There is a lot that is not right with us and I cannot help but be pessimistic about our imminent future. In this post-9/11 world, I feel as helpless and outraged as everyone else. I am disillusioned and pissed off about the effects of the invasion of Iraq and the escalating ramifications of our actions in that region; the rampant terrorism within our borders and overseas makes me angry and it is all too reminiscent of my own childhood. On top of it, our neglect of our physical resources will bite us in the ass sooner or later and the term climate change will be more than token symbiotics. Eventually, we will be as concerned about environmental refugees as political refugees, but it might be far too late.

If love and peace so strong
Why are there pieces of love that don’t belong
Nations dropping bombs
Chemical gases filling lungs of little ones
With ongoing suffering
As the youth die young
So ask yourself is the loving really strong?
So I can ask myself really what is going wrong?*

Israel’s invasion of Lebanon makes me sick at heart which is to be expected. As I watch news reports, I now see and understand how the rest of the world viewed what used to pass for our lives in Beirut in the ’70s throughout the ’90s. We have seen odd bombs explode on Lebanese turf before and after Prime Minister Hariri’s assasination, but the events that are unfolding this week are certainly unprecedented and I feel my senses engulfing me with terrible, terrible doom. For the uninitiated, it is important to note that Israel’s usual arrogance shines here and Hezbollah’s insolence makes me sick. 

Once again, Lebanon is caught between the mightier powers that be who play in her playground: being caught in the Palestinian-Israeli-Syrian conflicts that tore my country apart, but it is also important to note that Hezbollah has hijacked the Lebanese society and the population and most of the government are as powerless as I feel here in Montreal. Still, I feel outraged that Israel feels that Palestinian and Lebanese lives are, as usual, nearly not worth the life of an Israeli and thus, it all begins anew, but this time, they have the audacity to target the country’s sole airport, bridges and water pumps that will mean severe civilian devastation over time and cultural, physical, and emotional invasion that may last another two decades. I feel sick to my stomach and I can only question where all this hostility and strife will lead. In fact, one can lump the future of Iraq along with this new, deadly development because they are not all that different.

Thus, the world will concentrate on the old conflicts that become new again while millions of Africans starve and die of AIDS and malnutrition, but once again, our eyes are turned elsewhere, somewhere where today’s world powers have more of a vested interest in than in the African heartland.

So, I ask you: where the fuck is our love for humankind?

*Where is the Love? lyrics by Black Eyed Peas