Any room left for dreaming?

Let freedom ring!
Wednesday August 28, 2013, while watching President Obama acclaiming Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I have a dream” speech, I kept on following up on local news, tweets and alerts: from the possible military attack on Syria, dismantling car bombs, unveiling information about Syrians involved in the cruel blasts that took place in Tripoli last Friday, through investigations still taking place with respect to the kidnapping of the Turkish pilot and assistant to the blast that occurred in Rweiss in the Southern suburb of Beirut;not to mention the number of illegal check points popping up here and there, all this and the newly appointed Prime Minister is still unable to form his Government while thousands of Syrians fleeing through the Lebanese permeable borders.

Any room left for dreaming?! Or even daring to dream!
Well, that should still be possible!

One might wonder about the connection between the above news events and President Obama acclaiming the King of freedom!

The answer is simple and easy; no one can prevent or forbid anyone from having dreams, let alone taking about them and striving to make them come true!

But what are our dreams comparing to Rev Luther king Jr.’s March on Washington in 1963??

Clearly the same! I dare to say the same: dreams are similar, aiming to the same goals possibly with different titles, scents and colors!
Fifty years after the March on Washington and the famous speech of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream”on August 28, 1963, where does the world stand now:
From freedom?
Equality before the law? and injustice?
Discrimination against the vulnerable groups?
And most of all the modern versions of slavery dramatically developing within communities drifting towards being more fanatic and fundamentalist.

I cannot but stop and think deeply about the famous phrase: “I have a dream thatone day this nation will riseup”!

This dream is our dream as well, here at the gate of the Middle East while the Arab Spring has turned into fall and democracy is till at stake, the count down for a military intervention make things more complicated as it is not clear how it will dismantle or preserve neighboring blood rooted regimes that prevented our nation from rising up!

But I have had and still have this dream too:

I dream of our nation willing to rise up!
I dream of our politicians, ready, willing and able to lead the way to democracy and freedom in our country away from nepotism, corruption and working only for their personal interests.
I dream of a leader chosen for his merit,independence, patriotic beliefs and achievements…
I dream ofsecuring the most basic rights of Lebanese citizens in Lebanon and abroad.
I dream of seeing Lebanon free from any military except the Lebanese army, where we don’t see the military uniforms except on annual ceremonies of theIndependence Day!
I dream of having Lebanon for all the Lebanese, as green as ever and as rich as ever with its natural resources well preserved by and for its people.
I dream of having Lebanese diaspora able to participate in the democratic life in Lebanon and help enhance the political life and contribute to the development of the country.
I dream of seeing many of the Lebanese waiving their foreign citizenship in favour of their Lebanese nationality and coming back to settle back in their homeland!
I dream of all refugees who fled to Lebanon, leave Lebanon and return back to their home countries…
I dream of Lebanon getting back its position as the hub for the international trade in the region and the headquarter centre for multinational companies as it was in the sixties and seventies before the bloody war started.
I dream of the comeback of Lebanon as the Switzerland of the Middle East.

Am I exaggerating?!
No, because dreaming is hoping and life without hope is quite impossible!

All of us dreamt of all Lebanese people claimingfreedom, to be left alone to live unity and state’s sovereignty, one hand one voice! Fortunately, this fascinating dream took form on March 14, 2005!Though fragile to survive amidst the turmoil that turned to what the situation is today but it’s still enchanting and calling us to preserve it.

Hope should not fade away and neither dreams especially with the commemoration of the Dream speech of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. half a century ago.

The time has come to preserve our sovereignty and work together hand in hand to reestablish the rule of law and walk the thousand miles towards a real and immune democratic life in our dear country as a tribute for our ancestors and for the sake of the generations to come.