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Monday, July 31, 2006

Nadia Hassan

Ainab - Lebanon | July 22

It’s been 10 days now and this is the 11th… and the madness still hasn’t stopped. I don’t think our systems have fully registered what is going on… one minute we were having a normal summer, the next we’re in a full blown out bloody war… a war we didn’t start…a war we don’t condone. We feel like prisoners in our own country… like we’ve been taken hostage and are being used as pawns or human shields in someone else’s war…we stand in shock and awe and not a little heart break as we look at the state Lebanon was brought to in a few days…Lebanon that has always been the envy of the Middle east, and has been the scapegoat in the region’s crises… actually calling it a scapegoat would imply the choice was random, whereas the choice has always been calculated and spiteful… Lebanon has always been the beacon of education and democracy and co-habilitation of several religions…its citizens are smart, resilient, life-loving people whose creativity and talent has shone all over the world and in all fields…those qualities are what make Lebanon a potential haven of beauty and democracy in the Middle East…and that’s what always makes it a target for hostility. I think back to last February when the assassination of ex-PM Hariri, an event that was thought by the perpetrators (and we all know who those are) to bring Lebanon to its knees and create more division between its people…but what happened instead…was so politically mature, so harmonic, so overwhelmingly emotional that it inspired even Western countries and warmed every Lebanese heart that had refused to believe that the Lebanon they knew existed and COULD exist if outside factors relented…was not a fantasy… the Lebanon Hariri believed in even when things seemed very bleak…the Lebanon he paid with his life for… now, not even a year after the last political assassination of our free political thinkers…we find the “Lebanese Dream” as I like to call it…threatened yet again…and it breaks my heart… Our house overlooks Beirut and so we can see and hear all bombs that drop in Southern Beirut and the International Airport…I was heading up after a series of bombings, and as soon as I saw Beirut I broke down…I started silently beseeching Hariri to help us…for in these hard times he is missed the most. He was always a pillar of support to the Lebanese and always managed to ‘get things done’ …after all, he rebuilt half of Lebanon and helped boost our economy...it is because of him that this summer was supposed to be a record high in tourism…and to see it bludgeoned like that, and thus take us back years is sometimes too much to accept…”Look ya Abou-Baha2 what they’re doing to us!” …where is the hope we had after the March 14 movement?... where are the results of years and years of hard work?... I know Lebanon will rise again…it is in our genes… our history boasts of Lebanon’s capabilities of literally rising from its ashes…just like the Phoenix that is so rightly associated with us…but for someone who loves Lebanon with all her heart, I must ask…Till when will Lebanon bare the brunt of intolerance and political primitiveness in the Middle East? Till when will Lebanon have to keep fighting for its independence and prosperity? Till when will mothers and dads and wives mourn martyrs? … Till when?
posted by SAVE LEBANON, @ 5:12 PM, , (0) comments