A commercial is not enough

While I was coming back from a near-by friend's house, who had given me an original Lebanese meal, "Loubieh b zeit", as my parents are abroad trying to build a future for my siblings and I, I was thinking while walking, should I stay in Lebanon? And I kept seeing this image of me quitting my job, saying good-bye to everyone and going to where my folks are.
As I arrived home, I put on the news, and saw the new commercial for Fransabank, which is about people taking a picture with a picture of a Lebanese landscape set as a background, and each person is pondering about something, the future bride and bride-groom thinking whether they should postpone their wedding or not, the grandparents thinking whether they should tell their relatives to come visit Lebanon this summer or not, the student thinking of staying in Lebanon or leaving for a job abroad, and so on and so forth...
Questions all Lebanese are familiar with. I had tears in my eyes when at the end of commercial, they all said: "I am staying, We are staying"
We Lebanese are so patriotic and sensitive to this issue... but a commercial won't change anyone's mind would it?
I can't forget how happy I was to land in Beirut's airport on September 6, 2006, it was the last day of the Israeli blockade. I was so happy to see the traffic and hear the honking, and feel the humidity of our Beirut.
But, I still don't know whether I should look for a house, get married, raise my children in this country.

Saying Goodbye once, twice, three times

At the beginning of this month, my friend has been relocated from Lebanon to Qatar as there are more chances to find potential clients in Qatar than in Lebanon, especially after the last July 2006 war.

Also this month, and precisely last Friday, I said goodbye to another dear friend who is going to work in an IT company in Paris. Yes, we said Good Luck and Take care of yourself, as we always do.

In 10 days or so, I will also be bidding farewell to a close friend who works with me, and has found a better opportunity in Qatar in addition I want to stress on the fact that she is a very talented Graphic Designer.

Having said that, I am noticing a certain pattern here, and it is: Immigration, which is not a new trend, but something that has occured extensively during the Civil war and in the 1990's, however decreased a bit in the recent years, to re-commence even stronger after the Israel-Hezbollah war in July 2006.

In conclusion, these 3 friends, and others who left Lebanon a while ago, all come back to Lebanon on vacations, but career wise, Lebanon was not the place to be for them.

What is happening on the Lebanese Ground?

This article is not to talk about the Israelis operations and invasions and how Hezbollah is putting up a strong fight, this article will be shedding some light on what is happening with the Lebanese people. At this point, the Lebanese people can be divided into several categories, and there are just many of them.
But I will only cite one of them, the category that I will be talking about today, a category that nobody is really mentioning.

The people in this category need to build a future, who are my age, who are young and ready to work hard to buy a house and have a family or maybe continue their education, and who are afraid to do so in Lebanon.

I fall in this category along with so many other Lebanese people. I am currently outside Lebanon, supposedly on my vacation and got stuck outside. I’ve never wanted to be in Lebanon more than now. But I also don’t know if this is where I want my future to be, because I am scared this war is nothing but a battle and there will be more battles in the future. Hatred only brings hatred, and war never leads to peace.

Keeping in touch with my friends, I've come to know that several of them have fled to outside Lebanon; they went to Cyprus, Switzerland, U.S.A., France, Kuwait, Jordan… And several are starting to search for work outside Lebanon. One friend said to me: "There is nothing here anymore for me, I might as well leave, to Qatar, to Dubai, it's better than here."

Some of the companies in Lebanon are even thinking of relocating their offices, I know the company I work for will divide their offices among Jordan and Qatar, and I know of a company which one of my friends works for who might relocate to Japan.

I guess you get the idea, not only financially and economically is our country losing its opportunities and chances, but also the generation that is one day to rule our country and make it stand on its feet, will be living to invest their energy and intelligence in other countries, and this is called immigration.

We have had this problem long ago, and just when people started believing in Lebanon and deciding to come back, the war happened; like a friend of mine who lives in Toronto, Canada, who was seriously thinking of coming back to live in Lebanon in summer 2007, but on 12th July 2006, she changed her mind.

What are they doing now? The Lebanese people! They are trying to cut down on driving their cars, barely they go to work, as some of them still have work, lucky them, because they don’t know when is the next time they can fill their cars with gas.

Speaking of work, I know several persons who got “excused” from work, they were given their salaries and been told: “do no come back”.

My friend works in a travel agency, so I asked her: “How is work?”
She replied: “Well I still go to work, but I have no work!” obviously because no one is traveling from or to Lebanon at this moment due to the airport being still shut down. My friend is afraid she might lose her job as well.

Everyday I am worried my brother might drive while going to his work on a bridge that suddenly Israel might assess as a road that leads to Syria and bombs it.

At the end the question is: “Should we go back and try to lead a normal life in Lebanon ignoring the possibility that another war might take place on our playground?”

L.A.