WEBVTT 00:00:18.730 --> 00:00:19.340 Good morning. 00:00:21.400 --> 00:00:22.400 Awake? 00:00:24.050 --> 00:00:26.330 They took my badge but I wanted to ask you, 00:00:26.340 --> 00:00:28.700 Did anyone write their name on the badge in Arabic? 00:00:30.140 --> 00:00:33.330 Anyone? No one? Ok then... 00:00:33.480 --> 00:00:35.480 No problem 00:00:35.710 --> 00:00:38.990 Once upon a time, not so far away 00:00:39.090 --> 00:00:43.180 I was having dinner with a friend of mine at a restaurant. 00:00:44.020 --> 00:00:47.420 So I looked at the person serving us and asked him, 00:00:47.460 --> 00:00:49.820 Do you have a list of dishes? 00:00:51.300 --> 00:00:55.470 He looks at me weirdly thinking he didn’t hear clear enough and says, 00:00:55.460 --> 00:00:56.600 Sorry? 00:00:57.080 --> 00:01:00.260 So I told him again, Can you please give me the list of dishes? 00:01:01.470 --> 00:01:03.470 Don’t you know what’s it called? 00:01:04.910 --> 00:01:11.670 Yes. No. It’s called a menu (as it’s said in English) or “menu” in French right? 00:01:12.040 --> 00:01:13.900 Come see what she wants. 00:01:14.330 --> 00:01:16.010 He was disgusted. 00:01:16.270 --> 00:01:18.840 At first he was trying to hit on me. 00:01:19.100 --> 00:01:21.083 And then he was saying to himself, I wouldn’t look at her 00:01:21.083 --> 00:01:23.066 even if she was the last girl on Earth. 00:01:23.066 --> 00:01:25.050 A list of dishes? What’s that? 00:01:25.110 --> 00:01:28.870 Two words were enough for a Lebanese guy 00:01:29.060 --> 00:01:35.460 to judge a woman sitting in his restaurant of retardation and ignorance. 00:01:36.020 --> 00:01:41.250 How dare she speak so? 00:01:41.810 --> 00:01:44.220 So I started to think. 00:01:44.470 --> 00:01:45.460 I got upset and I was hurt. 00:01:45.600 --> 00:01:47.040 Yes of course I was. 00:01:47.220 --> 00:01:50.010 I’m not allowed to speak my native language in my own country. 00:01:50.040 --> 00:01:51.490 Where can you find that? 00:01:51.970 --> 00:01:55.350 How could we have possibly reached this point? 00:01:55.580 --> 00:02:01.930 There’s a lot of people like me in here who could reach a point in their lives 00:02:02.020 --> 00:02:04.020 where they would erase everything that already happened 00:02:03.990 --> 00:02:08.960 just to prove that they are contemporary and civilized? 00:02:09.440 --> 00:02:12.580 Am I going to forget my entire culture and all of my thoughts, 00:02:12.750 --> 00:02:16.800 all of my knowledge and all of my memories, 00:02:16.810 --> 00:02:20.380 the best memories of the war are probably the childhood stories? 00:02:21.050 --> 00:02:24.960 Am I going to forget everything I learnt in Arabic just to fit in? 00:02:25.180 --> 00:02:28.880 Just to blend in? 00:02:29.180 --> 00:02:31.180 Where’s the logic? 00:02:31.540 --> 00:02:33.540 Nevertheless 00:02:33.600 --> 00:02:35.600 I tried to understand him. 00:02:35.960 --> 00:02:41.100 And I don’t want to judge him the same harsh way he judged me. 00:02:41.210 --> 00:02:43.610 Arabic doesn’t meet our needs, 00:02:43.830 --> 00:02:45.040 it doesn’t. 00:02:45.220 --> 00:02:48.220 It isn’t a language neither for scientific production nor for researches. 00:02:48.240 --> 00:02:52.310 You don’t need it neither at universities nor at work. 00:02:52.630 --> 00:02:58.210 We don’t need it to make any advanced scientific research. 00:02:58.450 --> 00:03:01.700 We definitely don’t need at the airport. 