With Mrs. Evelyne Bustros

The president of the Lebanese Arab Women's Federation, in a talk with the correspondent of The Woman's Voice, makes important statements, expressing her frank opinion on the Federation's program and on the matters that occupy public opinion today...

— What is the first thing you will strive for?
— The first thing I shall strive for is the uniting of all women's institutions and associations under the national flag, and the separation of national matters from religious matters. All religions are noble in aim — lofty principles, good works, and absolute love... It is not right that we should make our heavenly religions a cause of division; rather it is a duty to unite them as far as possible in the service of the homeland...

Then, too, the efforts working in a single field must be united, and all of them helped as far as I am able.

— I have heard, Mrs. Bustros, that you intend to open a club for ladies. What can you tell us about this club?

— This is a dream that has been turning in my head for years, and we have begun to discuss it informally.

— What would you think, Mrs. Bustros, of our calling it 'the Mayy Club,' after our brilliant woman of letters, and of approaching the Egyptian government to have her library and her literary legacy moved to Beirut?

— A charming idea; I shall put it before the members. As for the fundamental item of the program, it is the demand for compulsory education in Lebanon, for we shall obtain nothing that does us honor except by way of learning.

— Am I to conclude from your words that you do not intend to demand woman's political rights?
— I feel that most of the women's organizations in Lebanon are enthusiastic on this subject. As for me personally, I see no benefit whatever in woman's obtaining her political rights while she is still backward. The illiterate, backward man, who used to vote for himself alone, would come to have two votes or more, according to the number of his womenfolk, illiterate like himself; so our loss would be doubled over what it was before, and we should have strengthened feudalism and helped it, when we mean to fight it. All this harms us more than it profits us. Do you not agree with me, my dear?

— You are entirely right. What, then, is the solution?
— The best solution, in my view, is to fight illiteracy. The Al-Nahda An-Nisaiyah society has made a beginning on this project and now has five schools for girls in the remote Lebanese villages that provide learning for the boy but not for the girl.

Of course, such projects are of limited benefit; but there is an Arabic proverb that says: 'If what you want cannot be, then want what can be.'

— I know you have a book in French called 'The Hand of God.' Would you be so kind as to set out its main idea?

— The book 'The Hand of God' is a memory of the golden days in the era of Muawiya and the Umayyad caliphs, when the Christian soldier fought beside the Muslim soldier hand in hand — with no difference in the bearing of responsibility, in ardor, or in sacrifice.

— A truly noble aim, the one you pursued in this book. Why, one wonders, have you not sought to have it translated into Arabic?

— When 'The Hand of God' came out, the late Gebran Tueni asked me for it, meaning to see to its translation; but at that time I did not feel this was necessary, since most of the historical events in the book are Arab in origin.

— The newspapers mentioned recently that you have finished writing a new book, which may perhaps come out from the presses of France. What is this book?

— I have called my new book 'Maranatha' — the word is Syriac and means 'curse.' It is the story of a Lebanese woman; its events take place between 1900 and 1925, and it shows Lebanese social life, customs, and traditions. I do not yet know what echo this book will have, for some of its protagonists are still alive and well.

— And finally, have you a word to address to the Lebanese woman?

— My counsel to the Lebanese woman, and to the Arab woman generally, is that she pursue learning, for it alone will free her; and that she understand her religion and teach it to her children, so that she may live by faith — for whoever lives with wavering faith lives in darkness.

And we must not lose our faith in our homeland. Woman must plant love of the homeland in the hearts of her children; for everything passes away, and we all pass away, but the homeland alone endures through time — if we know how to preserve it.