A Holiday Message.

Boston – Massachusetts

25 December 2004

New England Americans for Lebanon

This year will witness the end of the nightmare in Lebanon, at least the immediate causes of the nightmare. We can be certain that 2005 will be a watershed in the 30-year history of our plight as a people.  The Syrian army, its intelligence services, the collaborators at the helm, and essentially the entire Syrian order put in place by Hafez Assad - and continued by his heir to the Baathist throne in Damascus, Bashar – will all be on their way out through Dahr-El—Baidar, then through Masnaa, and into the oblivion of the Syrian desert and beyond. We don't know whether this will be an honorable exit for the Syrians – with a formal and mutual recognition of the sovereign and independent status of each country, represented by the opening of diplomatic missions in both Damascus and Beirut, and the settlement of all outstanding territorial and political disputes and claims – or if the Syrian regime will leave Lebanon in a shameful and humiliating display of defeat and under the spits of the Lebanese people. That is a choice the Syrians will have to make, not we. What is certain, however, is that they will be out.

The uncertainty, however, is ours as a people to deal with. With the new year, it may be time to reflect on ourselves and ask ourselves those questions that we shelved for so many years. Questions such as: Where did we go wrong?  Never mind the Israelis, Syrians, Palestinians or Iranians and everyone else in the neighborhood who came to the Lebanese bazaar for a myriad of reasons. Let us pause and ask ourselves: Where did we, the Lebanese people, go wrong? What can we do, with this new beginning, to lay the ground for a future that is free of the hurt and the pain of the past 30 years?

The subject may be a very sensitive one for the bruised egos of the Lebanese people, many of whom today subscribe to a philosophy of life that lacks the fundamental elements to build a truly civic and advanced society: Caring for others, especially those who are less fortunate, humility, a sense of collective responsibility, a deep abiding by the rule of law and what it really means to live among others, personal responsibility for one's actions, a belief that all human beings are to be respected irrespective of origin, faith, color, and material possessions, respect for the environment and the natural beauty of Lebanon, etc.

Many Lebanese will tell you that they have had enough suffering in their recent past that they are entitled to behave like irresponsible and uncaring spoiled children who have no compassion for other human beings, or who measure the worth of other human beings by their bank account or whether they have a maid or drive a Mercedes. But that is precisely where the mistake lies and where the thinking is wrong. In 1975, we were confronted with a challenge and a threat to our existence as a people, and the decisions we made to confront the challenge have led us to where we are today. The fact that other countries, outside forces or foreign people were active participants in the challenge does not absolve us from our responsibility towards ourselves.  And so I would argue that we have suffered not as much from the wars of others on our soil but more so because of our own sense of superiority and our arrogance. As individuals, the Lebanese are a great bunch. They accomplish and achieve much – by themselves, alone, and for themselves. But when challenged to act as a group, as a society, as a people, as a collective, we are truly lacking, and so we fail as a group.  

This attitudinal mindset is our chronic ailment. And today in 2005, thirty years after a long and painful war, we are again at a crossroads. We have choices to make as a society and as a people. We have a fossilized mindset, deeply entrenched in the Mediterranean mercantile mentality that makes us think that money and appearances are the only measures of personal success and the only criteria for admission into some superficially defined “elite” class. Our political class has to change and understand that to lead is to serve, and that access to political power is the beginning and not the end of a political career.  As average citizens, we have to understand that we have rights and that we must demand them and insist on them by all the peaceful means at our disposal, but that by the same token, we have responsibilities to others and that there is a small price to pay for everything, whether it is in the form of paying taxes or making room for others on the street, in the workplace and everywhere else we conduct our lives.

To those of us who constantly brag about Gibran Khalil Gibran being a great Lebanese, we must pay attention to the fact that he achieved his success alone, as a human being and not as a Lebanese, and definitely without the help of any other Lebanese. His unhappiness with his fellow Lebanese is pervasive throughout his writings. He criticized the power of the religious elites over the lives of ordinary Lebanese. He criticized the Lebanese for asking only what their country can do for them, instead of what they can do for their country. He criticized us for wearing clothes whose fabric we did not weave or for eating food we did not grow, and for abandoning our true identity to imitate the West in everything it does bad while ignoring everything it does well.  He criticized us for our antiquated traditional mentalities that makes us defer to feudal lords, big families and the clergy to rule our lives. Gibran lived and wrote almost 100 years ago, and we have not changed in 100 years.

