The Women's Renaissance in the Kingdom of Tunisia

The scion of glory and learning, the mother of Tunisian women, Mrs. Bashira Ben Mrad — God keep her — has struggled and struggles still, with her firm resolve and her steadfast conviction, to raise the level of the Tunisian woman and to bring her out of the house of her torpor and the corners of her ignorance, by founding the association of "the Tunisian Muslim Women's Union." This association grew up in the arms of its virtuous foundress, who watched over it with the eye of her care and defended it until it ripened and yielded its goodly fruit; today it walks with steady steps in the field of fruitful work. She has founded several branches for it throughout the Tunisian Regency, and has resolved to found still other branches, so that the links of her project may form a chain joined end to end from the farthest south to the farthest north. For it has become plain, after many trials, that a nation rises to the summit of glory only on the shoulders of its mothers: they are the sole pillar of the nation's life, socially, economically, and even politically. A nation is made happy by its educated woman and made wretched by its ignorant woman. By this measure our virtuous fighter has succeeded in filling this void and mending the rent from which our young people suffer, and has begun leading the Tunisian woman up the stairways of perfection — whether by way of lectures, or preaching and guidance, or journeys and publicity. In short, she works for the project with all the strength and means she has been given. Nor has she stopped at this limit: she has gone beyond it to extend a helping hand to all the charitable institutions and to aid the students pursuing their studies in France. She has indeed broken the record in work and activity. She took an active part, with the members of her bureau, in the Labor Day festival on the first of this last May, and likewise in the annual congress of the Tunisian Agricultural Union, where she delivered an address that left a far-reaching impression on the souls of the delegates. She then concluded her round of visits with a visit to the Sidi al-Nasir agricultural school at Sinjar — a visit she made as an earnest of encouragement to the pupils, and to the teachers as well, and it left the deepest impression. She is, in truth, energetic, hard-working, sincere, and active; she believes in duty and acts upon it. She is the living symbol and the highest example for our Tunisian woman. May God multiply the likes of such righteous women and bless her fruitful work. Forward, then, forward — and may God grant a good ending.