The Conference of Lights!

On the occasion of the convening of the conference of the blind

You, my dear reader, are among those who swim in the waves of heavenly light.

When the splendor of dawn tears apart the curtains of darkness, you enjoy a thousand pleasures and a thousand gems: from the sight of the pearls of dew, glittering upon the emerald of the leaves; to the battalions of sheep pressing close together and then surging forth in white waves over plains cut across by every scale of color; to the hills, shoulder against shoulder, as though whispering to one another the events of bygone ages; to the gleaming asphalt roads gliding among the valleys and slopes and curling in a circle near the summits, like a stroke of the kohl pencil beneath the lashes of a dark bride; to that billowing blue, into which the clouds seem to have plunged and been dyed in its blueness; to the fires of the sun peering out faintly in the morning — and no sooner does the disk touch the peaks of Sannine than we witness the eternal miracle, repeated every day; and every day it warms the earth, and the earth pours forth grace and life upon mankind.

Do you know, my dear reader, the meaning of all this?

*

You, my dear reader, never cease to live in vexation and gloom! For the house has not been painted as you wish.
And the car was a quarter of an hour late.
And your agent in Europe or America sent you the goods short.
And your son — who possesses two eyes, and who could bend over his books for ten years — failed his examination.
And your daughter's mother-in-law did not dress her, on the wedding day, in the necklace you had hoped for.

And you — my dear reader, are you not in unending worry because your car is old? Because the house you live in has no modern bathroom? Because your ivory wrist is not encircled by a bracelet in the latest style? And because you are obliged to darn your husband's and your children's stockings?

I charge you, when these thoughts pass through your head and lay the nightmare of resentment upon your breast, to look at the road lying open before your eyes, and at your two strong feet, which carry you — without a guide — whenever you wish and wherever you wish! As for your beautiful wrist, bare of costly ornament: is it not one of God's blessings that your husband's eye can see its whiteness and the beauty of its form?

Do you grasp, my dear reader, the meaning of this sentence of that blind man:

"I am but a man made able through others!"

You are able to do everything by yourself, and with your own eyes. Will you not thank the Lord of Lights?

*

All this, and more than this, passed through my mind the day I entered the UNESCO city and saw the delegations of the Eastern states entering two by two — the member and his guide...

How like yesterday is today!

Yesterday? The day of UNESCO? The day the flags of fifty-two states were unfurled in triumph, and the music rang out, and the troops passed in review, and the beauties thronged in their elegant gowns, and the men in formal black?

All that pomp and ostentation was not more powerful upon the soul than the sight of these blind men, enduring the hardships of journeys filled with a thousand causes of distress for those in their condition, and gathering to study their problems — the problems of the alphabet that is read by touch, not by the light of the eyes. There was in the meeting hall something indescribable, inexplicable, at the moment when the rapporteur of the previous conference, Mr. Mackenzie — blind since his youth — rose after the Minister of Education and delivered a clear, brief, moving address, wishing that the conference might end well and that Lebanon might be the pioneer in unifying the alphabet of the blind.

At the close of the opening ceremony I looked at those present. I saw no elegant ladies, no painted ones... I saw loving sisters — these women who lift from the shoulders of the Lebanese treasury a great share of the burdens of public relief; presidents and members of the associations enlisted in the service of the Red Cross, the shelters, the hospitals, the children's homes, and the fight against illiteracy. And all of them were thinking that Lebanon — government and people — has fallen short before the problems of the blind. Who is there for the blind in my country, Lebanon??