My Son

My son,

One day you will leaf through the collected files of the newspapers and read in them a squabble that took place between one of the "reportage writers" and Mr. Youssef Wahbi, styled the dean of the Arab theater, over a Lebanese girl who set out for Egypt at the beginning of 1946, aspiring to appear on the white screen as a star glittering in the sky of art, swimming in the sea of fame, and enjoying the pride of affectation and the wounds of false acclaim. It so happened that this girl had contracted to act a part to be directed by Mr. Wahbi. Her screen name was chosen for her, and her acting role was chosen. But no sooner had she begun the work than she left it and returned to Lebanon — whereupon the writer I mentioned at the opening of this letter rose up in her defense, attacking on her behalf, justifying her abandonment of the work and her return to her former life, and accusing Mr. Wahbi of a charge touching his person, its grounds bound up with artistic morals and social morals.

Mr. Wahbi replied, repelling the charge from his person, advancing other reasons — claiming they were the true ones — for her leaving the work, and announcing his recourse to the courts to obtain redress from her for her offense against him and for accusing him of that of which he is innocent.

The affair has an outward aspect that lends it a personal character and confines it between Mr. Wahbi and the girl; and it has a substance that carries it out of its narrow personal scope and makes it a question whose chief distinction is that it is the warning siren for those who work in art, and the wakening bell for those who would create for the nation an enduring artistic stamp — one that expresses the extent of its renaissance and portrays, faithfully and loftily, the feelings of its thinkers and men of letters toward the many currents that flow with it, in harmony, toward progress and success.

If the arts are the loftiest manifestations of the progress of nations and of their advance in civilization and refinement, as is established by the study of the conditions of the various peoples, then the art of acting, in both its theatrical and its cinematic kinds, must be at the least a fitting manifestation of the spiritual message that it is incumbent on us to deliver in this period of history — a period in which matter contends in a struggle that threatens humanity with annihilation, and during which it is our duty, as has been our way in all stages of history, to stand fast with our spiritual values, to stem the tide of matter, and to raise the standing of thought and spirit in the world.

We must enter the world struggle by our own door, the one we are accustomed to pass through; for it is not for us to enter by the doors the contenders use. We are not armed with matter, and arming ourselves with it on a wide scale would not accord with the peculiarities of our temperament as a nation, nor with our capacities as a people whose way throughout history has been to turn men from matter to spirit, and to call for the dominion of thought and the sovereignty of mind above every other kind of sovereignty.

And here we are — circumstances having granted us to resume the delivery of our message, at a time when humanity is in utmost need of the message of the spirit — standing before the means in an attitude of perplexity and weariness.

For we have tasted, my son, the art of the cinema, and have come to count it a necessity, not a luxury; and most of our rising generation have taken to spending gladly upon it what they begrudge spending on all other means of culture and amusement. And a few among us felt that it was an instrument of gain and profit, forgetting that it is an instrument of culture and the spreading of a message; so they took to practicing its industry and trading in it, choosing its artistic elements from among those who are dazzled by its side of fruitful work and profitable sacrifice.

And here we are: some sixteen years have now passed over the cinema industry in the Arab world, and we have no artistic apparatus that gives promise for its future, or for the future of the services it might render us in the field of the violent human struggle; nor have the masters of this industry and its exploiters tried to draw into its artistic apparatus elements who would work by the inspiration of culture and the guidance of learning.

Were it not for a slender handful of select personalities, of high culture and superior education, working in its field, I would have mourned this art to you, and told you that in the year 1946 we lack an art that is among the highest of the arts, the most comprehensive, and the most nationally necessary to us in modern times.

You see those in charge of directing the cinema industry, and the art bound up with it, perpetually searching for new faces. Would that they turned their faces toward the universities and the higher institutes, and brought from among the amateurs their women students and graduates, to give them the splendid roles — then the films would rise with their rising, art would be strengthened by their part in it, and the women working in its field would have a dignity fortified by learning and adorned with good morals.

Had that been so, we would not have read in the papers a squabble of the kind you will one day read in their files. Had that been so, artistic criticism and artistic attack would not have sunk to the level they reached in that squabble. Had that been so, the educated woman would have occupied the position created for her in the world of independent work — that position for which ignorance, vanity, and love of display now jostle against her. Had that been so, our consciences would have been at rest that art contributes to the delivery of the message, and art in our country would have risen from the rank of amusement to the rank of culture, refinement, and the nourishment of minds.

But that was not so; and art became, in the hands of some, one of the means of feeding backward instincts. So we lost the purpose of it, and it became a cause for stirring up troubles that artistic proprieties could well have done without.