Dear all, dear friends and partners,
We are gathered here to launch a common initiative with Rotary, Jouzour Loubnan and many more partners: Arztak Hawytak. Partnering with Rotary, Jouzour Loubnan and all those who will join us should be an example. It is by common efforts, shared objectives that we will save the Lebanon we love.
Arztak Hawytak is about Lebanon’s reforestation and environmental responsibility.
But common efforts and shared objective do not preclude also having specific aim that do not impair a joint project. This is also the Lebanon we want: each one of us in his whole individuality together for a common good.
For us, BEMO, it is in the continuity of our last year action: Back to our Cedar Roots.
What are our most common and most individual roots? What do we share and is so intimately ours?
We all came from our motherly womb. And even if each mother is different, even if we have all been made unique; this experience and this origin are what we have most in common.
“Back to our Cedar Roots” intent is to draw the attention on an inacceptable injustice that befalls on all Lebanese mothers: their inability to give the Lebanese nationality to their children.
Who among us would accept to deprive his or her mother from the right to give the identity (Hawytak)?
This is why “Back to our Cedar Roots” will randomly attribute 200 Baby Cedars to 200 persons of Lebanese origin whose father is not Lebanese and are therefore unable to get the Lebanese nationality.
We should be proud of being Lebanese, we should be proud of all people of Lebanese origin and we should be ashamed in refusing to Lebanese mothers the right to give the Lebanese nationality.
It is through loving our roots that we can truly live our identity and exist in the future.
Thank you, dear friends, for your attention.
Dr Riad Obégi
Chairman – General Manager
Banque Bemo S.A.L.