The Levant and Mount Lebanon.

The pics at the link below offer an excellent opportunity to record some quotes from Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2008/10/lebanon-switzerland-of-middle-east.html

"For more than a millennium, the eastern Mediterranean seaboard called Syria Libanensis, or Mount Lebanon, had been able to accomodate at least a dozen different sects, ethnicities and beliefs - it worked like magic.

The Levantine cities were mercantile in nature; people dealt with one another according to a clear protocol, preserving a peace conducive to commerce, and they socialised quite a bit across communities.

Things appeared to be in a state of stable equilibrium, evolving out of a historical tendency for betterment and tolerance.

By any standard the country called Lebanon, to which we found ourselves suddenly incorporated after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, in the early 20th century, appeared to be a stable paradise; it was also cut in a way to be predominantly Christian. People were suddenly brainwashed to believe in the nation-state as an entity.*

In a classical case of statis thinking, nobody took into account the differentials in birthrate between communities and it was assumed that a slight Christian majority would remain permanent.

*It is remarkable how fast and how effectively you can construct a nationality with a flag, a few speeches, and a national anthem; to this day I avoid the label 'Lebanese' preferring the less restrictive 'Levantine' designation."