Difficulty

I took this picture in one of the streets in Beirut, Zkak el- Blat. I really liked this wall because people living in the neighborhood decided to be different. In a country where all walls are tarnished with politicians’ faces and their slogans (this has become the trend in Lebanon), these people decided that they had the freedom to decorate this wall in a way that it would stand out. Instead of hanging the pictures of people who are behind all their suffering, they preferred to hang some random stuff like an old pan, a ski, bags, picture frames – anything just seems to be just fine for that purpose. In his text, Jean Jacque Rousseau’s main idea and thesis say that man went from the state of being as free and happy as a man living in a forest with no limitations, to the modern society which is dominated by inequality, violence, and abuse of rights. Man was previously driven by his instincts, whereas now, he is driven by social justice for he is forced to abide by the rules and social norms that are enforced upon him by people that are not different than him in any way! This wall in my picture resembles freedom itself; the freedom to hang whatever we want wherever we want because we simply CAN, the freedom of choice, for we can choose not to hang pictures of the people who have taken away our rights and abused us in every way possible. Rousseau says “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. “ (Rousseau 114), people would normally say that the social contract and the rules are the chains, but what if the chains were the people themselves? Who forbids us from hanging random stuff on the wall instead of politically related pictures and slogans? No one. So basically, people are chaining THEMSELVES by THEMSELVES. This saying by Rousseau has been debated through history, but in the 21^st century, people may have to think again about what the chains represent.

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. “The Social Contract”Shifting Narratives. Ed. Zane S. Sinno, Lina Bioghlu-Karnakawi, Dorota Fleszar, Najla Jarkas, Emma Moughabghab, Jennifer M. Nish, Rima Rantisi, Abir Ward. Beirut: Educart, 2015. 113-115. Print.