The year 2022 is gone but our problems and crises remain …
The year 2023 has begun but difficulties we encounter daily in our lives are the same. More precisely, they have been increasing … Between ending and beginning the year, we bid farewell to people and things. But wishes are different. They have become more like pleading and begging for sympathy …
We live in a difficult period with many tough times and harsh days … More often than not, three-quarters of the Lebanese people sleep in poverty only to get up and find that they have become poorer …
In this difficult time, round the clock I find myself thinking of those who are weak and they are waiting for support from those who are strong … I think about the thousands of students in our public and private schools, about their families, their teachers and the conditions of their schools. In a world where teachers are oppressed and students are deprived, we ask how we will compensate for previous lost years of education and we wonder how much we will be able to cover of the curriculum?
As we begin the new year, other than the poor and the tormented, I especially find myself thinking about those who constitute the weakest link in our society. I think about the invisible and almost forsaken victims, who receive attention from the very few among us who are still with a living conscience, those in our society whom we know they are genuinely altruistic and have a spill over of awareness, as well as those who realize their duties as parents. I thing of our children with special needs who are waiting for us to help them and to support them as they proceed with their lives … I think of those who are asking with their silence and looks of their eyes, their disoriented hands, and faltering steps. They ask without speaking. I wonder if officials in our country hear their silent pleas.
We extend our gratitude to the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, which is doing its best. But we still ask where is the government? Where are all those officials? They all seem oblivious of those who have special needs. They are preoccupied with budgets that do not cater for the wants of those with needs. They are disagreeing over budgets that do not take into consideration needs of those whose rights are not respected. Isn’t paying attention to those who are weak and whose rights are violated, of the same importance as smuggling stolen money to buy fuel and buying people’s conscience?
Does it not occur to those who are well-off and who welcome the new year on board of their planes and yachts, that there are thousands of abandoned people in their country and thousands of oppressed and bewildered mothers and fathers who do not know how to manage the conditions of their children? Does it not occur to them that they also have the right to survive, so they help them in their struggle for survival? Or do they believe that survival is only a right for the strong?
Indeed gentlemen, yes people, it is our duty as we begin the new year to ignite a spark of renewal in the lives of those oppressed people ignored by the state while it is the government’s duty to help them and to take care of them. This is a sacred duty and not an act of pity or a favor. It is their right that we inject a dose of life into their veins, to put a smile on their faces, to seek to embrace them more and to ease the burdens of their families more…
I find myself thinking of those who are weak and they are waiting for support from those who are strong … I think about the thousands of students in our public and private schools, about their families, their teachers and the conditions of their schools. In a world where teachers are oppressed and students are deprived, we ask how we will compensate for previous lost years of education and we wonder how much we will be able to cover of the curriculum?
On this occasion, I salute, on behalf of all people with special needs, the spirit of the late Arwa Zaid Al-Amin, President of the Lebanese Autism Society, who passed away after devoting her efforts since 1999 so that Lebanon would have the opportunity of professional early diagnosis, rehabilitation, and care for children on the autism spectrum disorder.
Having said all that, I would like to yet hope for peace for those with autism in the world, and I ask the Lord to help us to help them in their struggle for survival.
