Todays post is from Mourad Mourad: Currently he is the Europe Correspondent of the Lebanese Newspaper Al-Mustaqbal. Mourad was elected in 2010 to the Municipal Council of Ras Nhach (Lebanon). He serves as the Cultural and General Affairs Representative of the Council in the Western World.

I am a Lebanese Journalist, Specializing in International Affairs, and I am very fond of USA's George Herbert Walker Bush. I was always impressed by his leadership and his wise Foreign Policy. Since I heard his inspiring speech "We are a nation of communities... a brilliant diversity spread like stars, like a thousand points of light in a broad and peaceful sky" I committed myself to help in building a new world on that same vision.

I come from a Muslim village in North Lebanon. During the 90's Lebanon started to recover from a terrible civil war and I had a chance to volunteer in public service in my village. As you know, the civil war in Lebanon erupted on the basis of sectarian and religious differences.

My village is surrounded by mainly Christian villages. Forty men, women and children were killed by our neighbors during the war. I thank God that my father was open minded and I was not short sighted; since a very young age I was following news, reading newspapers and I discovered that not all the Christians are extremists.  I noticed that there are Christians in USA and Europe who respect diversity and respect differences in beliefs. I built nice connections with guys and girls my age from the Christian villages and I remember on several occasions we exchanged prayers in mosques and Churches. We held mixed dance parties and celebrations on both Christian and Muslim religious days.

When Israel bombed Qana in the south of Lebanon in the spring of 1996 I organized a trip with other guys and girls from my village, we collected aid from the houses and shops (food, clothes, medicaments etc) and we took a large truck down to Qana to help dispersed people and the families of the victims (note: Our village is Muslim Sunni, and Qana is Muslim Shiaa).

I never thought of these religious differences, as I had always known Lebanon as having brilliant diversity but when I started my University years in Beirut I started to feel the danger from the Lebanese political parties when I saw my university colleagues following each party depending on the sect of its founder.

In my university years I lived a nightmare seeing people hating each other in the name of religion again and I started thinking seriously of running away and dreaming of making the U.S. my new country.

Until that black day came.

I was on the bus headed to my village from Beirut when the radio said U.S. was under attack. Then a few days later they accused Islamists and Arabs of being behind the terrorist attack of 9/11. I felt unsafe and I felt my dreams were vanishing when all these radical measures against every immigrant from Arab Countries occurred.

Between 2003 and 2008 I moved to France where I received my Master’s degree and started my professional career.

In April 2008 I returned to Lebanon and I signed a Permanent Contract with Al-Mustaqbal Newspaper. In May of that year Hezbollah and pro Syrian parties in Lebanon invaded the capital and they torched the building of our newspaper. I was terrified as I survived an RPG attack few meters from me when I was trying to make it to my office the first day of clashes.

As I had met many Jewish friends in Europe I lost that feeling of not being able to live peacefully with Israel, and my experience in Beirut showed me that extremism and terrorism can be made by fools from any race or belief. This new feeling revived in me the old hopeful feeling I had in my younger age before leaving my country.

I organized a local mini-football tournament that summer in my village and we bought clothes for all the participating teams. My team bought Manchester United shirts and we decided to print American and British leaders names on our shirts; doing so in a Muslim village with war in Iraq still going on was not too welcomed by some people in the community. We won the tournament and I gathered the people who were annoyed by our shirts and I had a long conversation with them based on logic and better understanding of the American values.

In November 2008 the newspaper decided to send me back to Europe as their correspondent there. I returned to Paris and London where I am still working now. Through my work my Points of Light dream keeps growing as I meet politicians and human rights Ambassadors on a regular basis.