26.May.2008 Wishing for peace

There is light at the end of this long tunnel. Today the Lebanese parliament voted for a new president and it seems that there is this small chance that things will be ok for my home country. For more than 3 years now Lebanon has been beset with all sorts of political troubles. My family, my friends, my countrymen have been dragged though hell, or what one idiot called “the birth pains of a new Middle East”. Tonight it seems we are approaching the dawn of a new era, one where the Lebanese people refuse to be dragged to another civil war, to fight somebody else’s war, an era where we will learn to live together again.

It’s not easy to describe what it feels like to be Lebanese. Or what it is like to lose a country. Or to know that there’s a chance to get it back. Two weeks ago the trouble finally erupted and 65 people died in the clashes. It is a miracle that tonight my country will sleep in peace. Hope is the scariest feeling, but let’s keep our fingers crossed…