A beautiful and captivating speech by Oscar-nominated Lebanese film director Nadine Labaki upon receiving the 2019 Issam M. Fares Award for Excellence at MEI’s 73rd Annual Awards Gala on November 12 in Washington, DC. If those in power are still looking for talented and competent people to lead the nation, Labaki is the perfect example.

This is how you spread Lebanon’s message abroad. Thank you Nadine Labaki!

I’ve never seen so much hope, so many debates, so many debates, so much art, so many brilliant ideas and minds, so many dancing and chanting, so much resilience, so much talent, so much sense of belonging, so much unity than in the past 30 days.

If you ask me who’s leading Lebanon today, I tell you it’s the people, not the politicians, not with violence not with hate but with a great sense of citizenship and peaceful resistance, the most beautiful kind of resistance.