A Dream for Real Independence

🇱🇧 How Can I Teach Independence… While the Children of the South Are Being Bombed?

By a Lebanese Teacher Who Still Stands, Even in the Dark

This week, our principal instructed us to prepare our students for the Independence Day celebration.

We were told to gather them in the schoolyard, raise the Lebanese flag, sing the national anthem, and convince them that we are an independent, free people.

I stood there as I always do—

the teacher who loves the Lebanese flag,

the woman whose heart trembles at every word of “All of Us, For Our Nation,”

the Lebanese daughter who grew up believing that love for the homeland is sacred.

But something inside me broke.

It cracked silently… painfully… honestly.

How can I convince myself—before convincing my students—that I must teach them to celebrate independence?

What independence do we speak of, when our land may be free, but our sky is still occupied?

What freedom do I explain to them,

when every day, the South buries another child, another dream, another future?

Two days ago, in the village of Al-Tayri,

a school bus carrying students on their way to class was bombed.

The driver was killed instantly.

The students were injured—

their notebooks still open, their homework still inside, their childhood still uncompleted.

How do I walk into my classroom

and look into the eyes of children

who ask questions no child should ever have to ask?

A student of mine looked at me and said:

“Miss… if we are independent, why are we dying?”

Another asked:

“Why should we celebrate when the South is crying?”

I had no answers.

Their words were heavier than the anthem,

truer than every political speech,

and more sacred than any celebration.

They were not being rebellious.

They were being honest.

And honesty is something this country has not learned how to handle.

On that day, I understood my role not as a teacher of ceremonies,

but as a teacher of truth.

Independence is not a performance.

Not a ritual.

Not a date printed in textbooks.

Independence is safety.

Independence is dignity.

Independence is the right of every child to reach school alive.

Independence is a sky free from drones,

a land free from occupation,

a future free from fear.

We cannot raise the flag over the wounds of our children

and call it celebration.

We cannot teach them songs of freedom

while they live under the shadow of death.

We cannot ask them to smile

when the earth beneath their feet is trembling.

Real independence begins with one thing:

Truth.

And my students spoke it before I could.

In a wounded country,

even a teacher becomes a form of resistance.

And even a student becomes a rising voice of justice.

Yes, we say “All of us, for our Nation.”

But I ask:

When will the nation be for all of us?

When will the child of the South sleep without fear?

When will a school bus reach school instead of the graveyard?

When will we celebrate independence—without blood?”

Independence is not an anthem.

It is a promise—

and Lebanon has yet to fulfill it.

Until that day comes,

we will keep asking,

we will keep teaching,

we will keep remembering,

and we will keep resisting—

with our truth,

with our pain,

with our love for this land.

Because the students of Lebanon deserve

a country that protects them.

A sky that shelters them.

A future that does not betray them.

And maybe—just maybe—

their voices will one day build

the independence we were never given.