At the "Woman's Voice" Symposium: Boycotting Foreign Goods

"Boycotting foreign goods"... a campaign led by the rising youth, its banner raised by a body of Arab citizens. And when the Arab nationalist youth march, everyone follows, for the youth's campaign is the campaign of struggle, the campaign of success, the campaign of sincerity and work. Taking part in the presentation of the subject are the Misses Fahima al-Hakim — a candidate for the degree of "Master of Science" in education and psychology — and Asma Mouakket, likewise a candidate for the "Master of Science" degree, in philosophy; and Messrs. Mounah Khouri and Hamed Jabbouri; all of them students at the American University of Beirut.

Moderator of the session: In'am al-Saghir

Mounah: In this stage through which the Arab world is passing, we consider it the duty of the Arab nationalist youth to undertake positive work to solve, in full, the problems we face. But before beginning the work, we must first come to know these problems and understand their essence clearly. Once we know them, we can join awareness to work, and thus our success will be the greater. The most prominent of the problems facing us is the problem of the loss of this nation's unity, and our failure to feel our own identity as an Arab society. There are kinds of colonialism whose outward face is political and military, but whose reality is economic colonialism, first and last. Hence the economic front, which the conscious youth take in hand, is the one we wanted as a front of our struggle — yet we did not want it as a front to which we give all our attention. We do not want it to be the only front that opens before us a field of work... What moves us to give it this attention is our belief that colonialism is economic in the first degree, with political and military colonialism following after. And since its economic being is a sound being, we have concentrated our efforts to create the economic being as a being worthy of survival.

Hamed: I should like to add a complement to what my colleague has said... The campaign aims at two things:

First: the Arab individual as a human being.

Second: the aspect of struggle against colonialism in general.

As for the Arab individual, this campaign aims to make him feel his responsibility and bear a share of the sacrifice it is his duty to make. If we address the Arab woman and the Arab man — without distinction — we want each of them to bear more than the individual bears in the civilized nations. In America, for example, or England, or other nations complete in their structure, the individual's duty is proportionally less than that of the Arab individual. Our society, then, requires of the individual the duty of taking a serious, resolute stand against the enslavers, just as it expects him to rise in the revolt of the noble man who wants freedom, and wants life and immortality...

Asma: I insist on the point that a citizen's duties differ according to the circumstances of the country to which he belongs. In a country, for example, that is still defending itself in order to attain existence, the citizen belonging to that country is expected to carry the responsibility laid upon him more than in other countries. We must banish the words "difficult" and "impossible" from our vocabulary. Western society aims at luxury, not at existence, as is our case. Our duty is first to feel our responsibilities, then the problems of our countries, and then to search for the means by which to solve our problems — and the boycott of foreign goods is one of the means of realizing these aims.

Fahima: Woman's share as a citizen is a great share, and her duty in this mission is a great one, for woman is half of society; and if she demands her rights, she must perform her duties as a citizen as well. Among these duties is that she should feel, and make those around her understand, that a country which has not gained its independence economically has not gained it politically...

In'am: Do you not believe that woman plays a greater role than man in this field?

Asma: Of course, for woman is a part of society; she lives her nation's pains just as man lives them; but from the practical side she consumes more than man. Is she not the one responsible for the house and its needs and everything to do with its affairs? As for the foreigner, he did not come

to look at our country as a spectator; he came to open markets for himself in it — so let us beware of that.

In'am: What, then, young people, are the practical ways of carrying out this campaign and putting it into effect?

Fahima: Sacrifice...

Asma: I have a comment on the word sacrifice. If the aims are made clear, then any step a person takes is natural; he would be making a sacrifice only if he failed to apply them.

Fahima: The feeling of sacrifice is a beautiful feeling, and it encourages a person to work.

Mounah: The boycott develops in the individual the feeling of responsibility, and makes him feel his duty as a citizen and as an individual. But every nation — every talk of a nation's being whose foundations do not spring from the nation's own soil — is a feeble being... Hence necessity called for the revival of the nation and the safeguarding of its unity and its civilized growth — hence duty called upon this Arab nation to feel its right that its economic being should be strong and alive.

Hamed: This matter has two faces. Negative: resisting the colonizers economically. And positive: building the Arab national economy.

