Nearly all the posts are bilingual.
Presque tous les articles sont bilingues.

English spoken. On parle français. (وكمان منفهم عربي، حبيبي)

Most of this blog's contents is subject to copyright. For instance, many of the latest illustrations I've made myself. I'm the cooperative type. If you intend to borrow some material, please contact me by leaving a comment. :-)
La plupart du contenu de ce blog est soumis aux droits d'auteurs. Par exemple, nombre des illustrations les plus récentes sont faites par moi. Je suis du genre coulant. Si vous comptez emprunter du contenu, SVP contactez-moi en laissant un commentaire. :-)

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Darth Insidious

Beirut... Lebanon...

I wonder...

Is the country I love just an illusion? Is it that State entity I inhabit, or a mere figment of my idealist imagination?

I know it is we who truly make our country, but sometimes I feel so alone, amidst all those party militants from all sides, all those conflicting clans and confessions and families and accursed tribes. I can't do it all by myself! One citizen cannot a country make, all must work at it. Or at least, most.

Do I love you, my country, or did I just spend my life thinking I loved you, and that was never really you, and I never really knew you, and I didn't want to know?
Am I considering divorce, like the many who emigrate more and more, of were we never really united for life in the first place?

God, Allah, Yahve, Brahma, Buddha... whatever your Name, know that I'm getting weary of not knowing, of wondering, of kissing the wind.

The soul of my nation is dying, I see it here and now. Miracles are not essential to faith, but love is. If you don't love, oh my country, my faith will vanish forever.
The Lebanese have forsaken the love of their neighbor, they have forgotten how to love. They are selfish, foolish, insensitive, heartless.
I've seen the Dark Side of this land, this people. It is everywhere, hiding in the shadows of denial and fancy words. We must amend our hearts, else Heaven itself cannot give us Redemption.
Heaven or Hell, they are not places, they are our own doing, forever with us, we made them with our own hands and lives and deeds. A God of Love would never create a Hell, only the evil of men could have done it.
Salvation can only come from within. The Prodigal Son was never kicked out, he himself left the Father, rejected His love. Only he could have chosen to return to Love.

Land of the blazing Phoenix... Do I love? Do you exist? Are you what I love?
To be or not to be...

...............................

Beyrouth... Liban...

Je me demande...

Le pays que j'aime n'est-il qu'une illusion? Est-il cette entité Etatique où j'habite, ou juste un mirage, fruit de mon imagination idéaliste?

Je sais que c'est nous qui faisons une patrie, mais parfois je me sens tellement seul, au milieu de tous ces militants de partis de toutes parts, tous ces clans et confessions et familles et satanées tribus qui se chamaillent sans arrêt. Je ne peux pas y arriver tout seul! Un citoyen ne peut pas faire une nation, il faut que tous y mettent du leur. Ou au moins, la plupart.

Est-ce que je t'aime, ma patrie, ou bien ai-je passé ma vie à croire que je t'aimais, et ce n'était jamais vraiment toi, et je ne t'ai jamais vraiment connue, et je ne voulais pas savoir?
Suis-je en train d'envisager le divorce, comme les nombreux qui émigrent de plus en plus, ou ne fûmes-nous jamais unis pour la vie?

Dieu, Allah, Yahvé, Brahma, Bouddha... quel que soit ton Nom, sache que je suis las de ne pas savoir, de m'interroger, d'embrasser du vent.

L'âme de ma nation se meurt, je le vois ici et maintenant. Les miracles ne sont pas indispensables à la foi, mais l'amour l'est, lui. Si tu n'aimes pas, ô mon pays, ma foi s'évanouira à jamais.
Les Libanais ont abandonné l'amour de leur prochain, ils ont oublié comment aimer. Ils sont égoïstes, stupides, insensibles, sans cœur.
J'ai vu le Côté Obscur de cette terre, de ce peuple. Il est partout, se cachant dans les ombres du déni et des paroles clinquantes. Nous devons amender nos cœurs, sinon le Paradis lui-même ne saurait nous apporter la Rédemption.
Paradis ou Enfer, ce ne sont pas des lieux, ils sont notre fait, à jamais avec nous qui les avons créés de nos mains, de nos vies, de nos actes. Un Dieu d'Amour ne pourrait jamais créer un Enfer, seul le mal dans le cœur des hommes aurait pu faire cela.
Le salut ne peut venir que de l'intérieur. Le Fils Prodigue ne fut jamais chassé, c'est lui-même qui a quitté le Père, et rejeté Son amour. Lui seul aurait pu choisir de revenir à l'Amour.

