I see headlines that read, “Lebanon under attack.” I blink, hoping I wake up from this nightmare.
I am glued to my phone, which is filled with notifications, gruesome photos of body parts and piling numbers of death tolls. “This can’t be happening,” I tell myself as I rush down the stairs and see explosion footage and buildings falling like dominos on TV.
I blink again. It’s not a dream, it’s reality.
Lebanon is my everything. It’s my family, culture, heritage and identity. Without it, I become lost. Every time I hear the pilot’s announcement of our arrival in Lebanon, a part of me becomes alive again. Stepping into the airport, I immediately feel a rush of hospitality as I see welcome signs and floating balloons. The airport has witnessed my happiest hellos and hardest goodbyes.
I haven’t put my phone down this past week, refreshing the news anxiously and experiencing a range of emotions from anger and sadness to fear and helplessness. I am filled with the guilt of leading an everyday life, but I am too paralyzed to do anything about it.
I recently received a text from my friend, “Is your family okay? There were massive explosions in Beirut.” I refreshed my feed, and there it was: the explosions that collapsed multiple residential buildings near my family’s neighborhood. Shaking, I called my loved ones to make sure they are okay. The seconds between the rings and the pickup, the delivered messages and the replies, felt like an eternity. A sigh of relief followed as I read, “Don’t worry, I’m alive.”
Not once have I seen Lebanon live a happy day, yet that does not stop the Lebanese people from truly living. No electricity, no problem. Economic crisis, no problem. Corrupt government, no problem. Despite the challenges, Lebanese people have learned to resist and focus on things that make life worth living. Seeing such a beautiful country bear witness to the most graphic scenes pains me.
I will never forgive the world for letting this happen, for allowing tragedies in the Middle East to continue to be normalized. For letting children endure the trauma as they envision their future under the rubble, for covering up the screams of mothers holding their dead babies on TV for the world to see. You don’t need to speak the same language to feel the same pain.
The images of war are ingrained in my head as I witnessed it all in the lit-up screen between my fingers this past year. Yet I have the privilege of shutting it off when I get overwhelmed, an option Palestinians and Lebanese civilians do not have.
Not a day goes by in which I don’t feel the guilt of being thousands of miles away, building a future for myself. I’ve become numb and powerless as my efforts to sustain my life are used to fund the destruction of another.
As an American, we are not more deserving of education, safety and a home than the same individual across the world. What would you want if you were in their situation? Would you want somebody to be your voice?
I urge you to use your voice for good in these coming elections. We have the opportunity and responsibility to change the narrative and stop the occupation. Talk to your representatives, and demand justice. Demand that your hard earned tax dollars be used to fund schools, healthcare and homeless shelters instead of armed weaponry.
Lebanon and Palestine are not memories. They are our homes. Do not pity us, but rather speak up. We have the privilege of still having a voice that is not muted underneath the flattened cities.
(Tala Shihab) Tala Shihab is a 22 year-old first-generation Lebanese-American, born and raised in Salt Lake City.
Tala Shihab is a 22 year-old first-generation Lebanese-American, born and raised in Salt Lake City.
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