From golden age to war and ruin: Lebanon in turmoil as it hits 100

Holiday Inn Hotel is pictured on fire during clashes in Beirut, Lebanon 1975. Reuters TV via REUTERS

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Looking back on his childhood in the newly declared state of Lebanon nearly a century ago, Salah Tizani says the country was set on course for calamity from the start by colonial powers and sectarian overlords.

Tizani, better known in Lebanon as Abou Salim, was one of Lebanon's first TV celebrities. He shot to fame in the 1960s with a weekly comedy show that offered a political and social critique of the nascent state.