Woman's Influence in the Renaissance of Peoples

Woman's influence in the renaissance of peoples, and her influence in their decline, are equal in efficacy and force. For the inclinations of peoples, be they good or bad, do not take root in their being unless they take hold in the being of woman, she being their instigator and their inspirer.

The histories are the truest proof of her efficacy in the life of nations, in their developments and their upheavals. How many decisive engagements there have been in which woman had the manifest influence, and in which she drew, for many a nation, the dividing line between deterioration and defeat on the one side, and progress and victory on the other. The swift upheavals in the Arab East in these last years are proof of an intellectual maturity in woman and man alike, and proof of real revolutions fermenting in the Arab mind, and of an actual development in the principles and beliefs it accepts, which belong to the very core of the rational forces of the East. In consequence of this there have occurred changes in what the community will accept of conditions and situations whose evils it was heedless of in the past. Among them is the decision of those in authority to give woman her political right. For the community has come to believe that the presence of the wise leader directs those popular tendencies to the good of peoples, and that the presence of the wise woman in the ranks confirms and protects the foundations of independence, and stirs and fuses the surging forces that look toward progress.

There is no way, henceforth, to put out the torch of the shining truths, nor to suppress the life blazing in breasts. Development is inevitable and actual in every living nation. And the nations of the East were not made to die, possessing as they do those characteristics and distinctions of nations which make them worthy of life rather than death — nay, possessing qualities that made them, at the dawn of history, a rising-place of civilizations and a foundation of religions.

The old upbringing of the Eastern woman generated in her many qualities that do not accord with lofty character and do not befit the rising woman. Among these qualities are cowardice, flattery, hesitation, weakness, and shrinking — qualities that lead to defeat and abandonment. They were as internal fetters upon the forces of her soul, which resigned itself to the old, degrading condition and accepted all the pain and abasement it contained.

Today, however, now that culture has spread among the various classes, most of these fetters have dissolved or come undone, and we now see the girl thronging to the houses of learning as the boy does, freed from her self-imposed fetters. And she has striven to free herself from those fetters whose undoing was not in her power alone, so as to be bound only by the bond of dignity and upright character — the bond that imposes duty, makes rights plain, forms the will, and whets resolve.

Woman has joined with man in smashing the shackles and opening the prison doors that were closed against the release of souls; and far be it that woman should ever return to them hereafter. The wise men of the nation have understood that when the waters rise they must overflow, and that if they are not turned to good and blessing they become a cause of destruction and ruin.

Let us all open our eyes, then, to the hollows we shall face on our difficult road, and let us know that woman's joining hands with man smooths the rough roads that lie before us toward the rising.

Change and development cannot touch one side and not another; they must embrace all the sides and conditions of national life if they are to be useful and fruitful.

No wonder, then, that the old, corrupt condition with respect to woman has been renewed and changed, along with the other conditions, to accord with the wakeful, vigilant spirit of the age, and to agree and unite with the complete national consciousness that is awaited.

In peoples there is a great property, which is among the causes of their vitality, their wakefulness, and their revolt. This property is the obscure feeling by which they know their oppressors or their saviors. It is a strange faculty by which a people divines its good or its evil in whoever leads it or directs it. And when a people is able to know its own good, it has attained the degree of consciousness that guarantees it continuance in a dignified life.

From of old, the awakenings that followed submission would open upon great upheavals in all the conditions that concern man and woman alike.

And it is woman's duty today to unite with man in the national purposes, turning away from the discussions that waste time and bring no benefit, and to work with her fellow citizens to revive the national spirit, that it may beat in revolt against every enmity.

For the horizon of perception and knowledge among us has widened; the sea of life has risen to its height, troubled and roaring; and enthusiasm has flared in breasts, boiling and resounding. But principles will not rise as we desire, nor the whirlwinds subside as we wish, if woman deserts the battle and is diverted by amusement from

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In the renaissance to which we look forward we need a cultured, proud generation, other than the old generation; and none can present it to the homeland but a free, cultured, noble woman who has cast off the halter of the past and come forward with courage, strength, and competence, preparing the means of wakefulness and progress.

the field of duties and the work they demand. And how can woman henceforth neglect her great national duty, and forget her responsibilities amid the succession of joint efforts, if we seek glory and desire the rising?

Any human force, if its training is not attended to, loses its essence and its efficacy. Hence the neglect of woman and her exclusion from the national arena in the past caused her to lose her special merits, and there followed a general incapacity and a feebleness in shouldering burdens, until the nation's strength dwindled away from all glory and greatness.

Jamal al-Din al-Afghani said: Movement with error is better than stagnation with rightness. The import of this saying is great, for in movement lies the secret of life, and in stagnation the abasement of paralysis and death. Whatever errors life may hold, it is the constitution of survival and the glory of existence.

No being could live a dignified life with half of itself stagnant and paralyzed. No — it would then beg for abject help, and submit to a servitude far removed from all sound self-dependence. Woman, in the revolt of peoples and their renaissance, is inspirer and worker; and in their shame and heedlessness she is cause and impeller. And here is the Turkish woman today: after gaining equality with man in rights and duties, she has confirmed the renaissance of the Turks and guarded with man the pillars of their independence.

And who does not know that the Lady Aisha, wife of the greatest Prophet, created by her revolt sects and parties, turned the helm of Islamic history, and transferred the caliphate from Medina to Syria?

And who denies what woman, in the person of Joan of Arc, did to overturn the political situation in France at that time? Her voice rose in fervor when men's strength gave way, and she spurred them on to rescue, attack, and struggle.

And who has not heard of the last tsarina of the Russians, Alexandra, whose weakness was among the causes that battered the throne of the tsars down to the abyss, and forever?

And in these our days, who has not seen the massed, reverent crowds in Argentina before the leader Eva Perón, laid out upon the bed of death, her great works having meted out to her triumph, immortality, and sanctification, and strewn about her the flowers of glory of an entire nation that walked by her guidance and her struggle?

And here is woman among us today — as in all parts of the world — risen and changed from what she was yesterday. This there is no way to ignore. Her duty in the public fields has become other than what it was inside the old houses filled with deception. Woman has only to believe in her own weight and appreciate her great influence, and to come forward into the fields of struggle with competence and courage, sacrificing her private pleasures for the general good; for she is the mother of the homeland, just as she has been accustomed to labor as the mother of its sons within the family.

In the keeping of those responsible is the life of the homeland, and upon the necks of all individuals are its glory, its renaissance, and its dignity. And in the decree amending the election law which the government has issued with respect to woman there is that which shows its concern to perform the sacred duty — the duty of social justice, and of equality for all the individuals of the people, men and women, in all rights and duties — so as to guarantee the rising: a rising after which there shall be no decline, no exclusion, and no shame thereafter.