Inspired by Gibran's Message

You fought so that woman might enjoy the sway of her youth, the sway of spring; that she might open her eyelids rejoicing in the threads of light, and delight in nature's enchantment, in its fruits, its perfumes, and its shades; that she might walk through the nights of life at the side of a tender intimate, a friend, whispering to the stars the songs of love, and washing her hair in the dew of night to dry it in the radiance of the moon. You wanted to lift the nightmare of the ages from the breast of woman, the ages' plaything, that she might surge forward happy, and raise happy children in happy homes!

Ah, spirit of Gibran. The law of selling daughters for property, prestige, and power has died, and in its place has come a new slave trade, entered with full will and full freedom. In its place has come a strange new debauchery that drives young girls — freed now of the threadbare old — to bind their souls, knowing what they do, into the processions of slaves, racing after a wanton, sinful pleasure created for mankind by a reckless capitalism and a filthy dinar.

Ah, spirit of Gibran: no Lebanese in the Mahjar said, during the last war, "My people have died of hunger"; but your people here in Lebanon are still casting man after man to the waves, until the houses stand empty of men.

Your people in Lebanon still stumble in the city streets over children clad in filthy rags, roaming abjectly to sell, for a few small coins, the trinkets of the lords of dinars, while in their innocent eyes dwells that early, abiding care — the care of helping mother secure bread and water and clothing!

And then, what shall we say of a freedom you taught to your followers, when you went telling them, with every word you wrote and every line you drew and every color you melted, that she is the one to be worshiped after God? They followed in your traces and rose in revolt against her usurpers and her executioners; and their friends turned against them, and their fathers and mothers disowned them. How many times were they told, "The eye cannot resist the awl"; how many times did people come to them preaching and pitying, saying, "Kiss the hand you cannot bite, and pray that it be broken!"

No, spirit of the great Master: this is no complaint from a free woman still upon the dust of the earth to a free spirit that today enjoys rest after the hardship of the struggle, and swims above the waves of the heavenly lights. It is a bitter exposition of a reality more bitter still, one that will never shake the firmness of your free followers, however harsh it grows, however bitter.

It is a new covenant, a renewed pledge of allegiance, a faith in the message of Gibran and the Lord of Gibran.