Dreaming

Any room left for dreaming?

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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. Read more

Lebanese Cedars

In the Land of Cedars : Lebanon must learn its lesson from the thirty years of violence

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Thousands of images rush through my head when I think about living in Lebanon. It is incredible how fresh the memories are—how painful the events are to recall. Indeed, it is euphemism to call them “events.” They are perhaps more accurately described in stronger terms: “wars,” “atrocities,” “massacres,” “kidnappings,” “hijackings,” “plots” and even “gross treason.”

There have been so many of these events in Lebanon. When I stopped to think about what to say about life in Lebanon when writing this piece, all these memories came into my mind at once, and the sounds of war rang in my ears. Each person probably remembers these events differently, depending on their region and religion. But what the events have in common is that they destroyed our beloved country—the country of the cedars and honey and of the old townhouses filled with the warmth and hospitality of its people, and with its beautiful wild flowers of all colors and scents, hundreds of bountiful fruit trees, and all four seasons.

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Nidal Darwish and Kholoud Succariyeh

Ring the Changes : One innovative couple pave the way to civil marriage in Lebanon

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Wedding bells are ringing out for change in Lebanon. On 10 November 2012 Kholoud Succariyeh and Nidal Darwish became the first couple in Lebanon to tie the knot by way of civil marriage. They were married before a notary in Beirut, after having their respective sects removed from their official documents, the only way the bride and groom could marry in Lebanon without the religious authorities officiating. Under Lebanese law, marriages can only be performed by a religious authority, such as a church or Islamic court. In Lebanon civil marriage does not officially exist, yet.

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