While the lives of the Lebanese are endangered by weapons and impunity, and their livelihood is subjected to a terrible decline due to looting and theft, their minds are also subjected to an attack that is no less dangerous and lethal.
This is because the policies of intervention and prevention are on the rise, almost becoming systematic, and the aggression this time is targeting artistic and cinematic works, and creativity in the broadest sense of the word. What has become permissible in neighboring countries, which until yesterday considered Lebanon a beacon of freedom, has become oppressed in Lebanon itself. Instead of imitating the experiences that surpass us in freedom and progress in the world, we have become imitating only the models that surpass us in backwardness and narrowness in the region.
In this way, our Minister of Culture has become that supreme watchdog who pushes our cultural life to decline, instigating phenomena from which he can only be understood as contradicting his fanatical consciousness and his reactionary ideology.
And to this minister stand many, religious and temporal, who take care of our decline and interfere in the freedoms of citizens, including their most intimate freedoms that relate to their bodies and their sexual choices.
And these actions are organized, in the end, in one approach that attacks from various locations and speaks in many tongues, even if the goal remains the same. The aforementioned goal is precisely to rob us of the freedoms that gave our country some of its peculiarities in the past, as well as that sense of dignity for daring to take for granted and taboos, and subjecting us to authorities, some of which are armed with guns, and some of which are armed with murderous beliefs and beliefs.
As for us, the undersigned, male and female workers in the fields of writing, journalism, cinema, arts, literature and education, we declare our adherence to our freedoms, and to freedoms in general, to the same degree in which we condemn this ignorant McCarthyism that attacks us.
We start from our freedoms, so we try, test, experiment and learn, and in this way we want to be so that we do not end up programmed like “His Excellency” the Minister of Culture who is programmed by ideas driven from dry wood.
This anti-cultural “culture” must fall, and those who symbolize it and those behind it must fall with it. This is if we want to be free in a free country.
Locations and location:
Ahmed Beydoun (writer and researcher), Ahmed Ghossein (director), Ahmed El Essawy (journalist), Ahmed Ayyash (journalist), Ihab Ahmed (visual artist), Elie Bou Regily (visual artist), Elie El Hajj (journalist), Elie Khalifa (director) ), Elie Kamal (director), Elias Khoury (novelist), Yvonne El-Hashem (artist), Edgar Davidian (critic), Umam for Documentation and Research, Paul Shawol (poet), Beshara Charbel (journalist), Bassem Breish (director), Bahij Hojeij (Director), Bashir Esmat (University Professor), Georgine Ayoub (University Professor), Jad Gharib (Cameragrapher), Jacques Maroun (Director), Jana Wahba (Producer), Joseph Habib (Journalist), Jahida Wahba (Singer), Jihad Bazzi (writer and journalist), Jumana Wahba (writer), Jad Shahrour (SKeyes Center), Joy Selim (journalist), Jumana Haddad (poet and writer), Joseph Harb (plastic artist), Gilbert El Hajj (photographer), George Yarak (novelist) ), Joseph Issawi (poet), Giselle Khoury (media woman), Joy Lahoud (lawyer), Hazem Saghieh (journalist and writer), Hayat Murshed (media person), Hassan Al-Zein (journalist), Diana Skinny (journalist), Diana Mokalled (journalist) Deniz Jabbour (producer), Rula Al-Hussein (poet and visual artist), Roukoz Estefan (writer and university professor), Rasha Al-Amir (publisher), Rasha Al-Atrash (journalist), Rania Al-Rafei (director), Rabie Khalil (plastic artist), Raed Yassin (actor), Rabih Chami (media reporter), Riad Kobeissi (media reporter), Rana Eid (director and sound designer), Reine Mitri (director), Zaki Mahfoud (journalist and playwright), Ziad Sahhab (musician), Zeina Nader (plastic artist), Cynthia Zaven (musician), Semaan Khawam (visual artist), Salim Murad (director), Shawky Youssef (visual artist), Shafiq Tabbara (film critic), Shaza Sharaf El Din (writer), Sharif Allam (sound engineer), Shady Hanna ( Director), Tarek Dandan (sound engineer), Tarek Abi Samra (journalist), Issa Makhlouf (poet and writer), Akl Al-Awit (poet and journalist), Abbas Baydoun (poet and journalist), Ali Matar (director), Abdo Wazen (poet and journalist) Alawiya Sobh (writer and journalist), Aida Sabra (actress), Alia Ibrahim (journalist), Ghassan Salhab (director), Ghada Waked (researcher and university professor), Fidel Sbeiti (poet and journalist), Vacheh Bolgorjian (director), Fadi Abi Samra (actor), Farah Shaer (director), Fadi Tufaili (journalist and writer), Fawzi Zabian (novelist), Fawzi Yammine (poet), Layal Bou Moussa (journalist), Luma Rabah (plastic artist), Lina Abyad (director), Lina Khoury (director), Laila Dagher (visual artist), Lucien Bourjeily (director), Mohamed Soueid (film critic), Mahmoud El-Zibawy (journalist), Mansour El-Habr (visual artist), Marie Rose Osta (director), Marie Tawk (writer) ), Michel Kammoun (director), Muhammad al-Hujairi (journalist), Muhammad Reda (film critic), Marwan Tahtah (photographer), Maya Alamuddin (photographer), Marlene Kanaan (academic), Muhammad Barakat (journalist and poet), Mahmoud Wahba ( Journalist and poet), Muhammad Abi Samra (journalist and novelist), Manal Nahas (journalist), Michel A. Samaha (writer), Muriel Abu Al-Rous (director of photography), Nabila Awwad (presenter), Nada Abu Farhat (actress), Hadi Zakak (director), Hala Kawtharani (journalist and novelist), Hilal Shoman (novelist), Hovik Habashian (film critic) ), Hisham Bou Nassif (research), Wissam Sharaf (director), Wissam Saadeh (journalist and writer), Yehia Jaber (playwright), Youssef Bazzi (journalist).
