Du choc des titans et de la culture de la guerre

Mon article paru ce matin dans l’Orient-le-Jour (Beyrouth – Liban) sur la nécessité de déconstruire la culture de la guerre et d’édifier une culture de la paix. C’est le énième article que je publie sur ce sujet depuis les années 90. La guerre est continue au Liban. Elle n’est pas que physique, elle est surtout […]

Lebanon vs Sweden…Who wins?

A girl growing up trying to fit in but fails miserably, lost between two cultures… I was born in a land of war, killing and bombing. I remember all the windows we had to change because the glass broke when the bombs fell outside like rain. Many of our neighbors soon stopped changing the glass […]

A Little Empathy Would Go A Long Way

I attended a Dubai Slam Poetry session few days ago and one of the talented young poets, Syrian Sarah Tamimi, told the story of war through a daughter’s promise to her departed mother: ‘Don’t look back’… What I understood from Sarah’s tearful performance which content evoked my own experience in Lebanon’s physical war zone in […]

Eyes of the Future

I took a seat nonchalantly and rested the Arabic traditional instrument, the qanun, on my legs. Like every rehearsal and performance attended, I was focused, music ready, mind and spirit in reverence of the music to be created. Between the sound cables and baby Jesus in the manger, I looked up from the corner to […]

My ‘Go Home!’ Movie Review

‘Go Home’ by Lebanese director Jihane Chouaib is a powerful statement about the difficulty that many members of the Lebanese diaspora face when they go back to their homeland, with a particular focus on war memory, post-traumatic syndrome disorders and identity crisis. I watched the movie two days ago at the Dubai Film Festival and […]

Is Lebanon Ready for a Revolution?

Why do many Lebanese let themselves and their country be buried under trash? Why is the general worldview/behavior – except for few individuals and movements who are trying to deconstruct it – quietist, conformist, and ostrich or zombie like? Why isn’t there a collective upheaval that would gather all Lebanese? Is Lebanon ready for a revolution? […]

I Urge you Not to Lose Faith in Humanity

My name is Kalima [my nickname, for security reasons] and I am Syrian. I left my country two years ago, following the massacre of my mother, father, brother, uncle and grand-parents. I was fortunate enough to be rescued and to be able to escape to Europe via Turkey, but many others weren’t. I have been […]

Le Liban, un morceau de lune ?

A ce jour, le Liban est en guerre, tant physique que psychologique, et s’enlise dans les sables mouvants de crises multiformes – politique, religieuse/confessionnelle, socio-économique, générationnelle, environnementale, culturelle, crises du genre et du savoir, etc. Il est vrai que l’existence même de faiseurs-es ou d’agents-es de paix qui tentent de promouvoir les valeurs de réconciliation […]

Real Change will come from Humane Individuals and Societies

Nothing sounds better to me than to live in a world without conflict, where people of different ideologies, origins and preferences live side by side accepting one another or, at the very least, not getting in the ways of each other. That would be a better world but I am no fool, I do know […]

Ressusciter les paradoxes

« Jamais nous n’avons été aussi libres que sous l’occupation allemande », dixit Jean-Paul Sartre, parangon de l’Existentialisme assaisonné aux slogans du mai 68 en France. La liberté serait alors la fille légitime de l’oppression, de la résistance, de la mortification et de l’aspiration à l’émancipation. Dans ce Liban, au cèdre biscornu, au peuple blasé, démissionnaire, souffrant […]