and how much of them all has she realized? A question that will confront you, dear
graduates, every day after you leave the soft, secure life of study for the clamor of public life and its problems. What, then, are your plans concerning yourselves?...
In my view three basic rules must be observed in our women's renaissance:
1 — We need in the first place to organize our ranks in a conscious women's movement proceeding under a wise and capable leadership that knows what we want, so that we may pursue it by the sound and effective ways. And we have every qualification for that.
At the core of this organization we must set sectarianism aside and work as Lebanese women citizens united by single national aims. And we must overcome the individual selfishness that submits to no order or leadership — from which we have long suffered, and which has been until now a destructive factor in our realizing an effective women's entity.
Second — the life of woman abroad must not dazzle us, so that we fall into the trap of blind imitation. We have often been accused, and perhaps rightly, of being copiers, not originators. This does not prevent there being many things we must learn from woman abroad; but it is for us to originate, and to trace our plans according to our own particular needs. With this principle go two basic rules: the preservation of values and traditions of ours that are very solid and beautiful; and the avoidance of shutting ourselves in upon ourselves, so that we are cut off from the outside world and have no effective share in it.
As for some of the beautiful traditions we must preserve, they are: modesty, sobriety, care for the family and for kin — together with the organization that must be introduced into family life — fidelity between the man and the woman bound by the sacred
contract of marriage, devotion to the home, the tie of children to their parents and the respect of the young for their elders, and the winning femininity for which the Eastern woman has been known.
And by not shutting in upon ourselves I mean our acceptance of honest criticism, our openness to the useful new, and our following world events with attention and without interruption, especially those that touch us. I mean also our effective participation in the international women's congresses and projects, outside which I so often find us because we are not organized at home...
3 — And the third rule that must be attended to at the start of our women's renaissance is the control of emotion, for this emotion, as it shows itself in many sides of our life, is what most obstructs our march forward. We must control the unruly emotions in our dealings with one another and in our contact with man.
In our social life we must encourage the mingling of man and woman in a natural way, and train
children in polite social conduct. And we must accustom man, before all else, to look at woman with a detached look, free of emotional and sexual involvements, so that she may cooperate with him in the affairs of life and play her part as a citizen in earnest.
Our man has grown used to a complete separation in his life between his emotion and his work; if we helped him to polish emotion together with reason through a free, open, useful mingling of the sexes, he would see a touch of beauty and harmony in his life completing his happiness, and woman would find that her effectiveness in the building of the nation had increased, and she would have begun from a sound foundation toward realizing her place in society.
So by organization resting on obedience and on close accord, by the avoidance of blind imitation, and by the polishing of reason together with emotion, the woman among us will have taken a serious step toward gaining her full rights as a human being.
Dassam Samn — DASSAM
The best samn is Dassam samn — there is nourishment in it, and richness in it.
Al-Za'ani
DASSAM