A Voice Crying Out in Damascus: Has the Time Not Come to Join the Caravan of Civilization?

The League of Arab Nationalist Women has petitioned His Excellency the exalted President of the Syrian Republic, the Chamber of Deputies, and His Excellency the Prime Minister, requesting the enactment of the full equality of the Syrian woman with the Syrian man, above all in political rights, so that she may take part in elections, in government and in the judiciary, and receive of the various government posts and offices no less than what falls to the man.

We have received from the woman of letters Mrs. Munira Ali al-Muhayri, deputy secretary of the League, the text of the letter it addressed on this subject; we publish the most important of its contents so that our readers everywhere may study it and add their voices to this noble voice crying out in Damascus — the beating heart of the Arab world.

"The Syrian woman — who took an effective part in the struggle to free the country from the yoke of colonialism, and in working for the victory of Palestine and of the other oppressed sister Arab lands in their struggle to break free of the claws of foreign enslavement, and who continues to take part, with every means at her command, in this sacred struggle, which will win for the sons of Arabism their goal of full sovereignty throughout every part of the greater Arab homeland — has furnished, by this work of hers, proof upon proof that she possesses the true national consciousness, the grasp of the duties incumbent upon her toward the nation, and the sense of responsibility, the understanding of it, and the readiness to bear it without delay or hesitation, which make her worthy to share with man in the administration of the affairs of the state — a sharing that must be full and comprehensive.

The right of woman to have seats in the parliamentary assemblies, and to take part on an equal footing with man in the exercise of the legislative, executive, and judicial powers, is a natural and explicit right which it is no longer possible to deny or ignore in the present age. The human society of today, which strives earnestly to remove every injustice — of whatever kind and shape — that befalls groups and individuals, cannot keep silent over the wrong that woman bears in remaining shut out from participation in political life. It is self-evident that woman, who makes up half the nation, may not be governed by laws in whose enactment she had no share; nor is it just that she should submit to the orders of executive and judicial authorities among whose members there is no one who truly represents woman.

Woman in fact now enjoys all of man's rights, or most of them, in the overwhelming majority of the countries of the world. Certain Eastern nations, such as Turkey and India, have gone before us in recognizing these rights of woman. The latest proof the leaders of India have given that they understand the demands of the age we live in, and that they will not leave colonialism room to accuse them of social backwardness, is that they had an Indian woman preside over the Asian Relations Conference. It may not be easy for superficial people to grasp what aim the men of India had in view in this act; but they may grasp it once they know that one of the means to which the Zionists resort in their misleading propaganda to blacken the reputation of the Arabs — the one that works most deeply on the minds of the peoples of the West — is to describe our nation as a backward nation contributing no share to the world civilization of today; and that the strongest argument they bring forward to fix this notion in people's minds in every part of the world is the dark, tendentious picture they present of the position of woman in the Arab countries.

The age in which we live requires of every nation that seeks a free, proud, and honorable life, and that aspires to rise until it stands among the peoples who march at the head of the caravan of civilization, that every one of its individuals, without exception, take part in the mighty labor demanded by the raising of the edifice of its being upon firm foundations of a renaissance forever renewed and forever enduring against time. This means that woman's effort is no less necessary and important for the nation's rise, its flourishing, and the exaltation of its standing than man's effort. For man and woman are the two halves of a single whole, and a society whose affairs are managed by one of the halves without

the other is like a person who walks on one leg or sees with one eye. God willed that man's personality should be marked by certain qualities proper to it, and woman's personality by certain qualities proper to it, and that the complete human personality should be the fruit of the union of the two personalities. Hence disorder will keep afflicting the life of every society until woman and man share on an equal footing in the direction of its affairs — and then balance and harmony will be achieved. And we are certain that peace cannot be established and made secure in the world unless woman takes part in political life and in government among the various nations, for woman, by her very nature, is a guarantee of peace, security, and stability.

For all these reasons, in addition to the principal and fundamental reason, which is woman's natural and explicit right to occupy her place in society, the League of Arab Nationalist Women petitions His Excellency the exalted President of the Syrian Republic, the Chamber of Deputies, and His Excellency the Prime Minister, requesting the enactment of the full equality of the Syrian woman with the Syrian man, above all in political rights, so that she may take part in the elections — to elect and to be elected — share in government and in the judiciary, and receive of the various government posts and offices a share no smaller than the man's.

We hope that you will be so kind as to take the necessary measures so that these demands may be laid on the table for discussion at the first session held by the honorable Chamber of Deputies. And we, having been delivered — thank God — from the foreign yoke, hold that the country's independence will not be complete so long as the Syrian woman does not enjoy her rights. We are fully confident that by this endeavor of ours we render a new service to our beloved Syria and to our greater, cherished Arab homeland."