Mérida, Yucatán, (March 15, 2021).- Mayor Renán Barrera Concha recognized the invaluable contribution that Lebanese culture has made to the city, not only in the cultural sphere but also in the gastronomic, social, and economic aspects since the arrival of the first Lebanese, whose descendants today are an important part of the social and economic dynamics of Mérida.
The Mayor attended today the formal ceremony of the “World Day of the Lebanese Immigrant”, in which he indicated that the City Council joins the commemoration of the 150 years of the arrival of the emigrants from Lebanon to Mexico and Yucatan.
Before the Honorary Consul of Lebanon for the Peninsula, Ricardo Elías Dajer Nahum, and the president of the Lebanese Club of Mérida, Sergio Asís Abraham Rodríguez, he called on those present to keep working together to continue building the Mérida we will leave for future generations.
“If we continue to strengthen the common good over individual priorities, we will have the certainty that we will be inheriting a better city to our families and honoring the memory of our ancestors,” he said.
In the ceremony that included a wreath in front of the sculpture of the Lebanese Emigrant, located at the entrance of the Lebanese Club, the Mayor remarked that “without a doubt one of the characteristics that distinguish the Lebanese community is the degree of friendship and good relations that we have mutually, which allows us to assume with a single identity the fact of considering ourselves as a single people, which has allowed to boost the economic, political and social development of Mérida and Yucatán ”
It should be noted that in commemoration of this celebration, at night, the City Council will also carry out the lighting of the Municipal Palace.
In his speech, the Honorary Consul of Lebanon for the Peninsula, Ricardo Dájer Nahum, emphasized that the commemoration of this day is adorned with the naming of 1-H street in the México Norte neighborhood, as “Dr. Fernando Elías Dájer Nahum ”, a proposal made by the Mayor of Merida before the Cabildo and which was unanimously approved.
—The recognition of Dr. Dájer is also an acknowledgment of our community, it also means that we, the members of the Yucatecan community of Lebanese descent, acquire a commitment in front of the authorities of the city and of the civil society of Yucatán and we must be at the height of the honoree, ”he said.
The businessman also highlighted for the first time the presence of a Municipal President in this celebration and emphasized that Renán Barrera has been a tireless promoter of the contributions that the various native communities of other countries, including the Lebanese community, make to Mérida.
For his part, Sergio Abraham Rodríguez, president of the Lebanese Club, recognized the Mayor’s close work with the Lebanese community, a fact that he said was visible from his first municipal administration.
—During his first administration, it was possible to name Avenida Líbano to Calle 20 in the Mexico neighborhood and today we received this second gift, the naming of Calle 1-H that connects Avenida Líbano with the roundabout to Centrict, parallel to the Club Libanes de Mérida and the street “Dr. Fernando Elías Dájer Nahum ”—he pointed out.
In this context, he also thanked the contribution of the Merida Council and reaffirmed, on behalf of the community it represents, the commitment to continue working to strengthen the future of Mérida and the State.
In his message, Barrera Concha emphasized that cultural diplomacy has a value as an important instrument of rapprochement between peoples, which allows us to open new spaces to build cultural and social ties, build bridges of dialogue and rapprochement to continue contributing in the construction of the “Merida of 10”.
Finally, he said that the Merida that is enjoyed today is the result of ethnic interactions, of the influence of the melting pot of nationalities that originated it, of the Mayan, Spanish, Korean and of course, the Lebanese families, which over time they have fused to make a great family, the Yucatecan, without losing any of them, their origins, roots, customs and traditions.
The event was also attended by the Director of Culture, Irving Berlin Villafaña.
