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Nous du Collège N 302 - Mars 2025
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Charles Malik’s writing competition

“Hey, did you see the email the English teacher sent?”
My friend asked me.
“No, I was busy. What does it say?”
“There’s a writing competition in Australia. Check it out,
I think you’d like it.”

f my friend hadn’t informed me of Dr Charles Malik’s
Iwriting competition, I wouldn’t be here. It was a literary Kaléidoscope Scolaire
competition from ages fifteen and up about Lebanon.
You could write anything you wanted; fiction, poems,
essays… What if I could make people understand how rattling it is
But the important thing was that it was about Lebanon to be in this situation, through my words and metaphors?
and that it had to be around 3000 words. In three weeks, I wrote 3500 words. Every week, I would
People from all ages participated, I was apparently the check in with my philosophy teacher to structure it better,
youngest to submit an entry. to get better ideas, to try and make all of it less graphic.
I learned about this competition during the war in Because if those words were left completely up to me, I
Lebanon. To say that I wasn’t in the best state of mind might have gone too far in my anger. He helped me a lot,
would be an understatement. We were constantly clearing up my thoughts and having nice conversations 39
listening to bombs getting set off around us, planes going with him about everything that was happening. We even
over our heads at impossible speeds, drones buzzing so heard a few explosions while we were debating it in his
late at night that no one could get more than an hour or office.
two of sleep. The important thing was, I was externalizing my
Needless to say, it wasn’t particularly hard for me to find emotions and I knew so many others couldn’t. So I hoped
something to write about. that in reading what I’d written, others could find some
I was so enraged. I was practically boiling with anger. semblance of closure.
I thought that all of it was so unfair. A day before the deadline of the competition, as I
I was watching my friends cumulate trauma and break was going over what I wrote, I went over to English
beneath the pressure while still being asked to be strong coordination to talk to the coordinator. She told me that
because it would pass. I was watching my teachers trying she couldn’t help but for me to send it over anyways and
to put on brave faces during lessons because a plane just to give her the results when they were out.
broke the sound barrier and I’m sure that rattled their Naturally, for a week while waiting for the results, I was
morality while they taught. I was wondering each night on the edge of my nerves. I was constantly checking my
if I should leave the country or stay and even if I could emails. During that time, the war had begun to stop. Well,
leave, no countries were giving the Lebanese a VISA. more or less. They were talking about a peace treaty.
I tried to joke about the sounds I was hearing, pretending I thought my writings might not be relevant anymore.
it was a car or a slamming door. My friends would blast On the 21 of November 2024, while I was in the car,
st
music through their headphones for five minutes of I got the results. I looked over the top three and was
peace in order for them to study. The television was
constantly on because any second now, another missile
would destroy an entire area.
And every time it did, text messages would be flying
across all platforms to make sure that the ones closest
to the explosion tonight were okay.
What do you do with all that? You write.
And so I picked up my phone and scribbled a few angry
words on my notes app. Punctuated words, precise
words. Things that have been bouncing off the walls of
my mind since that summer.
And I thought why not use this? Use my anger in a sort
of beneficial way?