Lebanese diaspora: My people are dead

I could not think of how to express a uniting feeling I experienced, saw, read, and heard from Lebanese living abroad, even from those who grew up in countries of adoption.

This text written in 1916 by Kahlil Gebran, the author of ''The Prophet'' best express the pain.

' ' My people are dead ' - Kahlil Gebran (1916)

Mine die, and I, still living, in my solitude, I mourn them my people died and I am here, in this distant country, wandering among a joyful people who sleep on fluffy beds. My people died of a painful death and I am here who lives in abundance and in peace I do not live with my persecuted people, who walk in the procession of death towards martyrdom.

I'm here, on the other side of the ocean that lives in the shadow of peace and in the light of peace. I'm so far from the miserable arena and affliction that I can't even be proud of my tears.

The death of my people is a silent accusation; it is a crime fomented by the heads of invisible snakes, it is a tragedy without text.

My people died while their hands stretched east and west, while their empty orbits looked at the darkness of the firmament.

He died in silence because humanity remained deaf to his calls. He died because he didn't sympathize with his enemies, he died because he placed his trust in all humanity, because he was the stomped flowers and not the foot that crushes. He died because he was a builder of peace, because the monsters of hell stood up, destroyed everything, because vipers and children of vipers spit poison in space where the holy cedars, roses and the jasmines exhale their perfumes.

Artist - Allan Debs