Today after a very inspiring talk with a responsible in our school, I began thinking about why I want to leave Lebanon. Where do those thoughts come from?
There's a plan to disgust us from our country. But what is the definition of a country? A land? A land with people? A country is not only land, nor only people. A country is a mix of history, culture (and maybe Tabbouleh and Hummus in Lebanon). If I want to go study and maybe live abroad does that make me any less patriotic than a person who stays in Lebanon? Leaving doesn't mean I have no attachment. This is anything but true. Belonging to your country is not only physical, it is belonging to principles that are the reason this country exists.This is not correct. "Leave this country" they said. "People who stay here are stupid and useless" All those who lived their whole life in Lebanon are stupid and imbeciles? All of them lived and died purposeless? NO.
Immigration is spiritual before being physical. Making you lose your patriotism is making you give up on your principles, your culture and the history you are holding on your shoulders, the history you inherited and that you're gonna pass to the next generation either you want it or not. That history isn't ours, we do not own it, what we can preserve and add to it is what we're gonna pass to the ones after us. You take nothing with you from this life. We are ephemeral, not here to last. Why do they want to take the love we have for our country from us? Why do they try to make our lives a living hell everyday just so we would leave this place?
An Arab philosopher named Ebn el Rushd once said "Ideas have wings, nobody can stop the knowledge to get to anyone". Don't go with the flow that sickens you from your country, who pushes you to give up, who takes you to somewhere others chose for you. This is mentally expelling you from your country this is CULTURAL COLONIZATION for God's sake! Colonization is not over, it is not only conquering lands with arms, it never was over. The older generation makes the choices for you, going from the personal level; your parents and family, to the national and global level which includes the politicians ruling your country and the world. And this is how life is.
The only way to fight against this cultural colonization is to know. To be aware. Knowledge is the ultimate weapon. Maybe I chose to leave Lebanon, but this is MY choice after knowing the reason behind me wanting to leave. Not because I'm applying people's choices on my life without even trying to know why, people who, since my early age, pushed me to despise my country and to be pessimistic about everything related to it.
Knowledge is your only path to freedom. YOU can't be free if you don't know, if you don't think.
What about the generations to come? Should we pray for God to help them get through the tough years to come? Yes. But what we will have to face needs a lot more luck and prayers: Life. For now there are people around me who care about me and who try to protect me always and guide me, but they won't be here forever.
Life clears its debts with you.
There's a plan to disgust us from our country. But what is the definition of a country? A land? A land with people? A country is not only land, nor only people. A country is a mix of history, culture (and maybe Tabbouleh and Hummus in Lebanon). If I want to go study and maybe live abroad does that make me any less patriotic than a person who stays in Lebanon? Leaving doesn't mean I have no attachment. This is anything but true. Belonging to your country is not only physical, it is belonging to principles that are the reason this country exists.This is not correct. "Leave this country" they said. "People who stay here are stupid and useless" All those who lived their whole life in Lebanon are stupid and imbeciles? All of them lived and died purposeless? NO.
Immigration is spiritual before being physical. Making you lose your patriotism is making you give up on your principles, your culture and the history you are holding on your shoulders, the history you inherited and that you're gonna pass to the next generation either you want it or not. That history isn't ours, we do not own it, what we can preserve and add to it is what we're gonna pass to the ones after us. You take nothing with you from this life. We are ephemeral, not here to last. Why do they want to take the love we have for our country from us? Why do they try to make our lives a living hell everyday just so we would leave this place?
An Arab philosopher named Ebn el Rushd once said "Ideas have wings, nobody can stop the knowledge to get to anyone". Don't go with the flow that sickens you from your country, who pushes you to give up, who takes you to somewhere others chose for you. This is mentally expelling you from your country this is CULTURAL COLONIZATION for God's sake! Colonization is not over, it is not only conquering lands with arms, it never was over. The older generation makes the choices for you, going from the personal level; your parents and family, to the national and global level which includes the politicians ruling your country and the world. And this is how life is.
The only way to fight against this cultural colonization is to know. To be aware. Knowledge is the ultimate weapon. Maybe I chose to leave Lebanon, but this is MY choice after knowing the reason behind me wanting to leave. Not because I'm applying people's choices on my life without even trying to know why, people who, since my early age, pushed me to despise my country and to be pessimistic about everything related to it.
Knowledge is your only path to freedom. YOU can't be free if you don't know, if you don't think.
What about the generations to come? Should we pray for God to help them get through the tough years to come? Yes. But what we will have to face needs a lot more luck and prayers: Life. For now there are people around me who care about me and who try to protect me always and guide me, but they won't be here forever.
Life clears its debts with you.
Well written and very true. I wrote a similar blog post just before I left Lebanon 2 years ago to france. And I can tell that it was the best decision I ever took.
ReplyDeleteGoodluck with your decision and keep your own future in sight, not Lebanon's future. There's a huge world out there for you to discover and you live only once. So you better make the best of it.
Robert Fisk in one of his poems:
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.