A SAD STATE OF AFFAIRS......

 

Many peoples, and more so Arabs in general come to mind, but I'm talking here mostly of Lebanese, and a little less about Syrians and Palestinians, even Iraqis, all living some terrible times of destruction, poverty, displacement when it's not death. They live in the yesteryear and the yesterday, and a little in the tomorrow and the hopeful dream of the future, but never anymore in their present and actual realities.

I've been approached by several of my readers, who new of my Lebanese origins, asking why I don't write more of the situation over there, why rarely any analysis of the Syrian civil war, and the coming one to Lebanon, of the total destruction and hunger scenes of millions of good people who have no saying in all of what's happening to their families, their children and their neighbors and countrymen. My immediate thinking for now are the few words of Khalil Gibran (1883-1931), a century ago about the same peace of land and the same people. It has been going on since 1916. Should we keep the hope ??? 

My people are dead (1916)

-- Mine are dying, and I, still living, in my solitude, I cry for them.

-- My people are dead, and I am here in this far country wandering among a happy people who sleep on soft beds. 

-- My people have died a painful death and I am here living in abundance and in peace.

-- I do not live with my persecuted people who march in the procession of death towards martyrdom.     I am here on the other side of the ocean living in the shadow of stillness and in the light of peace. I am so far from the miserable arena and affliction that I cannot even be proud of my tears. 

-- The death of my people is a silent accusation, it is a crime formed by the heads of invisible serpents, it is a tragedy without text.

-- My people died as their hands reached out East and West, while their empty eye-sockets stared into the darkness of the heavens.

-- They died in silence because humanity has remained deaf to their calls. 

-- They died because they did not sympathize with their enemies. 

-- They died because they placed their trust in all of humanity, because they were trampled flowers and not the crushing foot.

-- They died because they were builders of peace, because the monsters of hell arose and destroyed everything, because the vipers and the children of the vipers spat poison into the space where the holy Cedars, roses and jasmines give off their fragrance                              Khalil Gibran.

 Should we keep the hope ???

           As always, all my thanks to my good friends and readers, stay safe and well.