Like This, Like This... High, High Up!!

When nature bestows her favor upon us and we become fathers and mothers, a wave of joy and happiness sweeps over us, and we strive with eagerness and delight to provide everything our child may need in the way of food and clothing. We prepare his meals with our own hands, we take care to outfit him with every kind of garment, and when he passes his fifth year we take him by the hand to school; we rejoice when we hear him sing a piece, or when we sign his report card and witness his tangible progress — all this is a duty and all this is fine, but one of these aspects remains dark, and we have paid it no attention to speak of — namely, national consciousness. Most of our children are heedless of it, ignorant of its very essence. And the fault is not theirs, but ours, and it is for us to consider how to save the situation before it is too late.

Let the child love his country and prefer it to every other land. The child must be drawn along by what he hears from those around him — expressions of praise for the natural beauty of this country: its mountains, its snows, its climate, its woods, and its sea... Let the child's attention be called, on every occasion, to the beauty of these natural scenes, and when he grows up, their values and meanings will become dear to his soul and beloved to his heart, never to be exchanged for the best of God's countries.

Let us plant in our children respect for the country's flag and the country's anthem, and let these hold a lofty place in his little heart; for even if, in the eyes of some, they are but the outer husks of patriotism, they are bound to it by a tie, and they have worth and value in the life of childhood.

One afternoon Nabil came back from one of his outings carrying a Lebanese flag fixed to a long stick, and he gave his sister Sana a small flag, and the two began marching like soldiers, singing the national anthem. This game was the dearest of all games to her. After a while Sana grew tired, so she straddled the stick of her flag, so that the flag went sweeping the ground behind her while she kept on singing, heedless of what she was doing. Nabil turned suddenly, and it horrified him to see the flag being dragged along the ground; he snatched it from his sister, raising it up high, and said: "The flag must never touch the ground, Sana. It must always stay high, like this... You are little, you don't know yet, but listen to what my American friend John told me. He told me that when a flag of theirs grows old and gets torn, they do not throw it away as rags are thrown away; they burn it, so that no one will trample it, as might happen if it were thrown on the road."

This is how the Westerners begin planting the lessons of patriotism in the hearts of their children. And lessons like these, trifling as they are, matter to children and play a part in their simple lives. Here is an incident that shows how this idea is applied in kindergartens:

Issam is a kindergarten child, all liveliness and energy, but a constant nuisance to those around him. The methods of education were of no use with him, and he remained careless, a rebel against the rule. Now the children were accustomed to salute the flag and sing the national anthem every morning before starting their work. So the teacher rose, called Issam, and surprised the children by saying:

"Issam will carry the flag this morning, and he will behave well all day long. And whenever he deserves this honor, I shall grant it to him without delay."

And Issam carried the flag with pride. That day was for him a hard lesson in willpower, and he triumphed in the end, and went on improving day after day until he became an example to the other children. How many of our schools raise the Lebanese flag, salute it every morning, and regard it with such lofty regard? Do you not agree with me that treating the carrying of the flag as a reward for children is a means of enticement to urge them to better themselves, and that it raises the flag's worth in their eyes, so that they keep for it, deep in their hearts, a meaning worthy of it? And what harm would there be if this custom were adopted in all the kindergartens and primary schools of our country? — in those of them, that is, that are national, for we cannot hope that the atmosphere of the non-national schools will be steeped in this spirit. And so their pupils come out — alas — feeling everything except this national pride.

All of us love to learn foreign languages, and we love to see our children master them as far as they can; but it is not right that our conversation and our family correspondence should be in any language other than Arabic. Most of the pupils in our schools greet one another with "Bon jour" or "Good Morning," and if one of us calls their attention to the greeting "sabah al-khayr" or "marhaba" or "al-salamu alaykum," and to the beauty and music and national pride these greetings carry, they laugh and take our remark for a kind of joke, or for a mark of fanaticism — and that is because national consciousness is missing in them; it never happened that they were taught it in their homes or in most of their schools. This is grievous, lamentable — but it is a standing fact, and we must face it with courage and be wise in directing this rising generation in a direction that strengthens our dignity and our independence.

A person grows up in this country thinking of nothing but himself; he keeps late hours and expends his efforts for the sake of his own private interest, and when he is invited to take part in some general national project that would bring good and benefit to the country, he looks for his individual interest in that project and disregards every other consideration. That is because we were not raised with a broad upbringing; our upbringing was — and still is — a narrow one that does not go beyond our personal, individual circle, and does not allow our thinking to expand into the wide spaces of patriotism.

Our children care about the beauty of their dress, and are careful never to appear except in a look of complete elegance; but if one of them eats a banana while standing at a window, he does not scruple to throw the peel into the street, since the street is outside his house; and however careful he may be about the cleanliness of his house, he rarely feels his duty to keep the street clean and to regard it as a part of his homeland, which is his larger house.

If our sons had this national sense, our streets and alleys would not be what they are now — all filth and ugliness, which agree in nothing with devotion to patriotism. The patriot throws his refuse only in the place prepared for it, because he is jealous for every spot of his country as he is jealous for his room and his house. And the patriot, if he has a patch of ground adjoining his house, tills it and plants it with roses and sweet basil, and tends it with his own hands, taking part in beautifying his country, adding to its beauty a new luster.

And here is wounded Palestine, writhing in her blood, while her fighting sons struggle — the struggle of men fighting to the death — with all the power, strength, and faith they have been given, in defense of her lands and to prevent an unjust partition. All of us women are pained by the situation, fervent over the stand; we wish to volunteer, and we hold meetings to discuss how we can take part in this sacred struggle. But has it occurred to us to take up with our children, in language suited to their mental level, the meaning of "defense of the homeland" and "holding onto the land," and the meaning of "force and its trampling of the rights of the weak"?

And when our child asked us for merely a little money, to donate for the sake of Palestine as the children of his school were doing, did we meet his enthusiasm with coolness and answer him that we had already donated for ourselves and for him? Or did we show our appreciation of his zeal and encourage him by doubling the sum he asked for, affirming the importance of this deed because it is for the sake of Palestine?

The time has come for our children to awaken; the time has come for them to be aware and to take pride in their nationhood, to hold their language sacred, to learn of their country's problems and warm to them as their own problems, and to sacrifice from what they own, gladly and willingly, for the sake of the orphaned and destitute children of their nation!