In issue one hundred, I can say with confidence

Reaching the number one hundred is not celebrated as much as it is a stance declared, although it is a right that expresses a journey of struggle and success. Declaring the stance in a time of ambiguity is an act of courage in itself, because continuing here was not a coincidence, staying was not the result of a compromise, and rising did not come from nowhere or from flattering reality. Rather, it is the result of a path chosen with full awareness, and its price was paid without hesitation: exhausting effort, drained health, a reputation repeatedly exposed to doubt, and personal and professional sacrifices that were never a matter of complaint, but a natural tax for choosing honesty as a path in a time when honesty has become a burden rather than an advantage.
In a vast media world in exile, invaded by inherited confused and shaky cultures, and perhaps submissive in many of its manifestations, bending is not accustomed as much as fragmentation is. Standing becomes an act provocative in itself. Division is easier than clarity, fragmentation is less costly than bearing the responsibility of the stance, and going along is safer than saying what must be said. Here independence is not rewarded but misinterpreted, and clarity is not celebrated but besieged, because clarity disrupts behaviors, and perhaps agendas, accustomed to living in the gray area.
In a time when a confusing and dangerous conviction has been established that stances are for sale and purchase, a reality we have faced repeatedly without evasion, the trivial becomes the focus of attention, and free thought becomes a direct target for attack. A culture that rewards noise, grants platforms to superficiality, and narrows its chest to anything that raises a question or shakes its fragile calm. Within this shaky climate, honesty turns from a moral value into a state of isolation ready under empty and satanic accusations, not because honesty has lost its meaning, but because its practical presence exposes the fragility of what was built on flattery, blind alignment, and narrow interests.
From this standpoint, it was not surprising that the experience was besieged within concepts alien to its cultural context, read in a truncated, broken, or deliberately amputated manner, and that some bet on exhausting it through distortion instead of confronting it with discussion, or embracing it with encouragement, care, and support. Projects that refuse to submit are not criticized as much as they are feared because they expose others, and voices that do not compromise are not understood as much as they confuse because they reveal the falsehood of the prevailing and place everyone before a mirror many do not wish to look into.
Criticism has mixed with insult, accountability with doubt, until it became easy to accuse the stance instead of discussing its content, and attack the intention instead of dismantling the idea. This is a familiar practice in environments that have not yet settled their relationship with the concept of freedom of opinion and expression, nor with the meaning of difference as a human and civilizational value. When self-confidence is absent, and when the cultural structure fails to accommodate plurality, every independent voice becomes a threat, and every experience that does not conform to the prevailing — even if this prevailing is morally and intellectually fallen — is an exit that requires isolation, siege, and sometimes deliberate distortion.
Nevertheless, what appears as a siege is not necessarily the end, and what is presented as failure is only a testing phase. Living experiences do not grow in sterile environments, nor are they refined in comfortable conditions. Rather, they are shaped under pressure, crystallized through friction, and sometimes torn to become more solid and clear. Only empty projects pass peacefully because they do not touch anything, do not change anything, and do not disturb anyone. As for valuable projects, they are targeted because they remind others of what they have voluntarily or fearfully abandoned.
Reaching the number one hundred does not mean the completion of the path, but the firming of roots. It is a number not read as a quantitative achievement, but as a testimony of steadfastness, will, and determination to move forward no matter how intense the challenges. One hundred is a number in which the word was written outside the spelling, opinion was said without guardianship, and the experience bore the full cost of its stance without reduction. This in itself is a form of quiet steadfastness in a context accustomed either to empty noise or comfortable silence.
Here it can be clearly said that Arab Canada News in its hundredth issue was not a transient project, nor directed, nor an emergency circumstantial case as some dwarfs and orphans of dignity tried to assassinate its reputation, but it is a branch in a firmly rooted olive tree. A branch that did not claim to be the whole tree, but remained connected to a sturdy trunk, and roots extending deep into the soil of faith in the word, and that media is not just a profession, but an ethical responsibility, a human commitment, and a reflection of courageous stances that are neither bought nor rented.
The olive tree does not bear fruit hastily, nor does it grow in one season. It is afflicted, pruned, and sometimes left facing the winds, but it is not easily killed. So are honest experiences: they suffer, may retreat a step to regain balance, may be exposed to violent betrayal stabs, but they do not break. Because what is based on meaning does not fall before treacherous stabs, does not end with changing circumstances, and is not canceled by the fall of people or change of positions.
Those who bet on exhausting the experience overlooked a fundamental truth: that honesty may tire its owner, but it does not empty him inside. And steadfastness may delay gains, but it preserves direction. The real loss is not in the decline of material return, nor in the lack of support, nor in the scarcity of resources, but in the silent concession of the essence, and in replacing meaning with safety. This did not happen, and will not happen.
Challenges — no matter how intense — are transient. This is not a gratuitous optimistic sentence, but the conclusion of a long experience that carried in its essence a message of vigor, steadfastness, and pride. Every phase of pressure carries within it a harsh but necessary sorting: what cannot bear honesty falls, and what cannot bear criticism withdraws, and only what is destined to continue remains. Continuity is not as a challenge to others, but loyalty to the original idea from which the project started, and to the person who believed in the word, and in his right to say it with dignity.
In the hundredth issue, it becomes a project — indeed a duty — to say that the path was not perfect, that the obstacles were many, and that the battles were not always fair. But it is also true that the compass did not deviate, the line was not sold, and the word — despite everything — remained in its natural position: a witness, not a false witness.