A Thirsty Nation

Have you seen the parched man in the desert, its melting heat scorching him at the hour of high noon, who falls upon the sweet brook and drinks and drinks and still can scarcely quench his thirst?? That is a picture of the daughter of my country and her thirst for learning... And have you passed a palace of towering summits, lights glittering within, and around it dozens of the hungry, each awaiting his portion, until, when the door is shut and the lights are put out, they go back the way they came with a silent sorrow upon their faces?? That is a scene to be witnessed at the gates of Palestine's government schools at the start of every school year.

Yesterday I passed in front of the Education Department school in the city, and there were dozens of mothers, each holding her little daughter by the hand and turning back the way she had come. I approached one of them and asked her the reason, and she answered: "There is no place for her at the school — the same answer I heard last year when I registered her name..." I asked her, "And what will you do with her?" She said: "I will put her into one of the private schools." She swallowed a lump in her throat and added: "And pay a monthly fee for her..."

Do not ask, after that, how one who pays the tax for education can be denied education?? And do not ask where the crushing taxes paid by the Arab taxpayer go — chief among them a supplementary education tax!... The answer lies with the sum allotted to education, which in 1924 was six percent of the general budget and by 1945 had become three and a half percent of that budget... And the answer lies with the security administration, which swallows what it swallows in this country afflicted by so black a misfortune... this country which for twenty-seven years has remained a bleeding wound, repeating with the poet:

Ask me not about my wounds: for whenever
I dress one wound, another flows.

And beware of asking how it is that the Jews, our neighbors, are permitted to take charge of their own education, so that it has room for every boy and girl, and they can give ten thousand students a secondary education, while we, the majority, have but a thousand students receiving secondary schooling?... And beware of asking, likewise, how it is permitted them to draw up their curricula for themselves, making of every boy and girl student a rebellious creature with designs upon Arab Palestine, while the Arabs are forbidden anything but to march according to the programs laid down for them by the Mandatory government?... Beware of asking how and why — for that is equality in the twentieth century... and that is the justice for which the great, poor peoples fought, to secure it for us, we the small peoples, so thankless, so ungrateful for the blessing!...

And if I have spoken to you of this overcrowding and this injustice, I beg you not to suppose that the people bear it in patient resignation, content to let the opportunity slip from their hands... Private schools are opening in every town and village... and the demand for them is without parallel — a demand that drives even the toiling, laboring class to cut a morsel from their children's food to buy school supplies for a little girl, begging and pleading that she be accepted at the government school; and drives that same class to cut yet another morsel from their children's mouths to pay the fee of the private school. And when you consider that a city like Acre, whose population does not exceed 16,000 souls, contains one government school packed with 800 girl students and five private schools packed with as many again, you will grasp the measure of this thirst for learning and the rush toward it.

And now, here are some pictures from the very heart of reality on this educational front; I do not believe any nation on earth could offer their like. Study them, and judge for yourself.

Five or six little girls from a certain village, none of them past her tenth year, carry their food and their books and walk on foot to the neighboring village to receive their lessons at the school there, which is larger than their own village school... They set out in the morning and return in the evening, in the heat of summer and the cold of winter.

A room in the city, lodging four or five girls: they were the top class in the village school, and they left it for the city to complete their education... They prepare their food with their own hands by night and study by day. Does this not give you a picture of the Arab girl, her energy and her self-reliance??

A few small villages — such as "al-Shajara," "Sutam," and others — have no schools for girls. The people petition, and press their petition, that the girls be admitted to the boys' school... and when they obtain it, they break with traditions and customs and seat the girl beside the boy to receive her lessons...

A village called "Ayn Ghazal," in the district of Haifa, with a thousand and some hundreds of inhabitants, had a dilapidated school for boys. The people collected a sum of money to repair it, then decided to build with it a new school of three rooms; and when the walls rose, enthusiasm stirred in every breast, and they swore it should be nothing less than five rooms... They collected money afresh from the village itself and completed the school... Then they repaired the old one and turned it into a school for girls... A girls' school in a village of no more than 150 houses...

As for the last picture, it is perhaps the humblest of them all. We were on our way to Haifa... and we passed by the "Arab al-Ghawarina," a few Bedouin families who pitch their tents beside the palm grove and shelter there summer and winter... On the motor road stood a few children of these Bedouin, raising their hands to signal us to stop, and we stopped. The little ones came forward, imploring us to take them along to Haifa, to school, because they had missed the train. We did — and how delighted they were!... We reached the city and they got down, and the eldest of them stood undoing a knot in a rag he drew from his breast, then held out his hand to us with three piasters, the fare for the car... We laughed until we could laugh no more, and gave the little coins back to the children. And how wondrous was the faith of an Eastern child, lifting his hands to heaven and calling out as we drove away: "Go, and may God prosper you!"

O nation whose awakening is such that the ruler beholds it and marvels, and the invader beholds it and his heart quakes as he says: We are stronger than you in money and in everything, but we fear nothing so much as this rush toward learning! O nation in which the renaissance of woman rests upon strong foundations of learning... go forward with God's blessing — and tomorrow is yours, God willing.