The Wedding At Qana & March 14

By: Elias Bejjani

March 14/2005

In the wedding of Qana of Galilee, the Lord Jesus Christ performed his first miracle when he turned the water in the jars into wine on the insistence of his mother Mary. In our time, Qana, the town that drank the Master's faith, piety and courage has rebelled against the statue of the tyrant Hafez Assad and destroyed it, not once mind you, but twice in 2 weeks, giving a valuable lesson  to those who see and listen.

According to the news agencies, « ...unknown individuals have destroyed the statue of the late Syrian president Hafez Assad on Friday March 11, 2005, on the cross-roads between Qana and Aytet-Al-Biyyad in the Lebanese South, for the second time in less than 2 weeks. They smashed the head of the statue and discarded the pieces on the ground. Security agents and forensic experts arrived on the scene, sifted through the location of the statue, and collected parts of the destroyed head into a bag, forbidding anyone from taking photos. »

Indeed, what a message from the free residents of Qana three days before the March 14 anniversary of the war of liberation launched by General Michel Aoun and his military government, with the support of the Lebanese people, on March 14, 1989. That was a bold step of standing up to humiliation, a move that is alive and well in the minds and souls of the people rebelling today against the occupation and its figures in the most civilized and peaceful manner. Now it has become clear that the promises of 1990 that were offered to the people were lies laced with poison and venom. And today in Freedom Square the people continue the March 14, 1989 uprising and are on the verge of raising the laurels of victory by achieving complete liberation and the salvation of the nation from foreign forces that have not refrained from committing every crime possible.

The free residents of Qana want the torch of celebration of the liberation of the country to start from their town, and they want the rebellious Lebanese people to celebrate by drinking aged wine from the miraculous jars of Qana, they who have suffered for years from oppression and subjugation.

The free people of Qana have shattered the symbol of enslavement and subjugation by saying: « To the puppets and dummies in power, this is the fate of those who abandon the nation, its people and their honor. Repent and atone before the hour of reckoning is upon you. Our stubborn Lebanon is alive, it won't die, and here it is rising again like the phoenix from Qana and Tripoli and all the Freedom Squares of the nation, while the statues of tyrants are smashed and their heads are picked up like trash in bags. Lebanon is greater and stronger than any occupier, even those who are « brothers » and no matter how powerful they may be.

The message of the free men and women of Qana is specifically aimed at those who thought they can enslave the Land of the Cedars and force its people on their knees. This is indeed the proof that the people of Lebanon are stronger than any attempt at oppressing, persecuting, silencing, falsely accusing, impoverishing and displacing them to the far corners of the world by those who sold their souls to the devil in exchange for a life of slavery and apostasy.

The War of Liberation has caused a major upheaval and deep transformations in the consciousness and vision of the people. It has removed all the facades and exposed all the false slogans. It has proved that the Lebanese are tough fighters who have become even more attached to freedom with their rejection of the status quo of the occupation of their country. The War of Liberation has liberated the Lebanese people from tradition and has made them more aware of the conspiracy that was, and continues to be, schemed against them, and the proof is for all to see today in the « Cedars Revolution ».

The message of the free people of Qana is loud and clear : We have all equally suffered from the conflicts of others on our land, and the divvying up of influence-peddling, interests and personal gains over our sovereignty and our right to security, freedom and dignity. We have all equally suffered from humiliation and today we equally share in the responsibility of taking ourselves from the torched fields of war and death to the green pastures of freedom and dignity. We are all partners in the « Cedars Revolution » that is burning in the heart and mind of each one of us.

Together we take Lebanon back, all of Lebanon; for the people, for all the people. We take it back today before it is lost and before History judges us as defeatists and unworthy.

Let March 14, whose flame is burning in our consciences, be a pledge and an oath, a liberation constitution by which we live. The nation calls upon us; let us answer the call and let the heroes' legends go on forever. 

Elias Bejjani
*Human Rights activist, journalist & political commentator.
*Spokesman for the Canadian Lebanese Human Rights Federation (CLHRF)
*Media Chairman for the Canadian Lebanese Coordinating Council (LCCC)
E.Mail phoenicia@hotmail.com  LCCC Web Site http://www.10452lccc.com