And so as 2005 approaches with all the changes it will bring with it, it may be a good time to reflect on the following poem by Gibran in which he speaks of the “Two Lebanons”. The one that is, and the one that we artificially make it to be. The one of our deep roots, and the one of our blind and superficial imitation of others. The one of the natural beauty of the country, and the other whose nature is raped everyday by greedy money whales who care nothing for the environment, nothing for their country, and nothing for their people. The Lebanon of humility and simplicity, and the other Lebanon of arrogance and show-off. The Lebanon in which people truly care for each other, and the other Lebanon where  everyone is in it for their own personal gain. 

You Have Your Lebanon and I Have My Lebanon

You have your Lebanon and its dilemma. I have my Lebanon and its beauty. Your Lebanon is an arena for men from the West and men from the East.

My Lebanon is a flock of birds fluttering in the early morning as shepherds lead their sheep into the meadow and rising in the evening as farmers return from their fields and vineyards.

You have your Lebanon and its people. I have my Lebanon and its people.

Yours are those whose souls were born in the hospitals of the West; they are as a ship without rudder or sail upon a raging sea.... They are strong and eloquent among themselves but weak and dumb among Europeans.

They are brave, the liberators and the reformers, but only in their own area. But they are cowards, always led backwards by the Europeans. They are those who croak like frogs boasting that they have rid themselves of their ancient, tyrannical enemy, but the truth of the matter is that this tyrannical enemy still hides within their own souls. They are the slaves for whom time had exchanged rusty chains for shiny ones so that they thought themselves free. These are the children of your Lebanon. Is there anyone among them who represents the strength of the towering rocks of Lebanon, the purity of its water or the fragrance of its air? Who among them vouchsafes to say, "When I die I leave my country little better than when I was born"?

Who among them dare to say, "My life was a drop of blood in the veins of Lebanon, a tear in her eyes or a smile upon her lips"?

Those are the children of your Lebanon. They are, in your estimation, great; but insignificant in my estimation.

Let me tell you who are the children of my Lebanon.

They are farmers who would turn fallow field into garden and grove.

They are the shepherds who lead their flocks through the valleys to be fattened for your table meat and your woolens.

They are the vine-pressers who press the grape to wine and boil it to syrup.

They are the parents who tend the nurseries, the mothers who spin the silken yarn.

They are the husbands who harvest the wheat and the wives who gather the sheaves.

They are the builders, the potters, the weavers and the bell-casters.

They are the poets who pour their souls in new cups.

They are those who migrate with nothing but courage in their hearts and strength in their arms but who return with wealth in their hands and a wreath of glory upon their heads.

They are the victorious wherever they go and loved and respected wherever they settle.

They are the ones born in huts but who died in palaces of learning.

These are the children of Lebanon; they are the lamps that cannot be snuffed by the wind and the salt which remains unspoiled through the ages.

They are the ones who are steadily moving toward perfection, beauty, and truth.

What will remain of your Lebanon after a century? Tell me! Except bragging, lying and stupidity? Do you expect the ages to keep in their memory the traces of deceit and cheating and hypocrisy? Do you think the atmosphere will preserve in its pockets the shadows of death and the stench of graves?

Do you believe life will accept a patched garment for a dress? Verily, I say to you that an olive plant in the hills of Lebanon will outlast all of your deeds and your works; that the wooden plow pulled by the oxen in the crannies of Lebanon is nobler than your dreams and aspirations.

I say to you, while the conscience of time listened to me, that the songs of a maiden collecting herbs in the valleys of Lebanon will outlast all the uttering of the most exalted prattler among you. I say to you that you are achieving nothing. If you knew that you are accomplishing nothing, I would feel sorry for you, but you know it not.

You have your Lebanon and I have my Lebanon.

http://www.neal-us.org/a_holiday_message.htm