Terre du Phénix ardent... Est-ce que j'aime? Existes-tu? Est-tu bien ce que j'aime?
Etre ou ne pas être...

1 comment:

Pascal [P-04referent] said...

"The Lebanese Spirit is worth fighting for"

The Lebanese Spirit is in the likes of you, and forces my admiration. You are amazing, girl.
What I meant is just that without the component of present people, people sincere and spirited like you, even a city like Beirut is mere dead stone and bygone past, no more glorious than the exhumed ruins of Troy or Pompeii. "Home is where the heart is." I'm expressing my fear that too many of the citizens who make the soul of my country seem to be rejecting what my heart is, that my outstretched hand will be slapped one ultimate time. Today, thanks to immigration, there's twice as much of Lebanon outside than inside our frontiers, twice as many of its people.

You're young, you've been relatively lucky. You were born, what, in 1982? Sorry, too late, you missed the best moments of the "wild party". When that war started, I was four, just old enough to realize what insane abnormality was shattering the Universe all around me. My family and I almost got killed the very first day. And several times after that. The war deprived me of a childhood, of all its carefree innocence. It smothered the "best years" of my youth when young people open up to life and the world, learn to drive, go out, start dating... Now it's destroying the hope of my adult years for some glimpse of a future that would be more than stoicism and patience. This may explain why I'm still single: it takes a minimum amount of hope to start a family.

If Lebanon wants to stay ungrateful for my continued sacrifice after all these years, maybe I'm close to stop sacrifying in vain. This is the last chance for that country to start BEING a real country to me.
So far, the only country I've known is the dream of a past distorted by dreamy old people's slective nostalgia, hollow pride built on a cloud of red ego, and a land where crowds and militias refuse to live together in peace and mutual respect. At 37, I feel twice older. It is a sad thing to say. At my age, people should still have hopes, projects, dreams. I'm already wondering whether I'll ever have a chance to just live for real!
Do I love, oh Lebanon? Do I live? Or should I leave?
Do tell me, but tell me soon. If you love me back, send me a sign, baby.
You know where to find me, ya Beirut. Don't keep me waiting too much, I've already been VERY patient. Perhaps too patient already.
"Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me.
Fool me all my life, then I must be a bloody fool."

Another thing: when I speak about the Dark Side of Lebanon, it's not just political bickering, car bombings and threats of armed fighting anew. "Help thyself, and Heaven shall help thou." The people in this land don't help themselves in the face of Heaven. They are convivial, but sometimes, too many times, it's mere artificial custom, they have no love for their neighbor.
"Each time you do this for the most humble of my brothers, you have done this for me." I have seen how my fellow countrymen treat the humble, the poor, the physically or mentally handicapped, the weak, the helpless immigrant, their everyday employees nationwide... In 1971 as in 2008, I've watched carefully, they haven't changed. The Southern States of America were loveless racist slavers, deep inside. We're not very different in our daily principles, God forgive me but I am witness of this truth, time and time again. Love is our salvation, its loss is our doom. It is all linked, there's no avoiding it. If WE become the barbarians on our land, who will save us? The Romans? The Huns? The Goths? The Persians? The Macedonians? The Egyptians? Oh they're ready to save us, alright! All of them. To save us from being free.
):-P

I feel prematurely old, because I was forced to grow up too soon, because I've become wise too fast, because I'm tired.
I'm tired, because I've been asked too many efforts.
Sometimes, the wise one must know and accept defeat, and move on. I'm watching very carefully, because my intuition tells me I'll soon know for sure. Soon, the benefit of doubt will no longer be needed, because I'll KNOW where the Future is leading. When it turns ito our Present.

Quoting our politicians? If they acted half as beautifully as they speak, we would have been saved long ago.
They talk, but they have no will for love. One face talks fancy, the other acts dirty. National politics is but a vast contest of selfishness, corruption, lying, manipulation and betrayal.
There is no hope in our politicians. I'm asking: is there any in our citizens? More importantly, is there ENOUGH to end the race toward the bottomless precipice?
Do you know what Nelson Mandela's feeling is toward his country today? Infinite disappointment. The Apartheid regime has ended, just like the Syrian rule here, yet nothing has really changed. Misery, hate, distrust, corruption still rule.
Do I love? CAN I love? Akh, yeqta3 el hobb shoo bi zell...

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