00:03:01.770 --> 00:03:04.410 Because if we speak Arabic they’ll take off every piece of our cloth? 00:03:05.650 --> 00:03:07.650 Where are we going to use it? 00:03:07.670 --> 00:03:09.340 We can all ask that. 00:03:09.390 --> 00:03:11.790 Do you want Arabic? Where will we use it? 00:03:12.853 --> 00:03:19.020 Okay this is an existing reality but there’s a far more important reality 00:03:19.060 --> 00:03:21.610 that we should consider and notice. 00:03:21.990 --> 00:03:25.080 Arabic or mother language 00:03:25.280 --> 00:03:31.160 studies and reports show that being fluent in other languages 00:03:31.230 --> 00:03:34.200 requires being fluent in mother language. 00:03:34.680 --> 00:03:37.453 And that being fluent in mother language 00:03:37.453 --> 00:03:41.410 is an essential condition to excel in other languages. 00:03:41.410 --> 00:03:43.000 How’s that? 00:03:43.270 --> 00:03:47.640 When Gebran Khalil Gebran started writing 00:03:47.730 --> 00:03:49.730 he began writing in Arabic. 00:03:50.230 --> 00:03:51.890 His thoughts, 00:03:51.930 --> 00:03:52.980 his imagination, 00:03:53.030 --> 00:03:55.390 his inner self, his metaphysics, 00:03:55.430 --> 00:03:56.490 his philosophy. 00:03:56.770 --> 00:04:00.070 He took all of these from that child who sat in the village 00:04:00.130 --> 00:04:02.553 and who grew accustomed to a certain smell, 00:04:02.553 --> 00:04:04.976 a certain voice and a certain thought. 00:04:04.976 --> 00:04:07.400 So when he began writing in English 00:04:07.960 --> 00:04:10.510 he had a huge knowledge 00:04:10.600 --> 00:04:12.800 even when he was writing in English 00:04:12.930 --> 00:04:14.360 and when we read his writings in English 00:04:14.400 --> 00:04:16.339 we smell the same odor, 00:04:16.490 --> 00:04:18.490 we feel the same feelings, 00:04:18.600 --> 00:04:22.690 we can picture him both the person excelling in English 00:04:22.690 --> 00:04:24.320 and the one living in the country, 00:04:24.320 --> 00:04:27.180 In a village from Mount Lebanon. 00:04:27.750 --> 00:04:34.120 So that’s one example that can’t be refuted. 00:04:34.850 --> 00:04:36.850 Second of all, it is said 00:04:36.980 --> 00:04:38.980 if you want to kill a nation, 00:04:39.250 --> 00:04:44.060 the only way to do so is to kill its language. 00:04:44.480 --> 00:04:49.470 And this fact is known by developed nations. 00:04:49.910 --> 00:04:52.830 The Germans, the French, the Japanese, the Chinese. 00:04:52.910 --> 00:04:55.940 All nations are aware of this fact. 00:04:56.010 --> 00:05:00.190 That’s why they pass laws to protect their language. 00:05:00.430 --> 00:05:02.430 That’s why they sanctify it. 00:05:02.760 --> 00:05:04.760 That’s why they produce using this language 00:05:04.930 --> 00:05:08.130 and they pay a lot of money to develop it. 00:05:08.850 --> 00:05:11.130 Do we know more than they do? 00:05:11.686 --> 00:05:15.263 Okay, If we’re not a developed country and we still have no access 00:05:15.263 --> 00:05:20.379 no to such advanced thinking but we want to catch up this civilized world. 00:05:20.379 --> 00:05:25.564 Countries alike us have decided now to develop and to make researches 00:05:25.564 --> 00:05:28.256 and to catch up these countries. 00:05:28.256 --> 00:05:30.950 Like Turkey and Malaysia and others. 00:05:31.630 --> 00:05:34.971 They grasped their language while climbing the ladder 00:05:34.971 --> 00:05:36.636 as if it was a diamond. 