النهار

“How foolish of you to leave London and settle back here” is one of the many reproofs I get almost daily. Although I never really identified as an expat, you guessed right – I am one of the very few who have decided to come back to Lebanon despite having the chance to work and settle abroad post-graduation. As compelling as it is to be close to family and friends (those that are still here, at least), my reasons for flying back home transcend the personal. Let me explain.

I studied at a Western institution that is critical of the West. Do not misunderstand this - it is not critical of the West for the sheer pettiness of it. It does not lament it for the positive things it does provide (ie a decent life where [most] people live in dignity), but rather criticizes it for providing the latter at the expense of so much more than this ’article’ will be able to cover. After having taken modules on coloniality that examine what is deeply embedded within our being, I started to self-reflect. Early on in my degree (in 2020), I learned about Edward Said’s ‘Orientalism’ - a concept he introduced to explain how the West has constructed the East as its opposite in order to assert its dominance over it. Orientalism is sadly reproduced within discourse and continues to circulate with the sole purpose of keeping us seem disenfranchised, in order to legitimize the West’s superiority, and render us—the ‘Rest’ of the world—in need of the ‘West’s’ rationality to save us from our supposed subordination, by keeping us subordinated. Although this in itself requires a strong reaction from readers, this is not really what I plan to discuss.

What I reflected on is our own reproduction of Orientalism. Our own view of ourselves as requiring guidance from the ‘reasonable’ West, because it is deeply imbedded within us to believe that we need it, and thus render our own knowledge, traditions, ways of thinking/doing/living unimportant (and dare I say ‘gross’) compared to the ‘modern’ knowledge, traditions, ways of thinking/doing/living of the West. This reproduction of discourse, and our succumbence to the colonial gaze will keep us disenfranchised in the eyes of the West because we are so in our own. Mind you, this is not a post to back any political views in specific - I do not necessarily identify as a Leftist. This is rather a call to reclaim what has been stripped away from us without our knowledge. An awakening to stop reproducing Orientalism within our own societies, and revisit our relationship to our land.

I recognize that it is really problematic to love Lebanon at this point of time. Most of us Lebanese have been denied so much that we started to despise not only the political establishment, but our country in all its dimensions. But this is what I invite you to revisit. There is so much to love about Lebanon, and it is not only the myth of the four seasons or skiing and swimming in one day, but rather the knowledge that is embedded within our land, mountains, soil, ecosystem, sea, rivers, lakes, trees… Those are all forms of untraditional archives that we overlook, and they hold so much more knowledge than we will be able to grasp in one lifetime. The latter unfortunately continues to be silenced, overlooked, and substituted by Western knowledge that deems anything un-Western irrational. But it does not have to be the case. Truth is, ever since I started to submerge myself in literature that denounces the silencing of the ‘East’, I have found a new connection to home that I am still trying to uncover. The process of unknowing is overwhelming, but it is only through unknowing what masks itself as the right knowledge that we will truly be free and start emancipating ourselves. With that, I invite you to question what it truly is that is making it so hurtful to love Lebanon. And once you put a finger on it, find it in you to revolt against the real reason, and protect yourself from the gaze of those who want you to blame your country for what it is not.

The fact that I studied about Orientalism in England and not in Lebanon is itself telling of our fascination with the West, and our rejection of everything that is to do with the ‘East’. Our reliance on international interference to emancipate us is but a form of neocolonialism that we desperately need to keep away from. No one will reclaim our worth for us - it is not in their favor. We must do it ourselves. With that, I hope you find it in you to question and subsequently unlearn your hatred for your country.