By Cosette Awad

INSPIRE

I WANT TO LEAVE. I WANT TO STAY.

By Cosette Awad

They say you are not a tree, don’t stay at the same place.” It’s a saying that I never questioned. Belonging has never been a thing for me, since I was a kid I used to tell my mother “I was born on the wrong side of the world.” I always wanted to be anywhere but here.

The thing about belonging in my personal humble opinion is about the place where you feel safe, where you collect beautiful memories and where you cherish the best moments of your life.

The place where I was born, held the most painful memories, childhood traumas, tears, pain and loss. I tried to remember the moments of happiness I felt in this torn land I was born in, I found out that I could count them on one hand.

So I decided to collect what’s left of the hope I have for what’s coming next, and pack my things and leave to a place I can call home forever.

Years ago, as soon as I got a chance I packed my bags and left, started over 3 times and I never regret it once. Not belonging gave me a sense of freedom, made me love the place I traveled to, and made a home wherever I go.

I’m not saying that belonging is a bad thing, some people have roots planted where they are, where they were born, they are satisfied by the way they are living, and have unconditional love for their motherland and they refuse to leave, and they endure whatever fate brings them.

With everything going on in the world now many people all over the world are considering that where they live is hell, but with mixed feelings of “I want to leave. I want to stay.”

Reem Ibrahim

To belong, a quest I never ceased yet. I was born and raised in my beloved country, Lebanon. Lebanese by blood, by attachment, and by beliefs.

I was raised to appreciate everything surrounding me, people, nature, school, even the chaos.

I believed I belong there, I mean everything and everyone I love is there, my family, my friends, nature that I love.

But then I grew up. I witnessed how different I was compared to the people around me. How I appreciate the human and how they appreciate his sect, and his political ideologies.

I witnessed how corrupted my country is, how I can’t achieve my dreams and my goals as long as I’m not a follower of a political party.

Discrimination, and lots of it. All that, and I still had hopes.

I and people who share the same ideas as me are able to make a change. I had this dream of the new Lebanon in me that kept me going and trying to seek the sense of belonging in that dream we shared.

Change was near, change was real.

Boom a sudden call to wake up, the 4th of August 2020 at 6:08 Pm. The Beirut’s port explosion.

A year later, nothing, yes nothing has changed, no one was punished and people were forgotten. Currency decline, no electricity, no water, nothing... People are numbed.

A sudden rush in me, I need to flee this tragedy, I don’t belong here. I left my country seeking that sense of belonging in a foreign nation. In a place where I have no loved ones, where I don’t resemble the people and can’t speak their language. And despite all that I felt like a human, I was treated like one. I know I can achieve my goals as far as I am working hard following them.

I know that no one will treat me badly because I don’t share their same ideas or beliefs.

I still don’t know if I can say I belong to this new place or not. Or if I will ever fit in here.

But I know, I belong to my dreams, to my goals and to the hope that I will embrace my loved ones again in a place where a human is treated as a human just that.

Lilianny Oliveira Hamad

“...If you ask me if I want to live in any other place or go back to my country, I will answer you, definitely no”.

I wrote this approximately one year ago regarding my connection to Lebanon, a beautiful country that, unfortunately, collapsed due to lack of patriotism, care and a lot of corruption.

Being part of a family that never settle in one place, I always had the need of feeling that I belong somewhere. I don’t feel the connection with my own mother land and I thought I would achieve this by living where I got married and my daughter was born, which is Lebanon.

I’ve been thinking about what future me and my family can have here. Never expected to see this country hit rock bottom and as it did, so my enthusiasm for it. The beauty still there, the magic didn’t fade, but people just gave up. Some left or are planning to leave, others succumbed to the system of denial. Human rights basically doesn’t apply, basic needs are not basic anymore but considered luxury. Our heads keep on spinning around the idea that to leave is the best option because a simple trip to the grocery shop makes you depressed. You may say it’s like we are giving up...and you know what, yes it is. Giving up on been worried all the time! Emotionally, we are drained and as much as it kills to fly away, this now is the only thought. It’s a turmoil of feelings, and believe me when I say, would be much easier decision if it wasn’t Lebanon!

I don’t know what the future holds, but I’m throwing a last card of hope, knowing that the probability of it is very low and if you ask me now if I want to live in any other place, I will answer you, definitely (not easy) yes.

Manal Al RahiI

I believe in everything freedom.

