A Call to the Land

... We do not know what the woman of Lebanon will say as she hears, for the first time, such a woman's voice calling for a return to the land — the pure, bountiful land that gives and does not begrudge. To the women of Lebanon, then, we offer these words...

Miss In'am al-Saghir has conveyed to us the conversation that passed between her and Mrs. Nazik al-Abid Beyhum.

Mrs. Nazik al-Abid Beyhum is one of the ladies of refined society and one of the few among Syrian women — and, I believe, the only one among Lebanese women — who have taken an interest in matters of agriculture. She is a lady Syrian by birth, descended from one of the most distinguished families of Damascus, and Lebanese in nationality by her marriage to Mohammad Jamil Bey Beyhum. She is a charitable lady who loves good works and labors in silence and without clamor, so that one sees the flour without hearing the din.

The Palestinian refugee women are among those who have taken up all her time of late, living at her expense and under her wing; together with generous colleagues of hers she has worked to found a workshop for the refugee women, from which they can earn what keeps body and soul together and spares them the need to beg and the deadly life of dependence. Recently, in partnership with Palestinian and Lebanese women, she realized the idea of an orphanage for girls, the daughters of Palestine's martyrs; this club was opened last month, and it now houses ten girls who are learning every kind of practical and theoretical lesson and being raised in a sound, national upbringing.

Then I ventured to put a few questions to Mrs. Beyhum, that you may learn her opinion:

Q — What, in your view, is woman's mission?

A — If the Creator has fitted woman to be a working member in the affairs of life and made her capable of mastering every science and art, why then does man hem her in when it comes to realizing ... rights and duties? Does man not see that woman spends the greater part of her day searching for some work to fill her empty hours? Does he not notice that at times the field is left open for her to sink into the depths of the belief that she was created for love alone, giving herself over to adornment and display? And it is an injustice that the very man who made woman's highest ideal the winning of his acceptance and approval should himself then be the one denouncing her conduct, seeing that she thinks of nothing but adornment and dress and demands much for their sake.

Q — What, then, do you ask of man, so that he may help woman free herself from this condition?

A — Let him make useful work dear to her, and let him bring her to believe that she was created, as he was created, capable of every work, so that she may not feel an abasement within herself — and so that the mothers of their children not stand in the position of servants. Yes, woman is a cause of joy and a bringer of happiness; in her smiles is the spirit of gentleness, and in her tears the moan of existence. But for all the delicacy of feeling, the fineness of sentiment, and the tenderness of heart that adorn her, and for all the modesty, patience, and chastity that distinguish her, she is in the greatest need of self-respect and greatness of soul, and in the greatest need of safeguarding her feelings. All this so that she may keep her sincerity, and so that her love may be a natural love — the love of the free for the free.

Q — What was your first work in the service of the daughters of your sex and of your homeland?

A — I felt all these things as my eyes were opening to life. I felt my duty toward my homeland, my duty toward my people, and my first duty toward the daughters of my sex. So I resolved to make the press my tongue, and began to call on it to help me realize these precious hopes; I undertook to publish a magazine of my own, the magazine "Nur al-Fayha," which was the earliest of the women's magazines in Syria. Then I joined the charitable associations and the political parties, attended the congresses, was imprisoned, and was exiled.

"I found happiness only in the land,
in my farm.
There I breathed the fragrant perfume...
And the tree I gave my care filled my hands with its delicious fruit.
And the one grain was repaid to me in many grains.
In the land my two soft forearms grew rough; how often I have gripped the plow
and driven the oxen...
And I see that the shadows of that happiness have accompanied me always."

Q — Do you believe that all these things have brought you peace in life, and the feeling that you have attained the happiness you were seeking?

