What does it mean to be a Lebanese?

A freind of mine, Najwan Fares, wrote an article describing her thoughts and feelings towards what's happeneing recently in Lebanon. I'm gunna puplish her article here, and I'm leaving it up to all of you to comment....

To My Love...Lebanon!

Wake up Lebanon...Why are you still sleeping? It's not time for sleep. Today's is the big day! this is the wedding that never ends, where the bride is waiting patiently for her groom that doesn't show up when the church bells start playing.

Children playgrounds become battle grounds for the grownups, where swings become replaced by firing guns!

The scent of fear is all that can be smelled bound to the odor of fresh innocent blood furnished across the streets of Lebanon.

What's going on? Can someone tell me because I haven't still woke up from the disclosure.

All I can remember is welcoming one Friday morning with War!

Did I just say the story that filled our history books??

Our record is the biggest bed time story ever. The title begins with war, and the ending will always be war! We will always fight on the details that will fulfill our greediness.

Lebanon has always been a victim of a seriel conspiracy. It never had time to build itself the way it should. Held one brick in a hand, and feared that the other will never reach the wall.

We never had the right time to recover from the paranoid that conquered our lives for 30 years!

An enner battle that will need everlasting therapy to get cured completely. It's a shame on us that we killed ourselves when we killed our human brother. Lebanon wa sassassinated by its own people...

This gave pthers the chance to live on us like parasites craving for shelter and more Arabian blood...

An alibi to reinforce the peace in the country!

Our life is empty now!

By the time we swear that this will never happen again, another crisis arises within us. Another generation is raised under the pressures of the collapsing bombs. Screams, screams, and more screams....Stop....

Cries of the innocents roaming around the ashes of what was their home. Fledding away to shelters, and then a lightening and a death rated sound. If you choose to run away, then this is no choice, but an obligation. If you choose to stay, then we are sentencing ourselves to death. But we can't just all leave and give the enemy more reasons to destroy.

He must know who we really are; we're the nation that always held its coffin under the sirens of attacking bombs; we're the people who will risk their lives just to see their country independent and free!

We have no safe asylum except our faith in God! No Israeli flop can manage surpassing that...]

I've never been praying type but now I'm all on my knees trying believe that there's a light at the end of the tunnel. We could've stayed outside all this and chose another road to our dreams about Lebanon, but Lebanon has always been a bet and a wild game lots of political parties enjoyed taking the launch.

We never had the preferance in anyhting concerning our home. We were a doll in the hands of the strong!

But who will take the lead, the law or the strong?! This is the question... This is no time to throw accusations. This is time to unite mentally and physically...

They are killing our dreams and imaginations, but they will never kill our free will to live and grow on the idea that Leabnon is ours, from its north to its south...

We will always breathe the same air that filled our lungs when we first opened our eyes on this world!

Our life is ours, not for somebody else. We are no puppet!

This war is for all Lebanon not for anyone in particular. Lebanon was chosen the place to commence this barbarian act, therefore; it's a shame on those who act as if we are no part of all this.

How does it feel when the sacred is torn?

I've always wanted to know but never dared to ask. Now, all i want is us to live again. Is that too much to ask for?!

Although our hearts are still working normally,a nd our mobile activity is there on standby, we are Dead.

I have died with the ones who died in the south,a nd my soul is dying with the dreams of the kids who prepared themselves for summer camp and my thoughts have passed away with the elderly that were preparing themselves for the other life!!

Some have lost contact with their close ones for 5 mins, but lots have lost them forever...

Someday, the church bells will rhyme along the prayers of the mosque, and Lebanon will become evergreen.

From now till then, God bless us all!

Najwan Fares

22-07-2006