A Message from the Lebanese Women's League to the Men of the Assembly

Now that man's opinion has carried the day, and he alone enjoys steering the helm of legislation; now that it has been decreed that woman shall have no say in the running of the Lebanese house — her own house — for another four years, we have no choice but to turn to “The Woman's Voice,” this sole platform which the Lebanese Women's League has had the honor of building.

And so we address ourselves today to those who have chosen to keep legislation to themselves, and we are more than certain that in all their breasts there are hearts which, however hardened, however turned to stone, will forever and always hear the mother's call...

It gladdens us that on the horizon are the glad tidings of a new dawn: from a cabinet of neutrality which made us believe, after the tragedy of the two feasts, that it is possible for people to love its leader without displaying their love after the manner of the people of the jungle and under the protection of the law of the jungle, to elections in which the government took no part in falsification, but left the people to see how capitalism and feudalism are still among its gravest diseases... In these two new events hope came back to us, faith stirred within us, and we felt a light glimmering at the end of the road, far away...

We say, at the opening of this era: it is ill judgment to waste precious time in Byzantine disputation whose day is done in every corner of the earth; and we — with an international airport on our soil bringing us every hour, nay every minute, closer to the world of order — sin against our children and against ourselves if we go on running our lives after the fashion of cave dwellers. And we say: it is a crime not to make of this generation, so full of the signs of beauty and love and worship, a poem of beauty and love and worship!

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O Deputies, we want to help you in composing this “Divine Epic.”

We want — while you set earnestly about granting woman her political right — that you make her a partner, from this moment, in the work of the municipalities and in social, health, and educational affairs, in tourism and summering, and in everything that stands in need of ordering, coordination, and cleanliness!

Nor will you lack a constitutional way to such work, for righteous work is constitutional before all else...

We want now, not tomorrow, that you work to bring down the price of the loaf, of the roof, of heat and of light, for the misery of the middle and toiling classes gives warning of events that will bring no comfort to the lovers of order and peace...

The Lebanese woman says to you:

These are the foundations; and every effort of words that does not serve to drive back the wave of the great dangers — poverty, disease, and ignorance — has for its portion the waters of this Mediterranean.

And to speak at greater length:

Let us suppose that a world war flared up on this soil, and that one of the racers for the strategic keys landed 100,000 soldiers on our land: would not the first thing the “great ones” did be to secure water for the health of those armies? And then to secure the loaf “cheap,” for fear the hungry classes should explode?

As for how water and wheat are secured — every one of you knows “how.”

It remains for you to know that the peasants, the workers, and the penniless — and they are the taxpayers in peace and in war — have a divine right to life no less than the soldiers.

This is all the Lebanese woman asks of you. You say: is it a miracle you ask?

It may be a miracle, but it is a miracle the like of which this human brain has already wrought by the hundreds!! And still we do not understand how our ambassadors

and our delegates stand on an equal footing with men who turn the wheel of the earth, while our men here — the very men who sent our young people out there to represent them — are unable to lay a sound foundation for one small, sound house!!

Yes, it is a miracle! But it is a lesser miracle, and we demand of you that greater miracle! We demand of you national reconciliation — total, profound — for it alone will gather your efforts, unite your aims, and take pity on your youth, which goes to waste in oratorical and rhetorical jousting that feeds neither you nor us with bread... And after all, we women do not care whether in your debates you follow in the footsteps of the democratic states or the Nazi ones. We do not care whether it is loyalists or oppositionists who govern.

Our one and only care is to be governed with integrity, justice, and understanding, that we may make fast the corners of our homes, so they do not collapse house after house, and that our villages may remain full of young men, young women, and children.

This is our appeal to you at the opening of your happy term — and peace be upon you.

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