A tribute to the protest: what will happen tomorrow?
After spending a few hours in the protest against the tax hike on Sunday, March 19, the disapproval aggravated and citizens, including myself, can no longer handle the severe corruption and dishonesty our country witnesses daily.
Yes, it was a pride to see the city center packed with citizens of all ages, who have come to express their anger, but what will happen tomorrow?
Today, we raised awareness, but it shouldn’t and can’t stop there. For more than three decades, we have been under the ruling of the same sleazy government, and if we decide to remain quiet, this may run for more generations.
The most ironic part of it all is that when we as citizens ask for reform or for a certain change to happen in the system, that takes years to be implemented, but once the government comes up with an idea that benefits them and only them it takes them only a few hours to implement it on us citizens.
In reference to the movie V for Vendetta, “people should not be afraid of their governments, governments should be afraid of their people.”
And rightly so, this is what the youth should be working on, in line with the great speeches and thoughts that were delivered throughout the protest.
Instead of just saying that we need to end corruption, stop feeding corruption by bribing, even if the service will take endless of hours. When elections are underway, stop voting for the same people that have only served the country with disgust.
People ask why the youth flees the country so easily, well that is because the government gives us no reason to take pride in our education, nor our inventions, nor our thoughts, nor our ideologies.
Instead, Lebanese succeed and soar in countries away from home, when all they really aspire for is to serve their own country with reform and change. The system feeds into labeling us as a developing country, when we as citizens are developed, educated and fed up.
They claim that they would like to picture a tax system that resembles developed countries, but is that fair? At least these developed countries take action against newly emerged politicians, who have done wrong. Politicians abroad resign when they do wrong because they know they would be shrouded upon, unlike Lebanese politicians, who take pride in their flaws and smile to the camera while at it.
If you were to implement the tax hives, start penalizing the shameful politicians even if they are the sons or daughters of previous leaders. Each individual is responsible of making their own name through their own acts not by accepting the reign of their parents.
As courageous as we are, we should not let any politician speak their mind anymore, it is our time to speak, it is our time to lead, it is our time to change, it is our time to make Lebanon a place for us to triumph and prosper economically, socially, and politically.
What makes us different than most of the world, is our ability to live. So, let us be vibrant and let us live in harmony under the patronage of a law-abiding ruling class.
Today, we spoke, tomorrow we act, after that, we live.
