Peace

"The Woman's Voice" invited the women writers of the sister countries to take part in this issue, and Miss Atika Farajallah kindly sent this article especially for "The Woman's Voice." Miss Farajallah is an Egyptian, a graduate of the American University in Cairo, whom the Egyptian government delegated to teach education and psychology in the schools of Iraq. Readers will find articles and answers by her in the pages of this magazine.
"The Editorial Desk"

Shahriyar said: "How is it, Scheherazade, that I see these lands in ruins, the cities deserted, and the provinces where today the owl hoots?"

Scheherazade said: "Have you then no knowledge, O happy King, of what has come to pass in the world since our happy time?"

Shahriyar said: "And has anything come to pass in the world other than the beautiful, fragrant evenings lined with hidden magic and soft music borne on the wings of the breeze, and the outskirts redolent with the perfume of daisies?"

Scheherazade said: "Talk of war, my happy lord, fills mouths and breasts today as it has filled them in every time and every place. And you know it well, for you are the daring knight and the valiant hero: war gave birth to you, and you are her firstborn son. But tonight I shall tell you a wondrous tale in which — had people but heeded it — lies deliverance for mankind from its many afflictions that follow one upon another along its rugged road climbing toward the heights.

When evening came, the happy King sat in the seat where Scheherazade was accustomed to sit with him, and she said: "It has reached me, O happy King, that humanity still wars against itself, devours itself, and despises itself, as it used to do in our days and long before our days — as if it were a soul seized and mastered by anger: its emotions at odds, its thoughts contradictory, its resolve crumbling, its mind distracted, so that it scarcely settles upon an opinion before abandoning it. And it has reached me that after every war people would gather in great assemblies which they called 'conferences,' in which the victors conspire against the vanquished, the oppressors lord it over the oppressed, and the conquerors divide the spoils. Every victor rejoices in what he has won, and every vanquished one grieves over what he has lost, and bends over his wounds to bind them, his breast filled with rancor and the love of revenge. If you looked, O happy King, at what they call conferences and councils and treaties and the rest, you would think them a market that opened and dispersed, where some gained and some lost. And matters go on in this fashion: the victor gathers in properties, monies, and spoils, and permits himself what neither custom nor law permits, while the vanquished folds his wing and prepares for battle, to avenge his honor and recover his properties and his monies. And after that no one thinks of the reform of the world. All people forget that they are brothers, that they are of Adam, and Adam of dust. For in the daze of surrender and the cloud of victory they are drunk on the wine of triumph, and there remain in the world no brothers, but victor and vanquished. And that is a division which does not allow this noble idea — the idea of brotherhood — to nest in breasts or strike its roots in hearts.

"Such is the condition of men in every age and time. They think only of their ambitions and their spoils, of what they have lost and what they have won. But they do not think of the world's aims, of the gains that all mankind together might win, and the goal toward which all mankind together should strive.

"And it has reached me, my lord, that wars have become world wars: they no longer concern two states or two tribes, but have come to engulf the whole world, and their consequences concern the whole world; yet no one, it seems, has awakened to that truth.

"I do not wish, O King, to look at the great states or the small, nor do I wish to look at victor and vanquished so as to reconcile them — that is a matter for the prophets and messengers and for everyone in whose heart God has placed the light of faith and guidance. I wish rather to look at a great error that repeats itself and follows upon itself while no one pays it any heed.

"And how would you have anyone, my lord, in all this tumult and chaos, this agitation and flood, pay heed to the little children?"

Shahriyar said: "Do you say the children, Scheherazade?"

Scheherazade said: "Yes, O happy King! After every war mankind finds itself before a great problem — and how many are the problems that wars leave behind them, exceeding those for whose sake they were fought! This problem is a problem from the standpoint of management, and it is the hope of all humanity from the standpoint of appraisal."

Shahriyar said: "Speak plainly, Scheherazade, for by God you speak in riddles."