00:05:36.636 --> 00:05:40.009 They preserved it and kept it close 00:05:40.040 --> 00:05:43.100 Because if you receive any product from Turkey 00:05:43.100 --> 00:05:47.806 or others with no Turkish language 00:05:47.806 --> 00:05:49.220 it wouldn’t be a local product. 00:05:49.370 --> 00:05:52.050 You wouldn’t believe that it’s a local product. 00:05:52.413 --> 00:05:57.090 They would have consumed and stupidly 00:05:57.190 --> 00:06:00.770 just like we do most of the time. 00:06:01.140 --> 00:06:06.360 So in order to innovate and produce, they had to preserve their language. 00:06:06.760 --> 00:06:11.170 If I say “Freedom, sovereignty, independence”, as it’s said in Arabic 00:06:11.370 --> 00:06:13.640 what would it bring to your mind? 00:06:15.770 --> 00:06:17.690 Nothing? 00:06:17.850 --> 00:06:22.670 Regardless of who, how, and and why but you know, 00:06:23.600 --> 00:06:29.700 language is not speeches and whatever words we are using. 00:06:29.980 --> 00:06:34.460 Language represents particular phases through our lives 00:06:34.730 --> 00:06:39.520 to which our emotions relate along with these terms. 00:06:39.740 --> 00:06:42.130 That’s why when I say “Freedom, sovereignty, independence” 00:06:42.180 --> 00:06:45.320 each one of you has a certain image in their mind. 00:06:45.490 --> 00:06:50.920 With certain words and feelings for a certain day, a historical period. 00:06:50.950 --> 00:06:54.960 So language isn’t mere words and aligned letters. 00:06:54.990 --> 00:06:58.186 It’s an inner idea related to the way we think 00:06:58.186 --> 00:07:03.028 and the way we perceive others and others perceive us. 00:07:03.028 --> 00:07:04.580 What is our intellectual stock? 00:07:04.960 --> 00:07:06.960 Why do we say this person knows while another doesn’t? 00:07:07.360 --> 00:07:14.970 So if I come and tell you “Freedom, Soverneighty, independence” 00:07:15.400 --> 00:07:19.526 If your son comes and says, “You are still following that thing 00:07:19.526 --> 00:07:23.652 that has freedom, that symbol." What do you feel like? 00:07:23.652 --> 00:07:27.780 If you feel at all then that’s very good. 00:07:27.820 --> 00:07:29.572 We won’t have a problem anymore. 00:07:29.572 --> 00:07:33.525 Let me just leave from here because I will be talking nonsense. 00:07:33.525 --> 00:07:37.188 The idea here is that these phrases remind us of certain things. 00:07:37.827 --> 00:07:43.099 My friend is Francophone and she married a French guy. 00:07:43.581 --> 00:07:46.647 I was asking her how was she doing in everything, 00:07:46.751 --> 00:07:48.751 and she said it’s all good 00:07:48.929 --> 00:07:53.542 except once I spent an entire night trying to translate 00:07:53.542 --> 00:07:57.125 what “To’borni” means (Literally: I would die for you). 00:08:04.679 --> 00:08:08.080 Because She told him “To’borni” by mistake 00:08:08.388 --> 00:08:13.752 he was thinking, is there anyone who is that brutal? 00:08:15.028 --> 00:08:18.973 Or maybe she wanted to kill herself? “Bury me” for example? 00:08:20.021 --> 00:08:22.603 This is something really small 00:08:22.644 --> 00:08:26.032 but look how much it makes us feel helpless. 00:08:26.115 --> 00:08:29.037 I can’t tell my husband this word because he won’t understand it. 00:08:29.078 --> 00:08:30.713 And he is right, that is how he thinks. 