April 4, 2022

The Ugly Little Duck

Ingrid Zablith

I had finished editing this piece a week before the world shockingly woke up to Russians invading Ukraine. Headlines everywhere wrote “ a new world order” as war spread in Europe. The modern world anxiously watched as premises of historical events unraveled before their eyes. Patients came to sessions with uncertainty hitting the roof, reassessing the world they’ve been living in. “How is this possible, in 2022? How can this still exist?”.

I had finished editing this piece a week before the world shockingly woke up to Russians invading Ukraine.

Headlines everywhere wrote “ a new world order” as war spread in Europe. The modern world anxiously watched as premises of historical events unraveled before their eyes. Patients came to sessions with uncertainty hitting the roof, reassessing the world they’ve been living in. “How is this possible, in 2022?

But god, did it vanish quickly!

Patient of a system

There is a theory in psychology that we use when a family consults claiming everything’s fine “but Ted is not doing well”. Ted this, and Ted that. The ugly little duck Ted. This theory claims that Ted is only here to point out the dysfunctions of a system that no one wants to see. So we look at Ted, feeling helpless. And we are helpless, as long as we look away.

Just like Chinese people caught the virus first hand we, the Lebanese, lived the downfall of society firsthand. The destruction of an ecosystem led by corruption, greed, and mediocrity.

Ever since I was born, we all knew our country was corrupt. But we looked away and we prided ourselves with resilience: we had the greatest parties in the world and freedom by anarchy. You just had to know someone that knows someone to get by. And in this world, everyone knows someone that knows someone…
Looking back, I recall the words of a historian blaming “the irresponsible elite”. The one that parties, while its neighbors are being mistreated.
Just so we’re clear: no, – I’m a psychologist for god’s sake! All I am saying is we, as first-world elites, have responsibilities in the world we strive in. And if we don’t take them, it is only so long before we bathe in the same dirty water then them, “the third world people”.

In Lebanon, less than 10% of our population ended up taking 90% of the populations’ lives savings and resources.

Sounds familiar?

They’re still alive but they’re gone. They’re either scattered across the globe or they’re home, but their essence has left, and the only thing we have in common is the loss of a country, the loss of a home, and a souvenir from a time, where all felt easier.

And as I watched its crazy downfall from afar, all I could think about was how scientists warned that climate change would impact our world extremely fast if we didn’t act soon. Drama takes time to build up but once it peaks, it unravels quickly.
There is something very particular about losing your homeland. An ache like no other. And I wish it to no one. Your home, your family, your childhood, your ancestors, your silly games, those happy hikes and long hours drive. This simple being in the air of the night, the mountains, the sea, the sunsets being different every day. I used to enjoy these sunsets, every day.
The conception of a fragmented world or a fragmented body only works until you realize that we all belong to the same system. One day, that isolated lump will metastasize and the truth will come out: we are as vulnerable as our weakest parts.

Update/Post-war in Europe:

Rereading this article, I could feel people around me feeling what I felt, watching a warless/free world, at war again. Feeling helpless.

Europeans knew there was war outside of Europe, but they didn’t think it would hit home. And then it did.

And when it did, Putin replicated in Europe techniques he had previously used in Syria, and Syrian civilians reached out to Ukrainians to warn them about Russian war techniques.

In this complex world-system, algorithms and media outlets are partly responsible for our capacity to omit information and shed the light on others.

Yet our world also has the capacity to fight back.

The war of misinformation goes on every day in our societies: we trick how beautiful our lives are on Instagram, and Poutine tricks the way Russians perceive the war through every channel possible.

But these same communicative tools can also be used to shed the light on what matters, on what helps. Individuals, politicians, media, and social media can also communicate values, truth, and responsible content to fight back, every day, in the face of injustices.

It is safe to say that our world is changing, every day, a little bit more.

Which part do you want to play and which values do you want to convey?

In yourself, in your family, at work, in your life, in your world… In our world.