15 November
Dear Michel Aoun,
I am Lebanon; located at the crossroads of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Europe.
Famous for my exquisite beauty, diversity, glamour, European flavour, and hospitable people.
I am known for my rich culture and history, which put me on the ‘must see’ list of every world traveller.
My natural beauty makes me the only country in the Arab World that embraces four seasons yearly. My mountainous terrain has served throughout history as an asylum for diverse religious and ethnic groups, and for political dissidents.
What have you done to me and what have you done to my people?
I spent my life loving you all unconditionally, those that make up my population and the ones that carry my identity abroad — my children.
Even you, my child, rather than exploring every facet of me serenely, rather than loving me, you have used me to your advantage, at the expense of my children, your brothers and sisters.
You have used me against my own people when all I have ever done is shower you all with my love; equally, unreservedly.
I have given you the world and will continue to do so until my very last moment, but I cannot give you love that you do not wish to accept, while I am left shattered.
For my whole existence, I have seen my children left with no choice but to leave me and move on to safer horizons. Yet, upon their return, they realise that nothing in the world compares to the warm feeling of home, and in their brief presence, I feel whole again.
Those I am a stranger to see me only as a violent and dangerous home filled with nothing but ruin and war. But my children, they know the real me: intrinsically beautiful, welcoming, full of joy and love.
You can say I have been through thick and thick, rarely thin; I mean you should know, most of this is because of you and a spoiled government you have created in your image, not mine. But nothing stops me from putting my pieces back together every time you knock me down and break me. Even my children all came together, fighting for me, fighting for the lives they know they deserve, the lives your snake tongue promised them. They came together through revolution. Their battle cry, “All of them means all of them” echoed across me, urging you to step down and let them be at peace, let me be a peace.
Instead, you have destroyed me.
Those who have left me for a better life continue to hope for the day they will be able to return to me. Those who stayed, yearn for the chance they too will get to leave and live a peaceful and happy life.
My own children don’t feel safe at home. You have taken too many of my children, some by exile and some you have splattered their innocent blood upon my lands without shame, without remorse.
On August 4th, 2020, you finally obliterated me. My walls crumbled, I was covered in rocks, smoke, and dead bodies. Everything was loud, from the first boom to the screams of my children. I can still remember the unsettling quiver as the buildings I would look up to, that housed my children, sunk to my surface. I can still taste the thick black smoke of chemicals that made it hard for me to breathe. I am still traumatised from losing so many loved ones.
Almost as traumatising as when I lost you, my child.
I lost you the moment the glimmer of hope and prosperity disappeared from your eyes, only to be replaced with an unquenchable greed. I lost you the moment I saw you hurt my children. I lost you the day you willingly put me and everyone else in danger. That same instant you were aware that the hundreds of metric tons of ammonium nitrate that would eventually ignite to spark the blast, were improperly stored for years at my port.
And on August 4th, you lost me.
Today more than ever, almost every single one of my children is struggling to survive what’s described as a “crisis of deliberate depression”, one of the world’s most horrific economic meltdowns in the last 150 years. More than 60% of our people live in poverty. Our currency that has for so long served us, is only 10% of what it used to be. Our food is 550 times more expensive than it once was.
Your siblings, those I foolishly entrusted you with, are out of work. Businesses have shut down. I watch my children leave by the thousands and I do not blame them. Even my beauty can hardly be seen because of hours – sometimes day-long electricity outages.
Those who have stayed are not only struggling to find food and working by candlelight, but also unable to find basic medication to treat their illnesses.
And yet, despite all this, I am surviving, as I always have. I am hopeful, as I always have been. I am loved. I am rebuilding, and I am healing. I am waiting for the day you too will come home to me. Not to this world you live in and call home, but to the one we’ve shared for years together.
Until my scars heal, my surface is cleansed from all the broken glass, my walls are rebuilt, and my children return home, until you return to your conscience and morality of a home, I will remain strong, I will keep loving you, all of you. I will still be the resilient Lebanon.
After all, I have been shattered and rebuilt seven times already.
Don't give up on me, as I won't give up on you,
Your Lebanon.
Marilyn Badr
Marilyn Badr