00:08:31.670 --> 00:08:34.816 Then she told me that he listens to Fairouz 00:08:35.149 --> 00:08:38.490 with me but one night he sat next to me 00:08:38.652 --> 00:08:40.457 and I was trying to translate it to him maybe. 00:08:40.538 --> 00:08:42.534 He can feel what I feel when I listen to Fairouz, 00:08:42.938 --> 00:08:45.031 so she wanted to translate. 00:08:45.132 --> 00:08:48.910 “I extended my hands and stole you away from them. 00:08:50.426 --> 00:08:52.368 And because you belong to them” 00:08:52.594 --> 00:08:53.339 Here is the catastrophe, 00:08:53.583 --> 00:08:56.087 “I pulled my hands back and left you”. 00:08:57.394 --> 00:08:59.394 Translate this for me. 00:09:06.586 --> 00:09:07.249 Ok. 00:09:07.433 --> 00:09:09.089 What did we do 00:09:08.886 --> 00:09:10.601 to protect the Arabic language? 00:09:11.030 --> 00:09:14.339 We have made this into a civil society issue 00:09:14.854 --> 00:09:17.150 and we launched a campaign to protect the Arabic language 00:09:17.150 --> 00:09:18.966 even though a lot of people told me, 00:09:18.966 --> 00:09:25.062 “Don’t bother yourself with that”. No problem. 00:09:25.316 --> 00:09:28.622 The campaign has launched a slogan that says, 00:09:28.660 --> 00:09:31.036 “I talk to you from the east and you answer me from the west”. 00:09:31.265 --> 00:09:32.842 We did not say, 00:09:33.027 --> 00:09:37.551 “No, we don’t agree. And we are the language.” 00:09:39.610 --> 00:09:42.129 We didn’t do that because 00:09:42.143 --> 00:09:43.902 we won’t understand this way. 00:09:43.931 --> 00:09:45.492 And if someone comes to me and says that 00:09:45.553 --> 00:09:46.988 I will start hating the Arabic language 00:09:47.420 --> 00:09:49.420 we are saying that…. 00:09:52.008 --> 00:09:54.008 We are trying to see how we are living in reality. 00:09:54.019 --> 00:09:58.837 Then be convinced with a way that mimic our dreams and ambitions. 00:09:59.009 --> 00:10:04.338 A way that dress the same way as we do and thinks the same way as well. 00:10:04.713 --> 00:10:06.987 So “I talk to you from the east and you answer me from the west” 00:10:07.038 --> 00:10:09.038 Is the perfect saying for such a thing. 00:10:09.187 --> 00:10:12.661 Something that is really simple but innovative and convincing. 00:10:12.915 --> 00:10:19.766 After that we started a campaign that has the letters put on the sidewalks. 00:10:19.801 --> 00:10:21.801 You saw it outside here. 00:10:22.096 --> 00:10:26.571 A letter with a yellow stripe around it 00:10:26.656 --> 00:10:28.656 written on it, “Do not kill your language”. 00:10:30.030 --> 00:10:30.976 Why? 00:10:31.213 --> 00:10:33.023 Seriously do not kill your language. 00:10:33.305 --> 00:10:36.034 We all need to not kill our language 00:10:36.281 --> 00:10:39.790 because if we kill the language we will have to go back 00:10:39.790 --> 00:10:40.841 and search for an identity. 00:10:40.841 --> 00:10:43.121 We have to look for existence. 00:10:43.206 --> 00:10:45.206 We need to start over from zero. 00:10:45.530 --> 00:10:46.741 Not only that, 00:10:46.935 --> 00:10:52.124 we won’t be able to be civilized and contemporary. 00:10:52.552 --> 00:10:56.590 Then we took pictures of young guys and girls 00:10:56.722 --> 00:10:58.826 hugging the Arabic letter. 00:10:59.461 --> 00:11:01.461 “Cool“ pictures of young people, 00:11:01.826 --> 00:11:03.826 because we are very “cool”. 00:11:04.773 --> 00:11:10.001 And whoever says we caught you saying an English word (cool), 00:11:10.474 --> 00:11:12.474 I am adopting the word “cool”. 