Lebanon revives its seventy-ninth independence without Eid. This is not the news on November 22, 2022. Lebanon’s Independence Day has unfortunately become a fading event. The most pompous military displays, which are absent today, are not useful in polishing its image, since large segments of its daughters and sons have accepted higher loyalties than their loyalty to the homeland, and lower affiliations than their affiliation with it. While loyalty to the Lebanese homeland and belonging to it will become a secondary matter, it has made the land an arena of sustainable regional and international conflict, and a large part of the Lebanese people is a tool in this struggle. As for the obvious and natural affiliation to one free, sovereign, independent homeland, and loyalty to it alone, it has become a lack of realism for some, and a mere nostalgia for others.
Thus came the Independence Day, in which countries usually celebrate with huge displays and firecrackers, in honor of their martyrs and their history… It came as if it were an ordinary day of the year. How can he celebrate independence when a homeland does not have a president, a state without a government, a collapsed economy without a recovery plan, and a general situation subject to all forms of external interference, while many ask themselves daily, has the blood of the martyrs and the sacrifices of heroes been wasted?
On the sad November 22, due to the loss of independence, Lebanon also lost a pillar of its beautiful time and its wonderful artistic history. Romeo Lahoud passed away today, leaving behind a huge legacy of works, to join his peers among the great Lebanese artists who told the story of Lebanon through their journey.
