The past six years have been especially brutal for the Lebanese people and those who call the country home.
After a popular nationwide uprising in October 2019 provided a glimmer of hope for real systemic change, the COVID-19 pandemic — coupled with an ongoing economic collapse since 2018, an explosion that decimated parts of Beirut, and then a devastating war with Israel in 2024 — slowed any momentum for a people who have long endured governmental corruption and a sectarian political system that continues to play into religious divisions and undermines the collective fabric of Lebanese national identity.
Lebanon is now again at war, familiar territory for the country but no less calamitous for its people, many of whom are now displaced or haven’t been able to rebuild their homes or their lives from the last war two years ago.
And we in the diaspora are once again feeling stuck, unable to take the pain and suffering away from our people.
That includes many Lebanese living in Massachusetts, home to the second largest concentration of Lebanese people in the country.
Massachusetts has long had a unique bond with Lebanon, as many of the first wave of immigrants who helped establish the once-thriving Boston community of “Little Syria” in the 1880s came from what is now Lebanon.
During the Lebanese Civil War and in the years since it formally ended in 1990, Massachusetts welcomed many people from Lebanon who had the ability and the means to leave.
As a first-generation Lebanese American, I’ve had the good fortune to find a strong Lebanese community in Westwood and Norwood, home to grocery stores, places of worship, restaurants, and other businesses reminiscent of our motherland, catering to our nostalgic longing.
Yet often, many in the diaspora feel guilty that we have these means to live safely and securely in another country, away from the danger and destruction back home.
We have the immense privilege of access to our culture, our food, and our language without having to navigate the geopolitical threats that have undermined our national identity and sovereignty.
Many Lebanese at home and abroad may choose sides or lay blame for the country’s involvement in this current US-Israeli war with Iran. But I cannot help but think about how some of us in the diaspora may have contributed to the problems that have long plagued Lebanon by either supporting sectarian political parties or financially propping up an outdated system of government rather than revolutionizing it.
When Israel recently attacked Lebanon again, I immediately called my family in the country to check on their safety. We in the diaspora are all glued to social media and the news, trying to stay as updated as possible. But we are doing so from the comfort of our homes outside Lebanon, without having to experience war.
Many Lebanese diaspora communities across the country are organizing efforts to help displaced families in Lebanon — more than 1 million people. We call on our elected officials in the United States to act by ending this war immediately and pushing for a permanent and life-saving cease-fire in Lebanon. Our thoughts are with those back home, even as we live our lives in the United States.
Perhaps these feelings will never be reconciled. Instead, those of us in the diaspora will continue to carry a tension within us, wondering whether there will ever be a time when Lebanese people no longer need to be “resilient” and can just exist.