiding the use of ideology or strategic analysis. Looking at these pictures it came to my mind John Paul II and his constant claim that the way the church is the man and, then, it must start from the reality of his heart. And ‘as if the photographs we would introduce the profound mystery of man: the Lebanese man, sometimes a Christian, sometimes Muslim, sometimes a fighter and sometimes a worker; many of these men once, in the painful history of Lebanon, have been fighting but all are men, and that is where we must start. Along with the photographs I would like, then, to remember the texts that reinforce the message delivered: through them, everyone was given a chance to express themselves, there was what each had to say with a slight but accurate comment that recalls the reasons for the understanding and unity. There is a constant return to the basics: man, family, work; that men have the opportunity to live their vocation, they can work, fall in love, start a family, have children. This allows you to deal with problems in a more human and this is the thread that runs through the book, through the effort to meet the man and at the deepest level of his being. “
