When I first saw the announcement above, I wasn’t really sure if I should laugh at it or criticize it, and as it went viral and Lebanese started commenting on it, I noticed that few people were actually defending whomever posted this announcement and saying that this is the reality we live in. I wasn’t surprised to hear these comments to be honest as sectarianism is still infecting our society and has been on the rise lately mainly due to the Syrian conflict, add to that increased racism against Syrian Refugees.
The Lebanese Civil War ended in 1990, but the Lebanese were unable to put it behind them and move on, simply because every sect thinks his people were the good guys during the war and the others were traitors and collaborators. Moreover, a lot of Lebanese families are brainwashing their children into thinking these so-called other Lebanese are still the bad ones and that we shouldn’t co-exist with them, and this is what’s causing all these tensions and fights during university elections between students who weren’t even born during the civil war era.
Every year, I tell myself that there’s no need to write an April 13 remembrance post because we’ve all learned the lesson, and every year I am reminded that this civil war is not yet over, at least not in the minds of a lot of Lebanese. This sectarian mentality and hateful attitude towards the other is destroying our country bit by bit and it is up to each one of us to stop spreading it and fight it by all means. In the Lebanese documentary Heritages that I’ve reviewed lately, the father takes his children back to his Achrafieh apartment, shows them the war toys that he used to collect and tells them how he always thought those on the other side of the demarcation line were the bad guys, and how it took him years to realize they thought the same of him.
We don’t need Muslims to pray in Churches and Christians in mosques to achieve unity, nor bombings and assassinations to unite us. What we need is to stop thinking in this sectarian way and ignore those who do. We should explain to our children and the younger generations that the only emerging winners from any war are warlords and corrupt politicians, and that the only way to write down a history book past 1975 is by eliminating the factors that are stopping us from finishing it. If we are unable to achieve these things, the young generations will never learn the reasons behind the civil war, its consequences and how to prevent a new one.
More importantly, there won’t be any apartment to sell for Christians or Muslims in this country.
How it all started
