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This is a question I’ve long struggled with.
Growing up in Lebanon, I always found
myself uncertain about how to respond to the
How do we never-ending number of crises and endless
cycles of abuse and ruthless power. How do
I respond to the electricity being available
for only an hour a day? How do I console my
respond to family when half of their life savings is frozen
in their bank accounts? How do I walk on the
same streets that have been demolished by the
Aug. 4, 2020 Beirut explosion? Where do I go
catastrophe? when every place in my country is scarred by

the bloody hands of my government? Why
does it feel like I am playing hide and seek
By Gheed El Bizri and I’m constantly losing because I can’t find
my missing pieces?

Maybe it is because they left me everytime
my country lost something — electricity,
water, money, buildings, streets, lives,
independence, the feeling of home. Yet, I
couldn’t scream. I couldn’t shout. I had to
be calm. Soon enough, my silence felt like
betrayal, a betrayal to my country and to
my people. But it was the only response the
corrupt government had allowed. It was
wrong to remain silent but it was dangerous
not to. The only times I felt powerful were in
my own room, between four walls, writing using past victories to prove their leadership
pieces no one would ever write on their own and resilience in the face of adversity. They
and reading pieces no one would ever dare to pride themselves on the few moments where
read out loud. they succeeded and disregard their failures
that drove Lebanon to the verge of collapse.
“You build your life around something that In that sense, politicians mobilize memory as
cannot be healed, something for which there an instrument of politics in the present and
are no words.” – Dori Laub distort history to fit their narrative of being
saviors.
We, Lebanese people, are survivors who
have to find a stance between vengeance and The second problem with this is that it
forgiveness and answers to self-haunting insinuates that the solution to having “too
questions: to what extent is healing an insult much memory” is to forget. However,
to those whose devastation is inconsolable? silence about violence locks perpetrators and
To what extent is it insensitive for someone victims in the cruel pact of denial. There is
to be in the process of moving on? no such thing as “too much memory” in the
case of coping with trauma as a consequence
It is apparent that memory plays a powerful of political corruption. On the contrary, we
role in healing after mass violence. Detractors don’t remember enough.
may argue that “too much memory is a
disease.” The first problem with that statement The third problem with this is that if we
is that memory itself is used as a political tool want to pursue the narrative that forgetting
because violence continues to be politically is important, we have to remember first in
motivated. Lebanese politicians are known for order to forget. But, what do we remember?

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