00:11:12.798 --> 00:11:14.973 Let them come and do whatever they want to do. 00:11:15.034 --> 00:11:19.139 Let them give me a better word that works on our reality better. 00:11:19.592 --> 00:11:21.300 I will keep saying the “internet”. 00:11:21.342 --> 00:11:25.187 I will not say “A slice on the spider web” 00:11:25.458 --> 00:11:27.458 because it just doesn’t work. 00:11:27.536 --> 00:11:29.536 We are not kidding ourselves. 00:11:29.530 --> 00:11:33.288 But to get here we all have to be convinced 00:11:33.374 --> 00:11:36.186 we do not want to make the one who is bigger 00:11:36.186 --> 00:11:39.070 And thinks he has the power over the language 00:11:39.070 --> 00:11:44.452 that he can make us think and feel the way he wants us to. 00:11:45.355 --> 00:11:48.761 The idea here is innovation. 00:11:49.234 --> 00:11:53.543 If we can’t go to space and build a rocket we can be innovative. 00:11:53.656 --> 00:11:57.417 Every person here is an innovative project. 00:11:57.807 --> 00:12:00.183 Innovation in the mother language is the way. 00:12:00.563 --> 00:12:04.011 Let us start now from this moment. 00:12:04.226 --> 00:12:05.300 Write a novel. 00:12:05.440 --> 00:12:06.772 Produce a short film. 00:12:06.873 --> 00:12:09.473 One novel can make us international. 00:12:09.663 --> 00:12:13.339 It can bring back the Arabic language to the first place. 00:12:13.805 --> 00:12:16.012 It is not like there is no solution. 00:12:16.069 --> 00:12:18.007 Seriously there is. 00:12:18.053 --> 00:12:20.053 But we have to pay attention and be convinced 00:12:20.155 --> 00:12:22.087 that there must be a solution. 00:12:22.235 --> 00:12:25.142 And we have to be a part of this solution. 00:12:25.579 --> 00:12:28.039 At the end what can you do today? 00:12:28.472 --> 00:12:32.171 Now? Tweet! Who here is tweeting? 00:12:33.774 --> 00:12:34.975 I beg you. 00:12:35.799 --> 00:12:38.591 Seriously I beg you even though time is almost done. 00:12:39.040 --> 00:12:43.927 In Arabic, English, French or even in Chinese. 00:12:44.456 --> 00:12:49.647 But don’t write “Ma’oul” (reasonable) like “Ma32oul”. 00:12:53.833 --> 00:12:55.501 Because that is a disaster. 00:12:55.496 --> 00:12:56.957 This is not a language. 00:12:57.057 --> 00:13:01.270 You are entering a virtual language and a virtual world 00:13:01.360 --> 00:13:04.135 and no one will take us away from this place ever. 00:13:04.564 --> 00:13:06.281 That was the first thing we can do. 00:13:06.636 --> 00:13:09.187 Secondly there are a lot of things that we can do 00:13:09.396 --> 00:13:11.687 today no one is convincing anyone 00:13:11.794 --> 00:13:15.140 we are here to be alert about the subject 00:13:15.261 --> 00:13:17.261 and now I will tell you a secret. 00:13:18.705 --> 00:13:25.427 A child when born the first way he recognizes his father through language. 00:13:25.928 --> 00:13:28.838 So once my daughter is born I will tell her 00:13:28.859 --> 00:13:31.529 (Arabic): “This is your dad honey”. 00:13:31.659 --> 00:13:36.087 Not this is your dad honey. 00:13:36.530 --> 00:13:40.978 And in the super market I will promise Noor if she thanks me 00:13:41.095 --> 00:13:44.035 I wouldn’t tell her, “Daites merci mama”. 00:13:44.236 --> 00:13:46.236 And I hope that no one heard her. 00:13:57.789 --> 00:14:03.017 Let us get away from this foreigner complex.