Kuluna lil watan, really?

Mouwatina

Kuluna lil watan?? Really?!!! Because I’ve never felt that way… All my life, I’ve never witnessed any solidarity between all (KELNA) of the Lebanese people. Yes, I’ve heard leaders asking “their people” to unite, but never heard them issue this invitation to all Lebanese citizens. Moreover, this was only a way to prove to the other leaders of other political parties that they are the most powerful – as if responsive politics results from only gathering numbers. These demonstrations on un-solidarity confirm that we are far from being united.

Actually, we are everything but UNITED. The only thing that unites us is that we agree on hating each other. Every community is raised on hate and intolerance. Whenever I talk about the importance of Lebanese unity with someone, I sense the repulsion and the detestation that he has towards “the other”. Every community brings its people up to think that they are better, that they should protect themselves from “the other” and that these “others” will never want anything but to hurt them. “Yee, bass kel wa7ad 2e5erta bi meel la tayefto!”

I want to be optimistic; I want to have faith in our “nation”. But when we live in a country where wearing religious symbols isn’t necessarily related to any religious belief, and when, rather, these symbols are just there to provoke “the others” and to make the individual feel proud and superior, I don’t see how we can call ourselves a nation. When civil marriage is prohibited, and thus when people from different communities are banned from loving or liking “the other”, I REALLY don’t see how we can call ourselves a nation.  When regions are still divided according to religions, because people prefer to live among their own community (JAME3ETNA) and far away from “the others”, I DEFINITELY don’t see how we can call ourselves a nation.

Therefore, we, the Lebanese people, will never be a NATION as long as we perceive the others as “others” and not as our own.

Kel 3am w 2ento b5eir! W 3a2bel ma ysir 3ena “watan”

Tags: Community, Featured, intolerence, Kelna lil watan, nation, solidarity

Category: opinions رأي, Sawt goes patriotic