One Year....Lessons To Learn

Exactly one year ago, we all were full of hopes and dreams about an amazing summer to come, the best ever since 1975. For many of us, that summer was supposed to be the beginning of a new era in Liban, an era of prosperity, where long-lived dreams finally become a reality, where Liban regain its ever famous glory as the "Switzerland of the East".

Unfortunately, all these dreams were assassinated, as the ugly face of war brought Liban 20 years back, leaving nothing but destruction and death. Meaningless war, in its causes and results, killed, or let me say postponed (because we will never stop dreaming, and we will never stop seeking our dreams to become a reality) till later.

One year later, as we look back and remember the awful war, there are lessons to be learned, there are facts not to be ignored.

Liban will never win by wars, wars can only weaken our country, and brought destruction, poverty and death. Our economy is on continuous decline, our main artery of income, tourism, is running out of hope, and we are loosing hope day by day.

Peace is what Liban needs, and peace is what will make Liban and the Lebanese true winners. Realizing that Liban is unique in its surrounding is what we need to understand. Liban should become first in our priorities list, then come the rest of them. Liban has paid enough in the name of Arabism, and the Arab-Israeli conflict. It's our time to rest, and start thinking about our country, and how to bring it back to exactly what it was and should always be, a fountain of democracy, prosperity and tourism.

Please, do not start about victory, we have t face the ugly truth; Liban didn't win the war. When we loose thousands of innocent lives, and when quarter of our population becomes refugees, and when our infra-structure is ruined, we can't claim victory. True, Israel didn't win the war, but that doesn't mean we won it! We shouldn't be proud of the last war, we should make sure that such madness never to happen again. We should teach the next generation that war means one thing and one thing only; destruction and death. But what we should teach ourselves before teaching our next generation is that nothing worth human lives being taken away. Only when we realize that our life means more than logos and loud idealism, can we see our dreams becoming real.

God bless Liban, and guide its people to realize that they were blessed by being Lebanese, and they should live up to that.....