Allama Sayyed Ali Fadlallah patronized the ceremony honouring the students who had passed the official certificate of the intermediate stage, in the “Marja' Fadlallah Hall” at the “Messenger of Love School” in Jbeil, in the presence of the deputy Abbas Hashem, the qaimaqam of Jbeil Najwa Sweidan Farah, Judge Dr Sheikh Youssef Amro, the imam of the Jbeil mosque Sheikh Ghassan Al-Laqis represented by his son Sheikh Ahmad Al-Laqis, along with a number of social, cultural, religious, educational, party and municipal figures, the area's mukhtars and the students' parents.
The ceremony began with verses from the Holy Quran, then the national anthem, followed by the speech of those being honoured, delivered by the student Zahraa Abi Haidar, after which the school's principal Professor Mohammad Salim spoke, and then the school's students presented a bouquet of songs inspired by the occasion.
Fadlallah
The ceremony closed with a speech by Allama Fadlallah, in which he expressed his pride in “this constellation of students and this generation that carries love as the heading of its movement - which we wanted to be the axis of our work and a bridge for communication with the other, not a heading for consumption”.
He said: “With knowledge and morals we build homelands, fight all the blights of backwardness and ignorance, raise the level of our human being and develop our reality, which makes us able to confront everything being plotted against this nation, which is meant to remain crouching in the depths of backwardness, conflicts, wars and strifes”, focusing on “the importance of knowledge being blended with morals so that it produces goodness and understanding; otherwise it will be a problem for life, when it is used to spread chaos and stir up wars and as a means of domination”.
He addressed those being honoured, saying: “Your responsibility is to preserve the bridges of love and communication with the other, and to remove all the illusory barriers and barricades that some work to set up between the sons of this homeland. Always think of the points of meeting and the common denominators with the other, and think of this homeland that gathers us all and of the future of the human being of this homeland, for whom, and for whose preservation, sacrifices and blood have been given.”
He noted that “dialogue is the only way to solve all our disagreements and our problems”, calling on the students “to live your humanity in your relationship with the other and to gaze at the points of light he possesses”, and warning against “hatred, which builds neither a homeland nor a society nor a human being”. He added: “We must build a homeland whose human being feels his humanity, his worth and his dignity, far from being mortgaged to this political position, or that denomination, or that state; a homeland in which competence is the criterion in choosing all the employees in the state's departments, and in which favouritism, mediation and affiliations are not what controls this country's reality.”
He held that “our problem in this political reality is that it does not take note of the gravity of the events and developments taking place around us, nor of the fires that are almost reaching us. We are still living the tugs of war and the disputes over dividing up the shares, instead of working to strengthen this country's immunity so that it can confront all these hurricanes drawing near to us - which has led us to turn dialogue into mere decoration, and to obstruct the election of a president of the republic and the work of the government and of parliament.”
He affirmed that “when we emerge from our private, sectarian and denominational calculations, from our selfishness and our rancours, and think of the human being of this country and of the social, environmental and health problems he suffers from, then we shall be worthy of building a homeland and shall be equal to this responsibility”, stressing that “change in this country depends on this generation's ability to bear its responsibility in building the homeland of the human being - the homeland of justice and values”, and holding that “Jbeil will remain rooted in the depths of history and civilization and a model of coexistence, meeting and cooperation among the various components of this homeland”.
In conclusion, certificates and shields were distributed to those honoured.
