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This week, during Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to Lebanon, many Lebanese realized that keeping a tight grip on their sense of humor is the only way to stay sane. I received many e-mails and text messages making fun of the "troublesome guest," but only one managed to make me laugh and cry at the same time: "Guess what the official language of Lebanon is now? Options: English, Turkish, orFarsi."

 If not for humor and a miraculous resilience, many Lebanese would have gone crazy by now. We liberated our land from both the Israeli and Syrian armies. We thought we had achieved democracy and independence after the Cedar Revolution of 2005 that followed the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, and we managed to win the support of the international community through the U.N. Special Tribunal for Lebanon, which was set up to investigate Hariri's murder.