My_Identity

Lara Saab 27/10/09 My identity I’m sure you’ve heard of the saying “what you don’t know can’t hurt you”. Well when it comes to your identity it indubitably can. I’ve lived in a western country, as well as a purely Arab country. And for most of my life a question remained unanswered. “Am I western or Arab'” In my early years, I went to school in Montreal and learned the traditions and the customs of the west. We lived in a very free environment that accepted and advocated diversity. People smiled to me on the sidewalk and everything seemed authorized. I was taught French and English, while my parents spoke Arabic with me at home. I didn’t really fit in, I knew this wasn’t where I belong. Throughout the years they often told me stories about this country that I was ostensibly from…Lebanon. They taught me to love Lebanon, or at least their peaceful and loving of Lebanon. They told me tales of how they fell in love, and their adventures through the endless field of green stretching from mountains to coastline. They gave me an impression of MY country that resembles G.Kalil’s view in “you have your Lebanon and I have my Lebanon.” I imagined shepherds leading their “flocks” over the hills, farmers turning their “fallow” meadow into beautiful gardens and I dreamt of meeting these brave souls who “migrated with nothing but courage in their heart and strength in their arms” and ended up living a great life. When we moved to Saudi Arabia, I was a bit older. Yet the change of setting surprised me. The people there seemed much more suppressed, as if it was wrong to open up. My style of life changed, and I got used to the “Arab” habits and ethnicity of the kingdom. My Arabic became more fluent and I adjusted well. Even the abaya and the veil didn’t bother me anymore after a couple of years. I didn’t really fit in, and I knew this wasn’t where I belong. My parents persevered with the stories about MY country but as I got older the stories seemed to involve more sadness, more deaths and a lot of empathy. They told me about the war and Israel and how they created a “division that linger in its wake” as A.Shadid says it. About how religion tor them apart and how they fought with their parents to stay together. And about how over the years religion, political parties assured that division grows and fragments the society. They told me how the European and the Americans came and settled in our little nirvana, and how they turned it into a western civilization that feeds on the green fields that were once their meeting place. When I graduated from High school I left Saudi Arabia, and settled in Lebanon. I was finally about to live in the nation that had been the source of all my dreams and my nightmares. I was finally going to have my own stories to tell to my children someday. I was finally going to see the lands that my parents described so vigilantly. I was finally going to live in MY country… Lebanon is a mixture of devotion and loathe, of longing for change while dreading it, of wanting to disregard the past but not knowing where to begin. It’s a blend of the tales my parents told me when I was a child and the heartrending stories they revealed to me later on. It’s also both western and Arab; for I think that you cannot really be Lebanese without being both. I’ve lived in both civilizations separately, I didn’t really fit in the Arab world, nor the western world, but Lebanon is an amalgam of both and for once I knew this is where I belong. So after searching for so long and wondering who I am… I can finally say. I am Lebanese. I am both western and Arab and I know where I belong…