Rambling around a Cause

Several of the security chiefs have been charged with attempted murder, murder, and a terrorist act.

This is great news. For once, we actually feel some vindication of injustices. So for the literalists, do not misunderstand the following.

But such "happiness" is also an opium for the masses. It makes us look up at the political structure and thank them for becoming our equals. No one is above the law, apparently. The people who have held control in their hands, the people who have attempted to herd the country through their vision of what should be, these people have finally been put in a place no one ever thought possible.

So Justice has been served. We are all equal. Regardless of their powerful past, they have been treated in the same way as the nations citizens.

But I also look back at the past week, month, year, and decade, and see complete stagnation. Is that something to be happy about? What about the people? What about the Lebanese citizens? Poverty has no room for political ideologies. It struggles within the classes for the simple needs of life, and we dare say that justice has been served. We dare raise our heads again. While the country is still crumbling. And it is. The life in downtown and monot and gemeyzeh and wherever else you might point to is not representative of Lebanon. The social circles you might create while studying in AUB or LAU is not the true Lebanon. Students looked at AUB and claimed that it was a microcosm of Lebanon. That all the sects and all the parties were represented in AUB, that even the student government was made up by, and existed for, the different parties. That George and Hussein might be friends, as well as internalizing the friction caused by their backgrounds, in the same way that lebanese citizens do.

In a way, it is true. But it isn't complete. AUB is not Lebanon. Yes, the poor do attend AUB. There are poor who work their way through AUB, or earn a scholarship, or are funded by a foundation, or live in a one bedroom appartment with 5 other family members, while the father slaves away so that he can send his son to AUB. But the majority of AUB isn't poor. And the majority of Lebanon is.

Where are we heading in Lebanon? Where do we want to go? How do we want Lebanon to evolve? Will we learn from the paths that other nations take?

I repeat: May God Bless Hariri's soul. He was assassinated unjustly, his murderers have finally been captured, and apparently, there is more to come. This is a great thing. But this has become another ideology that has enraptured the people The search for the Truth. Al-Haqeeqa. The Blue Ribbon (which a friend of mine just today said has been milked a bit more than needed).

Our lives don't revolve around Hariri (Junior), or Jumblatt, or the Gemayels, or Aoun, or Geagea, or whoever else you feel like adding to the list. Our lives should not be lived and lost for them. I am not going to sit and analyze the different moves that Lebanese politiciancs have taken, or why side X is on, or why Z is frustrated with Y. There are enough blogs out there to do this. I want to commentate on Lebanon. I want Lebanon to improve. I have had enough with being a spectator. This is our life.

I have had enough of fellow Lebanese pointing their fingers at the past, and saying they descended from the Pheonicians, or that they invented the alphabet, or that they had the first printing press in the middle east, or that they have been in the cross roads of civilization for several millenia. I want today's Lebanese to point at Lebanon today, and say we will be this much better by tomorrow. I want Lebanon's citizen's to stand up and say that they are going to work for Lebanon. Enough of the status quo. Enough of the glamorous appeal of grandeur ideas and ideals. I want the lebanese to work with the small things. I want the Lebanese who believe that our politics is semi-pointless to aim at making it more meaningful. I want Lebanon to not only be proud of our past but to work for today. Yesterday's wonders are worthless to those dying now. Yesterday's pleasures and creations are pointless to those who struggle for a couple of hundred dollars every month. How would knowing that you were part of a seafaring nation make finding food for your family any easier? Does it ease the pain?

I am bored of the lines I hear from people I know when they describe politican X as better than the rest. That means nothing, since he might not be good enough.

I am annoyed at hearing friends and family discuss the true Lebanese vision. It doesn't exist.

I am tired of sitting through arguements of the Lebanese identity. We can work on the menial daily tasks while the identity forms itself.

I want people to look at the reality whenever they blindly state that Lebanon is the greatest country.

Maybe it can be.

But it isn't yet. I have had enough of watching feuds between politicians take the center stage, when far graver, far more important, far more destructive injustices are occuring 200 meters from where I live. I have had enough of the forgotten dead, of the ignored poverty, of the select few who have made it riding the backs of the fooled masses. I have had enough.

It is time for Lebanon to change. It is time to counteract the status quo, and to stop going with the flow. It is time to know that it not just for justice to only be served on a silver platter, and that society should not be divided into a few flocks for a few shepherds. No more insisting on others to accepting your ideology. No more exploitation of the weaker citizens. No more accepted injustices.

Charging the security chiefs is a step forward. But this step won't push Lebanon forwards. Our politicians won't do that. How long will we keep waiting for them to do this? How long will we follow their moves? How long will we wait for their decisions, for their speeches, for their spites, for their glories? How long will we be unware that our future lies with us?

There are so many places to start with. Accountability. Law management. Equality. Secularism. Civil Law. Infrastructure. Economic incentives. Add more to the list if you want.

One thing is for sure though. We have to stop waiting.

posted by Lazarus, 10:25 PM