On the Women's Conference in Palestine

Miss Fayza Abdul Majeed, one of the leading women of letters in Palestine, has kindly accepted the invitation of The Woman's Voice to join its editorial family — glad tidings which we announce to our readers, women and men, with pride.

In the middle of last July, Palestine witnessed a momentous national event which must be counted, beyond all doubt, among the immortal stands in the struggle between bondage and liberation, between extinction and survival — when her eyes opened upon the greatest tragedy ever acted on the stage of her land and witnessed by all humanity, as her rights were plundered and she was sold as chattels are sold, with neither conscience nor right. So she called for three congresses — of the men, then the youth, then the women — to ward off the danger and to speak her word on two great matters to which her destiny is bound: the preservation of the land, and the boycott. To speak it strong, proud, unyielding — in it the word of truth, and the decisive utterance...

Behold, the congress convenes in the Holy City. And that was a day of mighty significance, of shining signs. And those flags, symbol of Arab glory, flutter from their heights, while stars of victory and battalions of deliverance encompass it, pressing their march to the rescue of the holy land! The assembly took order; an awe fell upon the place, ruled over by majesty, while there flowed into the ears deep, tender strains from girls singing the anthem of the flag...

The girls' voices rose, piercing and stirring, mounted into the air and penetrated to the very limbs; feelings surged, hearts throbbed, tears streamed... For Palestine has no flag, has no anthem — and flag and anthem are the emblem of glory, the symbol of sovereignty, the badge of freedom. And where are the signs of glory for one colonized, and sovereignty for one subjugated, and freedom for one

And the flags yearned over Palestine, hovering above her with a mother's tenderness, while the voice of right called to her, ringing out from the lands of the Nile and the Tigris and Barada and the Cedars and the slopes of the Himalayas: Palestine, may everything cheap and precious be your ransom; you shall have a dawn bright as truth, everlasting as justice, radiant as light...

And Palestine rose up, her wounds flowing in drops that served her for ink, complaining from the Holy City, from the Mountain of Fire, and from every town and dwelling; complaining of 'the annihilation of a nation, the sale of a people in the market of colonialism and enslavement'; renewing her fidelity to the covenant — never since the dawn of the struggle has her resolve flagged; no, nor has her lance bent under ordeals, nor has her certainty been shaken by calamities. She rose to speak her word in an eloquent proclamation, that the East might say it to the West: 'No. No. No enslavement after today; no contempt for the weak — for the weak has the strength of right; the land belongs to its owners; and glory belongs to the Arabs...'

And the voice of proud Lebanon rose, proclaiming the sincerity of fidelity in generosity of sacrifice; and after it Syria the mother, proclaiming what she proclaims in sincerity and resolve; and Egypt, the qibla of Arabism, seconded her, spoke true and delivered the message; and the anguished Maghrib cried out, championing the brethren — distant though the home may be — for it and Palestine are, in affliction,

twins...

Yet one loud supporting voice was not heard. Where is the voice of Iraq the rescuer — where is it, hot with the heat of the desert, proud with the pride of disdain? Immortal Baghdad: do you remember the day I called to you over the ether from Baghdad, in the recent past? The day I spoke and you listened, and breasts and hearts trembled with

grief for you? 'Gently, O house of al-Rashid and of Ghazi and Faisal: here are your brethren in Palestine; long has their night-march lasted, and their processions have set forth, wrapped in red mantles, with resolves stronger than the earth and a faith the mountains cannot shake, to await the spreading of the dawn, the victory of right, and the justice of history...'

Or have you learned? That the awaited dawn has turned to darkness, that right is on the verge of perishing, and that the ink of injustice has blackened the pages of history?...

*

I cast my gaze and drew from this memorable scene an irrefutable truth: that that light — the light of the Arab nation, which had all but gone out in the era of the Arabs' inheritors, above all the Turks — has now returned to shine anew, as woman has risen with man for the march, for work, and for the struggle...

And I asked myself: if the enlightened Arab woman were to work within her own provinces — as builder of the family, mistress of the household kingdom, weaver of nations — to raise her country's standing and buttress its being, and were to direct her efforts alongside man to fight its social diseases and to wipe out the native and intellectual illiteracy that stands in the way of its progress, would not this do away with colonialism altogether?! Can conscious peoples, guided by knowledge, be enslaved?!

It may be said: freedom is the begetter of renaissances and the secret of progress — and that is true. But has freedom not its miracle-working means: struggle and striving, resolve and organization?!

The West has labored to wreck the national edifice of Arabism with all the oppression and might at its command; but its immortal spiritual foundations still stand — in its faith, its language, and its highest ideals; these are what established it upon the earth, and these are what will preserve it from extinction!

And the East has awakened — but when?! When the warnings beat upon its hearing and the shackles tightened about its neck; then it rose to fight and to free itself. It is now drawing near to its past, and it will return to deliver its message: the message of peace and brotherhood, of truth and honor...

And there flowed into the ears once more strains that stayed my thoughts from running on — deep, tender strains from girls singing the anthem of the flag. The girls' voices rose, piercing and stirring, mounted into the air and penetrated to the very limbs; feelings surged, hearts throbbed, tears streamed... For Palestine has no flag, no anthem — and flag and anthem are the emblem of glory, the symbol of sovereignty, the badge of freedom. And where is glory for one colonized, and sovereignty for one subjugated, and freedom for one enslaved?!

And the flags yearned over Palestine, fluttering above her with a mother's tenderness, while within her the voice of right rings out from the lands of the Nile and the Tigris and Barada and the Cedars and the slopes of the Himalayas: Palestine, may everything cheap and precious be your ransom; you shall have a dawn bright as truth, everlasting as justice, radiant as light...

Nablus — Palestine