Let me start by saying: I am a Lebanese citizen who is apolitical and secular... not unique, but definitely a rare species.
Last week, Lebanon witnessed the election of a President after more than two years of political vacuum. Like any Lebanese, that should have been the best day of my life... but it wasn't. It was actually the most emotionally-charged day of my life... not because I liked or disliked the man, but because all of my childhood memories suddenly resurfaced.
I was born in 1984 and have witnessed the "Liberation War" and the "Elimination War"... Luckily, these only made up 6 years of clashes out of the 15 year-long Lebanese Civil War but they also made up almost half of my childhood years!
As I watched the presidential elections on TV, childhood memories kept on popping into my mind. Me, sleeping with my two siblings and both my parents in a bed that can barely fit two toddlers. Me, my brother and sister playing cards by candlelight while nearby bombs lighted the room every now and then. The radio playing the breaking news theme music followed by a deafening silence as all bunker residents gather to listen to the latest war developments. The temporary ceasefires that were quickly breached. The days we had to leave school early before shelling intensifies. The bunker's windows blocked with sandbags to avoid warplanes from shelling us. Us sitting in the bunker's living  room drinking "white coffee" (boiled water with rosewater and sugar) listening to the adults talking about the day's casualties, the friends that were killed, the roads that were blocked, the slaughtering of innocent people on checkpoints, the long queues in front of the bakeries... we weren't allowed to drink regular coffee... it wasn't appropriate for children... neither were the conversations... but we listened anyway. They couldn't tell us to go play outside... outside meant death.
But the most striking imagery was that of the toilet seat. When shelling intensified and the whole building was shaking, all the bunker residents, a total of about 15 people used to squeeze themselves inside a 6sqm bathroom until bombing temporary halted.
Last week, seeing 127 parliament members whose majority had directly or indirectly contributed to the bloody conflict and to shaping my awful childhood memories finally agreeing on a President in one of the most demeaning way to the Lebanese people, disturbed me... and so I stood up and walked towards the bathroom and locked myself in... I sat on the toilet seat and waited... I only went out when fireworks and celebratory gunfire that broke out in celebration of the election of the new President had seized. The sound reminded me of the bombs and shells fired from mortars...
People were happy and optimistic... I would have been too only if I could stop thinking of the 250,000 people who were killed in the war, the hundreds of people who are still missing, the mothers of fighters who lost their children for a cause that never existed and my childhood that will never resuscitate...