By Garo M. Kerdelian | Staff Writer

THEY are ruining the country.

THEY are the cause of all our suffering.

THEY are ruthless murderers.

THEY, THEY, THEY.

 

Such and other sentences,

We keep on saying and screaming,

Day by day, night by night,

Words that know no meaning.

 

For who are “they?”

 

Again, I ask,

Who are they?

 

Are they the people who started riots and gunfire

In the heart of Beirut last week?

Or our neighbours who bring problems

From the South and from the East?

 

Or, perhaps, is it the whole world?

“What a corrupt system we live in!”

The rich get richer, the poor get poorer

Human nature is driving us to oblivion.

 

Platitudes, empty words,

Statements used to comfort pain 

But to no avail, no avail at all

For from solace and inaction comes no gain. 

 

Since the birth of independent Lebanon,

We have played the blame game.

But what on Earth happens to us

When we run out of people to shame?

 

We arrive at a damning realization:

WE are the problem.

WE ARE THE PROBLEM

We are “they!”

For what can be done with 

A people of one nation

Who advertise their parties’ colors 

Instead of uniting with their brothers?

 

A tribal system, primitive and ancient:

Belong to a tribe 

And defend it heart and soul.

Be careful, though, there’s a catch:

Never ask questions, none, at all.

 

Don’t question the leaders,

The flags and the slogans.

Don’t question the right-hand men,

The guns and the weapons.

 

But, above all:

Don’t question yourself

Never, ever look within.

 

Don’t you dare ask yourself 

“Am I doing right?”

And may it never cross your mind, 

“Am I being fed propaganda?”

 

Such questions are dangerous, fearful, tameless

For looking in the mirror makes you forget

That you are completely nameless.

 

But the Lebanese pattern is not one of a kind:

 

A supposed liberation of the mind,

Absorbing its own version of history,

Drinking lies from the bloody river

Of the Za’im almighty.

 

We have all inculcated into ourselves

The belief that we are not brainwashed,

That all others are wrong and misled

That we are the enlightened ones.

 

We, who normalize living in trauma and despair,

We, who normalize the everyday state of affairs.

We, who normalize corruption, ‘wasta’ and unease,

We, who normalize today’s chaos as “Lebanese!”

 

Stop for a moment and think, please

Is it correct to think this way?

Hasn’t our numb dystopia done enough

In withering our souls away?

 

Littering, lying, cutting corners to win,

Refusing to abide by the human rights of men,

Stop calling such things “Lebanese.”

Stop trapping yourself in the lion’s den!

 

But, you object, you tell me:

There’s no meaning to what you said.

How will changing myself right now

Bring back the lives of the dead?

 

It won’t, it never will,

And nothing ever can,

For the suffering once incurred

Will never be reversed.

      

But, the future! The future awaits,

It cries for the dying present.

Like an unborn child 

In the womb telling its mother,

Please don’t die and leave me a peasant!  

 

And the only way to create systemic change

Is to start with individuals, units of action

To gradually abolish, once and for all,

The herd behavior of Lebanese factions.

 

For as long as courage and will,

Still reside in the hearts of men,

No matter how deep our pain or sorrow,

There will be hope of a better tomorrow.