Said Takieddine stands in the front rank of the men of letters whose names resound in Lebanon today. The general editorial director of Dar al-Kitab thought to ask the great writer to contribute to The Woman's Voice, which carries fine literature and elegant thought
to the new generation, and to work at making it known in the emigrant circles of Manila... The result was this letter, in which the personality of Said Takieddine shines through with all its frankness, force, and life...
Brother Youssef,
When I returned yesterday from a week's absence from Manila I rushed to the pile of letters, hunting for one from "back home," and among them there was only your letter; and I rejoiced in it, for it quenched my spiritual thirst.
Lord, how our hearts have been bound fast to that spot of the world and to those in it!
I reread it over and over, delighted at an effort exerted in the cause of woman. By a strange coincidence, on my way to Manila I was reading the memoirs of George Patton, commander of the American army in the North African campaign, and his statement that the backwardness of the Arabs in North Africa has two causes, one of them their contempt for woman.
I am most eager to read The Woman's Voice. What is its stuffing, I wonder—sand or dynamite? Qasim Amin, Jirji Baz, and others said—in tens of thousands of words—what boils down to "she who rocks the cradle..." We want a hurricane, not a breeze. Take up the axe and cut. And the first thing that must be cut off is the heavy nun of the feminine.
You want me to send you something written for the magazine. I fear, for you and for myself, a pelting with stones. My ideas—political and social, and among them those on women—are violent. Everything I have sent to Beirut on these subjects, my dear friends there have refused to let appear for me. "Watch out—this phrase may wound the Muslims. Watch out lest the Christians rise up against you over this idea. Watch out—the Druze will not be pleased with this talk. Watch out..." And what we need is a qabaday who does not watch out. Between ourselves, I am no qabaday. Are you a qabaday, I wonder?
I have nothing at hand that is at once neutral and about women. Perhaps you would like to reprint the story "The Inkwell" from A Handful of Wind—it is a woman's story. Perhaps you would like to announce that my new play is entitled "The Desolate Road," a drama in which woman has a great part. In it a persecuted wife rises up against her husband and strikes him with her fist [had I been certain that you are married, as I am, I would have said "may evil keep far from you"] and cries: "I never knew what strength lay hidden in this thin hand until I gathered it into a fist and struck."
Our colony here is small; it does not come to twenty men in Manila. And if you have heard anything of a strength we have shown, it is because I "gathered it into a fist and struck." For that reason I shall not be able to assist you in circulating the magazine. The most I can do is to ask them not to snatch it off the table before I have read it. Someone will come to you to pay my subscription for me—and he may already have done so.
I have held, and hold still, to the belief that money is the dust of the road, stirred up by our marching through life and our wrestling in it. It shall not blind my eyes, nor stop my ears. At one time, when I was deprived of it, I used to dream of laying hold of it in the hope of spending it on generous deeds. And when I came by a little of it, and saw how much beauty money creates, my attachment to it grew, and I ask myself: is it not my duty to remain on this front, fighting for the creation of beauty? Nor will I deny to you that at certain times, in a moment of clear sight, I stop panting and say: do I not owe toward myself a duty like the one I have imposed upon myself toward people?
Who told you that you are a stranger to me? What man or woman in that paradise of the world is not—he or she—a part of my soul?!
I long for the day I meet you; and who knows—perhaps when arm grips arm between us, I shall feel once more that I have become a "qabaday" again, one who does not fear the pelting of stones; nay, those who carry the stones will hold back from hurling them at us once they have made certain that we are qabadays.
My hand to my heart.
Your brother — Said Takieddine