Dear Lebanon, let’s stop pretending… 11.04.2014

     Since the day I was born, I was never able to understand what patriotism is. Living in a tortured divided yet small land, I was never able to feel the attachment to a constantly burning and shattered land, a sacred but damned country. I should admit: we are not the perfect people… we are actually far from being perfect but so what? That’s not the issue… the issue is that we are convinced that we are perfect and act as we never make mistakes… we can talk about patriotism when we will be able to admit our mistakes and be ready to start over hand in hand … let’s face it: patriotism is linked to tolerance and to respecting others’ opinions, and no we definitely don’t have this one in our culture… so let’s stop pretending…

Let’s stop pretending what we are not… let’s just admit the truth and start building on it a real country because I truly believe that we can… let’s stop compiling lies over crimes over dirt…

Let’s stop pretending that we are an independent nation… we are a bunch of losers following some persons who were able to take advantage of our naivety … We are so dependent in all aspects: we lack of creativity so we depend on the imported products; we never try to be leaders ourselves, we always depend on the pretentious political gurus; we never try to understand the reason behind faith, we depend on the religious men and what they tell us whether true or false; we never try to face the challenges and difficulties that this country encounters, we depend on the passport and on the visa and we always take the first flight running away from troubles.

Let’s stop pretending that we are the saint people, the strongest people who were able to get over years of war peacefully; we didn’t: war is still going on!

Let’s stop pretending that we live in a democratic country…. We don’t: we cannot even stand each other when driving, not even standing our neighbor’s loud cute and happy kids … we never take anything easy and we never keep it simple…

Let’s stop pretending that human rights are respected here, where crimes of honor still occur, where everything can be justified in court or through religion and/or money…

Let’s stop pretending our hypocrite will to build peace by raising the Lebanese flag and setting free some miserable doves while in the back we are raising knives on each other and murdering the doves so they serve us as dinner…

Let’s stop pretending that we reject humiliation, when we humiliate that poor kid on the street or that old woman selling flowers on our doorsteps…

Let’s stop pretending by praising the ones who are gone when we still insult those who are around… It is so sad that we never know the value of someone until they’re gone.

Let’s stop pretending that we want a strong country when we are too lazy to work on it… a strong country needs commitment and hard work…

Let’s stop pretending on TVs and in Medias by showing off our humanitarian aspect… Let’s stop pretending being saints asking for women’s rights, for refugees’ rights, for children’s rights etc. let’s face it, all of those who brag about their humanity on TVs do not seek any of these rights… they are seeking recognition, fame and the “oh”s…

Let’s stop pretending that we want laws when we barely know what laws are already there and what laws are actually missing…. Let’s be honest: we respect the laws only when it’s convenient to us…

Let’s take a second to meditate about our identity. We will discover that we don’t have any: when the homeland is ruined, identities are scattered… when you lose the land, you lose the identity… Think about the greatest empires of history and their downfall… great cultures and nations faded away when they lost their lands, or even the loyalty to their lands…

Let’s take an honest moment, take off all the masks and pretending personalities to see what we were, what we are and what we will be… Look at what is left of this country… a puzzle; we can still combine the parts to make it rise like a Phoenix from the ashes. Yes we can if we want… so let’s want so we can…

It takes you less than 5 minutes to read my words and I am sure that most of you didn’t even get to this part… We don’t have enough patience to go till the end of anything… yes we start a business but we don’t have the patience to pursue it… yes we get married, but we don’t have the patience to work on it …we always run away… we are all so lost that we don’t know where and when to start and even worse: we don’t know what to do!

I am sure there are many out there with outstanding ideas to make this country rise again. I believe, in order to start, we can just, for God’s sake, stop blaming each other and admit when we are wrong. I have tried several times to say my thoughts in different ways but my voice was either silenced or well received by some “well-said” and “yes you are right”. I really don’t care if I’m right or wrong. If I’m right, let’s do something about this and if I’m wrong, convince me that our country is having “la vie en rose”. I really don’t care about the positive appraisals, and I never expect applause in exchange of my words… What I care about is to have a country where I know that my children and their children won’t have to survive explosions, wars, gun fires etc. every single day, but can live a simple normal peaceful life without hypocrisy and pretensions…

I will end my words with a classic yet meaningful quote: “A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step”…