The Heritage of Heroism

To every emigrant man and woman:

Your fathers founded that mighty edifice beyond the seas of darkness only because "their fathers" hewed out of these boulders a homeland and a being.

No adventurer of your kin ventured forth over there except because his "kin" here carried the soil up from the chasms and raised, among the rocks hanging near where the clouds gather, these wondrous terraces.

Your multitudes did not triumph, on the day their caravans went striking out into unknown land, carrying civilization along with merchandise, then founding stores and factories, except because the forefathers here carved the rock, made the waters burst forth, and drew grapes from the thorn and figs from the bramble.

And you did not all join hands to compose that epic — the epic of a singular, unique emigration, among whose aims were a longing for freedom and a desire for a generous, open-handed, ample life — except because beside every emigrant stood a woman who surpassed the women of the world in steadfastness in the face of fate, in patience under hardship, and in devotion to what we have named virtue and chastity.

Ah, you who return — and the return is most blessed! At the hour when the broom-flower goes forth to greet you, and the rustle of the pines forms an unseen choir humming above your heads this enchanted air; at the hour when the brook claps its hands, the waterfall plays, the river sings, and the waves ululate in welcome to you; at the hour when it seems to us women, rejoicing at the homecoming of the eagles, that the stars are whispering of the great event — it pleases us to bow our heads and remember the shades of tens of thousands of grandmothers who sleep today the sleep of eternity in the burial grounds of far-off villages! Those unknown heroines, who spent their lives gazing at the sea, who stood at the doors at the appointed times of the mail carriers; those women who built glories for this homeland at the far end of the inhabited world — by the pieces of their hearts they surrendered to the sea, by the white sleepless nights they passed through, and by their patience at watching the house forsaken by son after son until it stood empty of men. Those strugglers first in rank: on the day Lebanon is glorified through you, theirs is half the glory, share for share!

O heirs of the Lebanese woman's heroism: "The Woman's Voice" welcomes you, keeps with Lebanon the feast of the "Return of the Eagles," and hangs upon your necks a trust to carry to every emigrant man and woman: that you remain true to the covenant, the covenant of love for this Mountain; for nothing raises up homelands but the breasts of men and the hearts of women.

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And since you are the heirs of heroism, we call you to a mighty and great deed, in which no blood will be shed and no souls perish.

We, the women of Lebanon, call you to win the honor of a heroism that will cost you nothing but a little love!

The Lebanese woman seizes the occasion of this visit of yours and lays upon your shoulders a cross whose weight will not overburden you. This country of yours, which you have loved and to which you have flown, has become the stage of a tragedy which, if you do not help it to lighten its woes, will turn within a few months into a great social catastrophe. In Lebanon there are brothers and neighbors of ours who have been condemned to be fire and firewood for the burnt offering of Palestine — they have been driven out of their country and have wandered with nowhere to turn: no house, no homeland, no work, no hope, no tomorrow! Do you know any misery greater than the misery of a man who expects nothing of his tomorrow — nothing, O God, but the humiliation of begging? You have come to us from lands where the Arabic language is unknown, and the problems of the Arab countries with it; therefore we charge you to spread abroad in your new homelands, the moment you return, the tragedy of the refugees, and to publish in your newspapers the terrible story of this dispossession. In the English section of this special issue there is an appeal addressed by a great scholar, Mr. Ahmad Samih al-Khalidi, founder and director of the Arab College in Jerusalem; and this appeal of his carries a simple solution to the refugee question, namely to settle them in the part of Palestine that remains to the Arabs, and in Transjordan. "The Woman's Voice" pleads for Mr. Khalidi's idea and calls upon you to make it a reality.

How often you have read in the Gospel: "Blessed is he who gives a cup of cold water in my name." The occasion has come for you to "give the cold cup," and to restore human dignity to one hundred and forty thousand human beings, whose houses, whose dignity, and whose homelands lie cast upon the shores of this generation of yours.

Shall I see you helping "The Woman's Voice" to bind up the wounds of our refugee brothers?

Come, to the work of charity, to answering the voice of love — come to the great deed of heroism!