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What does it mean?

Posted: Mon Jan 03, 2011 6:27 am
by JaneEyre
Hi everybody,

I could not understand the sentence in bold ..especially the underlined part, so please could you explain it to me in a very..very simple English.

''During a war, you never believe it will end. And when it does end – as Lebanon's civil conflict concluded just over 20 years ago – you cannot recreate the war you have lived through. I recall once, in 1995, driving up into the Chouf mountains, south-east of Beirut, for lunch, and breathing in the scent of wood and forest and remembering that the very first day of my reporting assignment – in 1976, near the start of the war – I had driven this same road and smelled the same trees and, despite the gunmen at the checkpoints and the bullet-spattered villages, had been overwhelmed by the beauty of this tiny-vast country. The colours, the high sierras, the dark snows of Mount Sannine glimmering to the north – for it is the spine of mountains down the centre of Lebanon that give this country its grandeur and immensity – have witnessed so much violence that the wars of antiquity must be recalled to put into perspective the hatreds of more recent killings.And it was on that morning of peace, 15 years ago, that I suddenly ' realised I had not thought of the war – the civil war that took 150,000 lives – for many days. I was cured.''
Thanks

Re: What does it mean?

Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 7:20 pm
by Vega
JaneEyre wrote:The colours, the high sierras, the dark snows of Mount Sannine glimmering to the north – for it is the spine of mountains down the centre of Lebanon that give this country its grandeur and immensity – have witnessed so much violence that the wars of antiquity must be recalled to put into perspective the hatreds of more recent killings.
The underlined part says that in Mount Sannine happened violence which is can be compared to wars occurred in former times (in antiquity).
The writer suggests to recall that wars to make others realize the importance/significance of the recent killings

Re: What does it mean?

Posted: Sun Jan 09, 2011 3:36 am
by Oriani
Vega wrote:
JaneEyre wrote:The colours, the high sierras, the dark snows of Mount Sannine glimmering to the north – for it is the spine of mountains down the centre of Lebanon that give this country its grandeur and immensity – have witnessed so much violence that the wars of antiquity must be recalled to put into perspective the hatreds of more recent killings.
The underlined part says that in Mount Sannine happened violence which is can be compared to wars occurred in former times (in antiquity).
The writer suggests to recall that wars to make others realize the importance/significance of the recent killings
It is quite difficult to understand for a non-native English speaker.. I think even for a native one!! That looks like reading "literature"...!