After the Battle — Inspired by the Events of the Red Elections

We are pleased to believe that the "Women's Committee for Women's Rights" will not be angry if we do not tell it today that "everything is fine in the finest of all the kingdoms of the world."

The truth is that "not everything is fine" in the committee's reply to the pillars of the government, after the latter had acknowledged the principle of equality and proposed that the taking of rights come in stages, beginning with the admission of women to the municipal councils.

No, ladies. Your reply was not altogether a happy one!

First — because you gave the reply on your own, without consulting the greatest possible number of women, such as:

1. The ladies who are not members of the associations that decided with you to "cook up" this hasty reply.

2. The Lebanese women who make up "armies" of directresses, nuns, and teachers in all the government and private schools.

3. The battalions of nurses.

4. The girls of the baccalaureate and philosophy classes in the secondary schools.

Second — because Article 21 of the electoral law, whose amendment you demanded, is not enough to make that assembly "fit" for women's participation in legislative life.

No! No one will concede, and no logic will accept, that woman should enter the parliamentary chamber while the electoral system still rests on the basis of the list... I shall not attempt, in this short editorial, to explain the evils of that system! Events have explained it in my stead, and in the stead of everyone who has carried a pen in this country — blessed in some of its men, and afflicted in others...

Do not say: once we enter the chamber we shall amend the systems... for your deed would then be like the deed of that "mortal" who drank in the circles of drunkards in order to do away with drink.

My respected, and very dear, sisters: I say to you, take — and demand.

Enter the municipal councils and make haste to wash the face of Lebanon; then demand the entry of women into the departments of education, health, first aid, social affairs, tourism and summering, the juvenile courts, and cultural exchange in the Arab embassies.

In all these departments, where the future of the rising generation is decided, there is no trace of a woman's hand, nor is any woman's opinion taken.

And now — would we be truthful if we said that the decision of the Council of Ministers, with the inspiration of "the Republic" behind it, carries nothing but obstinacy, nothing but despotism? Is there no room in this decision for something else? Is he mistaken who holds that those who speak of proceeding step by step do so only to spare woman the tragedies of this past month? And how many they were, and how bitter!

And finally — do you suppose them strangers to that poet who said to us:

Warbler! O king of the canaries — and O prince of the nightingales!
If you fly from my shelter — you will fall among the ignorant birds!
My guarding of you is love — and he who holds a treasure hoards it!