Mounah: When I do what I feel a desire to do, without paying heed to any watcher or rebuker, the nation is assured of prosperity from my work. The boycott is not a blind call stirred up by fanatical appeal; it is dictated by a national duty and taken in by the nation's present circumstance. And so we began it by boycotting everything among the colonizers' goods that can be dispensed with, putting in its place what the Arab world produces for the Arab consumer. If we are asked what goods can be dispensed with, we have specified them in circulars distributed to the citizens... For example, the citizen can dispense with foreign tobacco, because we produce tobacco in our own country — and how many foreigners themselves have testified to the quality of what we have, preferring our tobacco to their own! Likewise all kinds of canned goods — why should we import from Australia and America and elsewhere meat and vegetables whose taste we do not know, nor from what sources they spring, and not replace them with what this land — our land — has grown?! Whenever this direction has become one of our glories, and whenever this meanness my soul harbors has been made good along this path... Our local production surpasses others: tomato juice from Bikfaya or Hammana or elsewhere is a thousand times better than what we import from abroad — and candies, and shoes of every kind — and even nylon stockings: our country produces some of them. Did our ladies know that??

Hamed: The question is: once we have addressed this call to the Arab people, how do we carry it out?

First: every reader, woman or man, must adopt our idea and believe in our campaign; and once each one of us believes, he strives his utmost to spread it among his friends and acquaintances. He propagates it as a national duty laid upon him, in clubs, associations, schools, and elsewhere. Our campaign is organized, and many conscious citizens, men and women, have already begun to practice it. As for the steps we have taken so far: the formation of a central committee to organize the campaign, and from it subsidiary committees, women's and mixed. Its center is Lebanon, and from there it spreads into the Arab family circle. We have branches in every city — among them, so far, Tripoli, Sidon, and Beirut — hoping to extend them afterward.

Asma: And we, in our turn, count on everyone who reads or hears of this campaign of ours to believe in it and to help us, that he may help himself and his homeland.

Hamed: Likewise the public and private meetings we hold.

Mounah: This in addition to the various means of publication, and personal contacts, and meetings, as we said — and the most important thing of all is example.

Hamed: We have addressed invitations to a number of citizens to send us their advice and their comments on the course of this campaign.

Mounah: Our campaign relies on reason in the conduct of its affairs; whatever is useful, it proceeds upon.

Fahima: We have in the Arab countries products we can be proud of, because they rival foreign products. For example: we have perfumed face soap that surpasses in quality the soap we import; likewise sweets, and the various kinds of glass and crystal — and there are many other such things. All of these can be dispensed with, and we can content ourselves with our own products.

Mounah: How can we have a being of our own with Israel at our side — or how can we do away with her, alongside the other fronts of the struggle — unless we cut off her road to the exploitation of the Arab market?

Hamed: We must always remember that there is an idea of making Israel industrial and the Arab countries agricultural. The gain would then be hers, for she would then be able to dispose of her goods in our countries while we remained in need of aid from her...

Mounah: And from here comes the duty to revive industry in the Arab homeland, so that she will find no room for life among us.

Fahima: Do you not think this duty could have been undertaken by the government?

Hamed: In our hope we do not turn to the governments, because they have not proved to us in practice their success in various matters; and if the governments have gone bankrupt, the peoples are still teeming with creative power and life.

Fahima: We must, then, urge the people to form a public opinion that will move the government to limit imports and to enact legislation protecting national goods — by placing high taxes, for example, on imported foreign goods.

Mounah: There is the unnatural rupture between Syria and Lebanon. Is it better for us to import Australian wheat, for example, instead of importing it from Syria? Those conducting the campaign are conscious people who see the right wherever it may be. If we cut off at the root the foreign goods that can be dispensed with, we encourage local production at the same time.

Fahima: And thereby we solve the problem of unemployment — or at least lessen its severity — by giving the workers work.

Mounah: I do not understand how a nation that does not produce so much as a nail can be independent?!..

Hamed: Before closing, I wish to emphasize three points:

1 - The campaign is not directed at a single Arab country; it is for the Arab homeland as a whole.

2 - It is a general struggle, one front among the fronts of the Arab struggle. It is a part of the whole duty; so let no citizen believe that by fulfilling the aim of this campaign he has completed the endeavor and his national duty.

3 - The campaign has begun and will never end, whatever the difficulties. Some resistance has appeared so far among selfish bodies traitorous to the homeland; but the committee, even so, is aware of these matters and alive to everything that may result from them, and it relies on the consciousness of those who carry on the resistance.

Hamed: And in conclusion: we do not want merely to make our voice heard by the readers; we want each of them to do his utmost and to spread the idea to others, so that they put this sacred national duty into practice.

To sum up, the boycott is:
- an awakening of national feeling;
- a revival of the Arab nation's economy;
- a development of the feeling of responsibility and sacrifice in the citizen;
- a making of the cause of the homeland and its colonizers a living thing in the souls of individuals;
- the nation's right to liberation and to life.