The Lebanese Are Waiting for an "Honest Promise"
31 آذار 2015 08:14
Adapted from an article originally written in Arabic by Dany Haddad
The anniversary of the Lebanese 1975 civil war falls upon us in a few days.
Lebanon seems to be on the verge of a new episode in the series of crises to have fallen on our heads due to regional conflicts, the most recent of which is the Houthi rebellion in Yemen.
The other crisis is the lawmakers' failure to elect a president for the 11th month since Former President Sleiman stepped down, as local factions refuse or simply cannot seem to reach a reasonable agreement due to internal and foreign factors.
We can easily confirm that no Lebanese faction or party is free from foreign affiliations that either provide them with support or money; most probably both.
We, through our adoration of such figures, become followers of a bunch of followers themselves. If they go left we follow, if they turn right we turn along with them, without a pinch of freedom, sovereignty or independence left in our bones.
Political figures have ripped us of all that we have, all that we are. They stole some of our dignity and most of our money. They stole our dream of a corruption-free Lebanon.
We don't want to "Saudize" or "Iranize" Lebanon. We want it to remain our own. We want a country that embraces the faithful but doesn't condemn those different from the norm. We want the country that can embrace the cultivated class, the artists, the clergy men and the atheists.
We want Lebanon as a country of freedom, where each and every one of us can be whoever we chose to be on all levels: political, mental and religious.
We want a country of equals in both rights and obligations. We want the Christian and Muslim Lebanon. Let's just be straight forward and noted that if Lebanon loses its Christians facet, it risks losing its core and flavor. So Muslims must protect this facet knowing that many Christian politicians have fallen short from doing just that for their followers.
The Church is busy with its own corruption and its own clergymen drowning in all forms of delinquency.
Hoping that our politicians would care more about Lebanon than they do about Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Iraq and Yemen; hoping they would look the way of hundreds of thousands of Lebanese living in poverty, because we have had enough crises to last a lifetime.
We have had enough with suffering the consequences of other states' wars. Let us build a nation we can be proud of.
If April starts with a lie and is marked by a painful memory on its 13th day, all we can do is hope that it will end with a president reaching Baabda palace. Can someone make such an "honest promise" to us?