لن اعيش في جلباب ابي

Note: this post dates back to almost three years ago, I'm publishing again as is...

I have a nasty feeling that the generations before us got corrupted by the newly established state upon independence and that we are just an "extension by continuity" to them and thus we hold a considerable part of the responsibility for the political/economical/social and especially behavioral decay we are witnessing and suffering from. All the same, I put the blame especially on our parents - the generation that was born around the independence, who had access to relatively decent public health services, to free education and jobs - but all the good things stop here. Yes, our parents strove to see their children gain access to better education, better food and health, better living conditions. Unquestionably, these are deeds to be acknowledged and rewarded. I also think that as every parents in the world, they wanted to fulfill their incomplete aspirations through us. The problem is that they never taught us to say NO. We were always asked to abide by rules that did not stand any discussions or thoughts. We were always told that education was the sure guaranteed way to social and financial success, that politics were a red line, that every thing is good as long as the family is good, that the fall of Palestine was the mistake of Palestinians themselves and that "kilmet la matjib bla" [ the "NO" word brings no pain ]!

I'm not denying my part of responsibility in all this nor am I trying to play the spokesman of a generation who is unwilling to take the burden from the one before and who is reluctant to carry on the path for the better. I'm just trying to figure out what went wrong, trying to ask questions I've never asked before and invite some of you to "pour your bucket" in the debate.

I for one still remember an anecdote when I was still before school. That was in 1985/1986 when the "light metro" was first launched. I usually used to talk a lot to myself and that day I was describing in a loud voice the landscapes the metro cut through, which may have made my father want to shut me up by telling me that the lady in front of us was the daughter of Bourguiba himself [ on the basis that I knew Bourguiba was something very important and that he deserved to be afraid of ]. Luckily I didn't shut up saying that if she were his daughter she wouldn't take the metro altogether ; what I want to say is that - with children increasingly smart, the 3'oul was no longer a good threat so it was replaced by anything else that would put us again on their YES-tracks - inconsciously, parents tried to draw the state, the government, and politics in general as a taboo, a thing to avoid, a red line, a land of no return. They kind of feared or even admired what the state has achieved all they witnessed when they were growing up [ may be we don't have that same feeling because we took too many things for granted].

It is not that I don't admire my father I do but I don't want to be a copy of him he is himself and I am what I am and I have to plow my own path otherwise what is my presence for ? my added value ? do I have to abide by rusty rules and midieval laws ? do I have to get corrupt and lengthen this lead-to-nowhere "trip" ? do I have to apply "kilmet la matjib bla" in its bad sense ?

I hope I won't be overprotective on my own children and sincerely I will be more pleased by a girl or boy who consistently discuss her/his professor than by her/his would-be high marks ! The only thing I am afraid of concerning this NO-Learning Story is that when I would say to her/him after teaching her/him to say NO and asking "Undaerstood ?" he would reply me by a NO !!!