Freedom of thought. Freedom of speech. Freedom of expression. Freedom of life. Financial freedom.

Freedom in all its aspect is a human right, and should be accessible to all.

This also stretches to freedom of travel and setting a life in any geographical location I, or you, wish to choose.

From a very young age, even before being exposed to the western world and to the European culture, I questioned all the restrictions that were imposed on us as a small society, and specifically as women. Being Lebanese, a female, with parents born in rural areas who chose to live in Riyadh meant one thing: your life is dictated for you. Where you live, what you study, how to talk, walk, what to eat, how to dress, where to live and yes, even what to think. And then there was little me, who believed in everything freedom from the day I was born. At the young age of 12 or 13, I remember catching myself thinking: how come I need a passport to travel? Why can’t I just pack my bags and leave?

The thought of having imaginary borders and lines created by human beings and calling them “countries” is still, to this day, a ridiculous and an outrageous concept.

Growing up reading and watching Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days made me daydream of rolling a small globe and landing my finger on what would be my next destination.

Travel worry free and border free.

As you can see, or read more likely, I was never born to conform into the rules they dictated on us. Not only by our parents or family, but by this entire system and matrix that is separating us and discriminating us in any way you could think imaginable.

I don’t believe in physical roots. This notion of patriotism is alien to my understanding and logic. Roots are built through your spiritual path, not on a piece of land; and on this earth, as human beings, we have to learn to experience the physical and the materialistic aspect of this planet. This includes breaking free from the limitations of belonging to one place, and shedding blood defending something they told you is yours.

Cosette Awad

Author

Since the dawn of man, history is filled with wars to enslave, weaken, invade and imprison people, making them believe they belong to one country. One single land! So much blood was shed and countless souls and generations were wasted to construct a system that is dividing us and doesn’t serve us. It is a shame that to this day, in 2021, we, as humans, are still enforcing laws, all part of a political power game, that stops us from living were we really wish to be.

“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.” Charlotte Bronte.

I believe in freedom. I believe we are citizens not only of this world, but of this universe entirely. I am a global citizen, I belong to this world.

My sense of belonging is in The Universe.

Mirna Naddour

How to leave a Homeland

Here I am, sitting by your sea, watching your sunsets and thinking about leaving you…

Forgive me for I’m losing hope in you,Forgive me for I’m thinking to leave,

If I stay I’ll hate you and if I leave my love for you would be my forever spell.

I would always think when I’ll be back to your streets, your villages, my village, my beloved big family

Imagining myself becoming a video call unable to hug my nephews and nieces whenever I want to and for how long they let me (yes I do exaggerate sometimes), makes things even worse…

You may be thinking I betrayed you, you may want me to stay and fight for you, but how would a dying soul fight?...

They took everything from us: our hope, our basic rights, our union, our safety, our sanity… they took your light and your kids away from you…

It’s so unfair to be forced to choose between staying among your tribe, arguing with and teasing your parents and then having coffee with them, and your dreams and ambitions; between your land, sea, and sun and your right to food, housing, and medicine...

It’s so unfair to be forced to choose between a crazy Sunday afternoon with your nephews and nieces and your right for the least certainty a human being can get in order to thrive, to feel ok and to be able to work their dreams into reality…

It’s so unfair that kids talk about how expensive life became! About the dollar rate in the black market! That they think power cuts everywhere in the world as it does here!

There is too much darkness here, on the streets and in my heart…

It feels guilty over here, towards the others because it happens that I am more fortunate, towards my parents who like all parents deserve a calmer, better retirement… and towards my future self who is eager for an opportunity to shine, to travel the world, to own a house…

No, I’m not a coward, I demonstrated back in 2015 for a solution to the waste crisis and we were attacked, I demonstrated in the revolution, and people have divided once again, like every time…

I close my eyes and try to find a moment of peace that might bring some clarity with it…

It’s so hard to decide…To leave or not to leave? …

We are orphans here with no accountable government to protect us, to help us and Beirut heal from the cold case of the port explosion, to lift us out of poverty and the absurd we drowned in.

To leave or not to leave…

To leave for freedom, security, certainty, dreams…or not to leave for family, memories, roots…

To not leave and start to hate the things you love or to leave and miss them to pieces…

Model: Rita Sayah Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rita.sayah

Director of photography: Omar Adawiyeh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adawieh_photography

Photographer: Omar Adawiyeh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adawieh_photography