Thread by @hanihassan26

An open letter to the youth of #Lebanon 🇱🇧

I am sorry.
I am sorry because I & my generation failed you, miserably.
We failed you when we excused ourselves for doing so little to change what we knew had to be changed, when we sank into defeatism & apathy...
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& when we then decided to throw the whole burden of #change on you.

We had our times & moments, when we rose up against enemy occupation that came from South of our country, & then again against that which came from the East cloaked as 'friend' & disguised as 'ally'...
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& then we sat down & wallowed in our victories & glory, smiling & grinning as we bowed our heads to the yoke of internal occupation & subjugation, a yoke we had ourselves fashioned & gifted to our very own homegrown tyrants & sectarian chieftains...
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How alike Shakespeare's Caliban were we then, prancing around & chanting:
" 'Ban, 'Ban, Ca-caliban/ Has a new master. Get a new man./Freedom, high day, high day, freedom."

I am sorry, for we failed you when we failed ourselves...
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when we accepted defeat & adopted abject apathy as a justified mode of citizenry; when we cast our eyes to the ground seeking the blessings of life in the shadow of mortals whom we had idolized...
My generation did so little to stave off the waves of blatant corruption...
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Indeed, we fanned its flames.
First we trusted them, we empowered them, we enabled them, then we accepted them as 'the only option', & we played their game; then we gave up, & let them have the country if only they would let us be...
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& here we are.
This, the present, is our doing! & I fear that it may be the undoing of your future.
No one can ask you to correct our mistakes; but please do not commit the same mistakes we did! Do not let them lead you astray with their sickly sectarian rhetoric...
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Do not trust their words nor their ageless lies about their supposed 'will to change', their 'desire to reform'!
Do not let them drown your will & steal your future blind!

Why in the name of anything should you be ruled by warlords of a previous century?!
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Why should you be lorded over by men who came into their positions of power 40 & 50 years ago??

Rise up. Make yours voices heard. Reach out & claim what is yours. This country is yours. Its resources are yours. Its land & sea are yours. Its future is yours.
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We did horribly in writing the past, & for that we must repent. But the future is not yet, it is still yours to claim & write.
Do not let it be such that one day, you find yourself having to apologise to future generations, as I now offer my heartfelt apologies unto you.

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