The Lebanese are celebrating independence but Lebanon is not independent

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Every year on the 22^nd of November, the Lebanese remember the time the French troops left the country and celebrate what they call, independence day.

How can we celebrate when Lebanon haven’t seen independence since tens of years.

We made the French troops leave and replaced them with Arab colonialism. The politicians betrayed the true Lebanese identity and left the Aramean culture out of the state. The Arab culture colonialism made it easy in the 40s to accept too many Palestinian refugees. In the 50s the Arab nationalists tried to take over the country by coup d´état. In the 60s we had to obey under Arab decision in Cairo and let the Palestinians have free hands in Lebanon. Those hands started to be used against the Lebanese in the 70s. A full scale war was a fact and for 15 years we fought all kind of enemies and all kind of friends. In the 90s we had an Arab Syrian occupation. The Syrians occupied Lebanon for 29 years and we were able to celebrate independence from them in year 2005. In 2006 the Iranian Hezballa reminded us that their state within the Lebanese state is able to decide anything, including war and peace, something that entered the country in a devastating situation, a catastrophe on all Lebanese. In 2007 the Palestinian camp of Nahr al Bared reminded us also that the camps are small states within the Lebanese state when another war was fought. In 2008 the Lebanese state was paralyzed when the parties close to the Syrian and Iranian regimes close the parliament, stopped the government from taking decisions, didn’t let a president be elected and made the tourist and business life stand still.

Since the French mandate in Lebanon ended in 1943, the geographically tiny state of Lebanon has seen very few years where its people could celebrate a real independence. A celebration coming from the heart and from the mind. The heart says that we are a free people living in a free country but the mind always knows better. The fact is that Lebanon of today is a country far from being free because the elected politicians and the judiciary system are not always the guarantee that things in the society are under Lebanese law. The 10252 square kilometres are far from reached when we take off the areas controlled by Hezballa, Palestinian civilian camps and Palestinian training camps, altogether with the Syrian controlled areas on the eastern Bekaa border.

I wish we can have a real independence next year, one that even me can be a part of and celebrate with all my country brothers and sisters. A country where terrorists are seen as terrorists and heroes as heroes, not the opposite. 

God Bless Free Lebanon