This morning, I woke up with a heavy heart.
I can’t really grasp what is happening to us.
I can’t admit that something is happening to us.
As always, I calm myself by saying that everything seems worse from a distance, that it’s because I’m not in Lebanon that I am so scared.
Because when we are there, everything seems manageable.
Because when we are there, nothing can happen to us. Nothing, because if something happens to us, we die in our land, surrounded by our loved ones.
When we are abroad, we dread every notification, every call.
When we are abroad, our life freezes completely. We imagine the worst, we don’t close our eyes at night. We beg our families to leave, to come join us. Always, in vain. When we are abroad, we feel guilty about everything.
Above all, guilty for not being there with them.
Guilty for not being able to do more. When we are abroad, we fear going to sleep, afraid of waking up to worse news. When we are abroad, every second feels heavy.
This morning, I wake up with a heavy heart.
I wonder how we got here.
Yet, we all already know.
We got here because the world decided that there are crimes that are not punishable,
That a massacre is not always a crime,
That a child sometimes deserves to die,
That a country sometimes deserves to be erased.
That a people sometimes must be completely exterminated.
We got here because justice is not a principle of universal reach.
We got here because the world decided to turn a blind eye to a monster that grows.
A monster that stops at nothing and no one,
A monster to which no law applies.
The world decided that 75 years of oppression wasn’t enough to judge someone guilty of crimes against humanity. Or maybe because he was accused and is still in a position to decide to destroy more and kill more.
We got here because witnessing,
live,
For an entire year,
The worst atrocities,
By culprits who never even hid their faces,
Wasn’t enough to indict them.
We got here because we are a Middle Eastern Country.
Because there will never be enough dead, as long as we are still alive.
Because our language is frightening. Because our existence is frightening.
We got here because it is easy to pass as a victim when attacking an Arab. It is easy to brand him as a terrorist.
It is easy to pretend that we are all armed,
All thirsty for revenge, all ready to kill.
We got here because we live in a world that will never give us the benefit of the doubt. Guilty until proven innocent. Except that the Arab is never innocent.
This morning, I wonder how we got here.
Above all, I wake up outraged.
Outraged to receive messages of support and calls to check if my family is okay
Outraged to find myself in a situation that could have been avoided if the culprits had been properly stopped.
Outraged because I wonder:
Where were you all year?
Did you think only one country would be sacrificed?
We shouted from the rooftops that this is an enemy we know too well.
We showed you, live, what he is capable of, and how far he is willing to go.
They hurt us, tortured us, and even tried to make us look guilty along the way.
I am outraged to be told how worrying the situation is, how disappointing the world is.
It is inconceivable that anyone speaks to me of indignation at our situation today,
When you should have been outraged years ago.
We are not a country that needs to be defended because we are not a country that should be attacked.
It is inconceivable that we find ourselves here today. When the world has seen the results of these attacks on our neighbors. Live.
We saw them write the same words we are writing today.
We saw them plead for innocent lives, as we are doing today.
We saw them flee in cars, as we are fleeing today.
We saw our men put their women and children in cars, hoping to preserve a trace of their existence. We saw them stay behind, heads held high, to protect what is theirs, a land that belongs to them, a country that is ours.
We saw them try to convince the world that they were not all guilty. That they didn’t all deserve to die.
Today, like them, we search for our dead in the rubble.
Like them, we flee without knowing where to go,
Like them, there is no more security.
It is inconceivable that we live in a world that watched the same entity destroy land after land, people after people.
It is inconceivable that we live in a world that watches the same entity terrorize us.
Over and over again.
It is inconceivable that we live in a world that watches the same entity amputate and decapitate our children.
It is inconceivable to know that justice is applied everywhere, except on our lands.
That international rights are international everywhere, except our lands.
The guilty and their accomplices gather around tables to ‘discuss’.
They pretend to seek solutions and resolutions,
In a conflict they have funded and caused.
In a conflict they have watched ‘escalate’, live.
And we wait, like stunned animals waiting to be slaughtered.
We wait for them, as if the one who fires the bullet is also capable of healing the wound.
I refuse that Lebanon falls victim to the same fate as our neighbors.
I refuse that Lebanon falls victim to the same executioner.
I refuse that we become your next humanitarian mission.
I refuse that we become your next fight.
We will not plead for your interest, for your humanity.
I refuse that the Lebanese becomes the next face against this regime of terror.
I refuse that you chant slogans in our names,
Or that you protest in our honor.
I refuse your prayers and your good thoughts.
I refuse, and yet,
I will bear witness to all of this,
Powerless and humiliated,
Because we live in a world that loves to revolt
When it’s already too late,
When the dead are already buried,
When 500 lives have already been stolen from us.
We live in a world that resigns itself after the massacre.
I refuse,
Because we are alone and abandoned by all.
I refuse, because
You don’t deserve to feel like a hero,
To sleep peacefully, telling yourself you chose the right side of history.
I refuse your interest today when you weren’t outraged by your governments.
I refuse your interest when you gave an ounce of importance to a terrorist entity, when you gave them space to defend the indefensible and justify the unjustifiable.
Years of silence have taken your right to speak today.
Your silence was heavy. Look where we are now.
To the Lebanese reading me,
I repeat what we all already know.
When Lebanon is attacked, we are all attacked.
When a Lebanese dies, we will all mourn them.
As a life is stolen from one, it is stolen from all.
The day when a foreign entity thinks it can convince us there is a difference
between a Lebanese from the South and a Lebanese from the North will never come.
Today, no matter the internal conflicts we face,
There is only one single enemy. It is the only enemy that matters.
He speaks another language and comes from stolen land.
He appropriates our culture, our music and our olive trees.
He is the one who cries for help while his hands are bloodied,
The one who wears the uniform of the most ‘humane army’.
An army that has managed to redefine the meaning of horror.
To the Lebanese, courage.
Baddkon Terja3o Marfou3in El Rass
You will return with your heads held high.
– Inès Mathieu