A — For all the tranquility of mind and ease of conscience I feel, I found the happiness I sought only at a distance of twenty kilometers from Damascus. There, on my farm "al-Zarbaqiyya," where I saw the fruits of my services. In its breeze I breathed the fragrance of praise for my efforts. Yes — there, where I never performed a duty but was rewarded with something better. The tree I gave my care filled my house with its delicious fruit; the grain I sowed with my affection repaid me grains for the one grain; and the flower I weeded around refreshed my spirit with its scent. There the livestock shower me with their generosity: I drink of the best of their milk and enjoy their natural affection and their sense of gratitude. If I call the daughters of my sex to work, my excuse is that I reap its fruits; and if I call them to the fields, my excuse is that I taste their sweetness. Agriculture is the most important resource of our country, and in the measure of our care for it we shall enjoy all the prosperity we want and wish for.

And I call you, my sisters, to the land — I am committing no heresy, for woman has been man's partner in working the land since creation, and remains so to this day. As for abandoning the village and migrating from it to the city in search of work, that is a social disease of which the West complains and whose consequences it dreads. The Arab woman has begun to think of serious work, whether we will or no; so, out of regard for social life and in keeping with the spirit of the age, I see a wide field before me to call to her in the language of love and tenderness, and to summon her to the field, to the farm, to the land. Here she will find her daily bread, here she will find wealth, and here she will find independence. Indeed, in the land alone can the sought-for happiness almost be grasped.

Q — And the liberal professions — do you advise woman to take them up? And which of them, in your view, is the most fitting?

A — As for the other liberal occupations — medicine, pharmacy, letters, art, journalism — these are works of limited scope, and before long we shall be raising our voices to say: enough women of letters, enough women doctors, enough women teachers. But we shall never say: enough women planters and tillers; and we shall never say: the poultry and the livestock have keepers enough.

Agriculture is the most fitting professional work for woman, whom God has endowed with instincts suited to rearing and growth. Tenderness, affection, and patience are qualities woman enjoys, and they make the office of motherhood easy for her. And they are the very qualities that those who practice agriculture require, for the plant, the tree, the flower, the livestock, and the poultry all need what the child needs of care, affection, and long patience. I can almost see certain readers, men and women, making light of my call; I can almost see certain educated girls mocking my wishes, saying: Is it for the likes of this that we spent the long years in study and learning? Is it on the likes of this that we pinned our great hopes for the future?

Q — How did you come to take this direction, and who planted the love of the land in you?

A — My late father wished to test my ambition on a farm of his called Hazrama, on the outskirts of Damascus. When I sensed success in myself, I wanted my efforts to be spent on a farm that was mine and no one else's. It was as though he wished to turn me away from politics, so he made me owner of a farm nearby, large in area but with salt-barren soil, which had defied my grandfather Holo Pasha, a man known for his firmness and resolve. He gave me this farm certain that I would find solace in it, and would find in it the broad field for my ambitions — and certain, too, that I would spend upon it without being able to subdue it and make it bear, and that in the end I would come round to his opinion and forsake agriculture in the face of the difficulties I met.

Q — Did you retreat, and how did you overcome the obstacles that stood in your way?

A — I held to my resolve and made light of the difficulties, and after a few years had passed I was able to bring my family the good news that I had succeeded in subduing the land without its subduing me — by the hardness of my will and the strength of my two forearms. Yes, by the strength of these two forearms of mine, which were soft and have perhaps grown rough. How could they not, when so often I have gripped the plow with my own hand, so often driven the oxen myself and tended them, and so often risen from my bed in the dark of night to oversee the watering of the fields — seeing, through it all, happiness accompanying me, and feeling an ease of conscience flooding over me.

Q — Why do you not stay on the farm always?

A — When I married I was obliged to live in Beirut, to open a house and run it, visiting the farm from time to time. I am a housewife, and I have two orphan girls whom I am raising; yet for all that I do not fall behind in continuing to manage the farm, with its peasants and its livestock and all the other things the land requires. To the peasants I am "the ruler" who solves all their problems and helps them in all their affairs. I play the doctor for them at times, and the midwife for their women at other times; I also settle cases whose solution baffles them, so I am the judge and the lawyer, as I am the governess and the teacher of their children. I keep orderly registers that I supervise myself, recording the yield and the statistics needed for every crop and every kind of animal. Farm life is an all-embracing life, holding every sort of life within it — what a happy life it is!