The Queen said: "People let themselves be distracted from the children, though they are the Merciful's trust upon the earth,

the seeds of peace in the Kingdom. They are the souls who have it in their power — they, and not their unjust fathers nor their poor mothers — to beat the swords into plowshares, to make God's paths straight, and to establish peace and security upon the earth."

Shahriyar said: "Tell me more, Scheherazade!"

She said: "Know, my lord, that people pay no heed to those little seeds that carry within them the men of the future. And who makes war but the men of the future? If each time we raised these children well, uprooted from their minds the notion that war is the means of coming to an understanding, convinced them that war is the worst way of solving the problems that confront humanity, and taught them that humanity has a great future — greater than any of the thinkers imagines — then it would be possible to spare the world woe upon woe. Look, my lord, and you will see the world today in the aftermath of a war, suffering its painful effects; and you will see conferences and committees and branches of committees and bodies for the branches, all of them moved by fears, ambitions, and hatreds. And look: do you see the company of the people of charity and beneficence, whose hearts were stirred with pity and mercy, so that they stretched out their hand to these millions of children — barefoot without sin, naked without offense, hungry, paying out of their blood and flesh and bone and intelligence a crushing tax which those who kindled the fires of war ought to have borne? They stretched out their compassionate hand — small in strength, frail in reach, meager in resources and income, relying on the good deeds of benefactors and the donations of the people of charity and goodness — to keep the children barely alive and cover their nakedness."

Shahriyar said: "God bless them."

Scheherazade said: "Yes, God bless them — and may God not bless those others, the people of greed, who supposed that the problem of the children ends at food and clothing. Look, my lord, and you will see them appealing to people: give to the orphans scattered homeless through the lands of the earth from what is left over of your food and your clothing. But have you heard, my lord, anyone appeal to the people: we want a teacher to instruct them, we want books for them, we want to establish schools for them, we want to cleanse their minds of the ignorance that hangs over them, we want to purify their hearts of hatred, discord, and rancor, we want to prepare them to be the builders of peace?

"These are the builders of peace, and they receive not a single lesson in the building of peace or in anything else. These are the goal of hope, living by the thousands in pens or in shelters or in asylums — call them what you will, my lord — for they are pens where no caretaker attends to them and no chief among the chiefs gives them a thought. The men are in pursuit of money, the women in pursuit of mercy and refuge, and the children more lost than orphans at the banquet of the mean."

Shahriyar said, moved by Scheherazade's outburst: "And what would you have people do, Scheherazade?"

She said: "God keep you, my lord! The charitable associations, at the very beginning of their road toward reform and work, believe that they have finished their task and done their duty, and they turn right and left toward the people, soliciting praise. More important than food and clothing are culture and instruction. Have these charitable associations never thought about the cause of these wars, and considered that the cause of these wars may be this traditional culture and this blind instruction which the child receives from his father and from his grandfather, on the pretext of preserving human civilization? Look, my lord, at this age of ours, and you will see that the son has waged a war, and the father a war, and the grandfather a war; and if things go on in this fashion, every generation of the generations will wage a raging war at whose horror the hair of children turns white. Will these people, drunk on the wine of triumph and victory, or those who have drained the cup of defeat and disappointment, not think of choosing for their children another road in culture and instruction than the one by which they themselves were taught and cultivated — that humanity might perhaps be saved from wars and quarrels?! That, my lord, has become a pressing necessity, for people's need today for security and peace is greater than their need for bread and clothing. Have you not heard that people eat and find no contentment, sleep and find no happiness, and go about seeking their livelihood and find no peace of mind — because the world has come to await, with neither eagerness nor longing, a third war which, if it happened, would destroy tillage and offspring."

Shahriyar said: "And what is the way to deliverance, Scheherazade?"

Scheherazade said: "That is the tale of the coming night, my lord." And morning overtook Scheherazade, and she fell silent from the speech permitted her.

"Iraq"