A Talk with the Poet George Saydah

To Miss Intisar Tabash

Mr. George Saydah is a poet, Damascus-born, who left Syria for Egypt and South America forty-five years ago; but that long stretch of time did not make him forget his homeland and his country. Rather, through his letters and his poetic gift he was the finest voice of the emigrants' hopes and aspirations and their love for their country.

I sat with him in the salon of the Normandy, and found myself before a man who has wrestled with time and known its sweet and its bitter. He speaks to you with a fluency and a sweetness through which shine his generosity of spirit, his kindness, and the delicacy of his soul. Although this was the first time I had met this gracious poet, I felt as though I had known him for a long while, for he talks with his companion far from any air of formality or affectation. And so I questioned him and he answered, and his answers had a ring whose echo still resounds through my soul.

— What is the course of your life today, after these long years in the Mahjar?

— For a year now I have been traveling around the world, my sole aim being to find a suitable place in which to spend the rest of my life. God has at last guided me to Beirut, and I intend to remain here once I have wound up all my affairs in the Mahjar. Lebanon suits me very well: its spiritual atmosphere agrees with my nature as a retired man who has no goal but verse and the poem.

The poet Saydah is married to a French lady, so I wanted to know his family's opinion of Lebanon, and I asked him:

— And how did your good family find Beirut?

— They were all delighted with Lebanon, and by way of preparing to bring the plan of settling here into being, my daughter has begun taking lessons in Arabic from a teacher here. My wife came with me at first to please me; but now, having seen Lebanon and its beauty, she has no wish whatever to go back.

— And your work, between past and present — how has it developed?

— In Argentina in 1948 I published my first diwan, which I called "Al-Nawafil," and I dedicated it to the Palestine relief committees, to sell it and distribute its proceeds among the refugees. At present I have a small, elegant, illustrated diwan being printed in Paris, called "Al-Nabadat," which will appear shortly. I can say that it is the first artistic work I have produced, for I had not previously attended to the truly artistic side. Today, here in Beirut, I am composing a few poems, of necessity, for various occasions; I have given three lectures so far, most of which included some of my verse. And I shall soon recite a piece of poetry at the Children's Welfare Society in Tripoli, on woman's work in the field of social service and child welfare.

— May I hope that the magazine will have this poem of yours?

— I shall give it to you for the next issue, God willing.

— What is your opinion of the Lebanese emigrant, and what should his attitude be toward his first homeland?

— Man in the East generally, and in Beirut in particular, complains first of the scarcity of livelihood and second of political disturbances. Once the individual is secure from the evil of these two things, nothing remains to delay his return to his country. So it should be with all the emigrants who are of my age. I see no reason to prevent these individuals from settling in their homeland and serving it through social and charitable works. And I acknowledge that a man possesses literary and charitable capacities which he can exercise on a wide scale within his own country and among his own kin.

— And what can our government do to smooth the road of return for them?

— Tempting the emigrant by way of self-interest is useless, for economically he will not find in Lebanon what lies before him in the Mahjar. We must therefore awaken his patriotic feeling and induce that retired man to come back to his country to spend his last days in its hills and valleys.

And I should like to mention here that the press in Lebanon gives it very bad publicity abroad. Nothing reaches us but news of corruption, disorder, and disturbances, which keeps our people away from such tainted airs. And so I hope your press will desist from this sort of thing and seek reform by some other road. The government too should ease the ways of visiting back and forth, and encourage the inhabitants to welcome the emigrants, so that they may feel that they are truly in their own country and among their own people.

His wife appears before us with her cheerful face and her kindly spirit, and looks at me with a searching eye; her husband introduces me to her, and I ask her in French:

— How did you find Lebanon?

— It is a very beautiful country. Its climate and its scenery delighted me, and I was overwhelmed by the generosity of its people and their fine hospitality. And I hope you will report my daughter's opinion too: she also has fallen in love with Lebanon and has begun to study Arabic — I do not know whether it is out of love of reading her father's poetry, or to ease her understanding with some Lebanese; for, as I have seen, she has no objection to marrying a Lebanese and staying here in his country.

The Lebanese have captured our hearts and made us forget our families and friends in the Mahjar.

I rise to leave, thanking the poet Saydah and his wife for their talk with me, and I go out of that enchanted place with the words of this gracious man echoing in my mind — a man who was absent from Lebanon for nearly half a century and returned to it only to complain that we do no successful publicity for it, while our worthy press makes bad matters worse and sows in men's breasts the seeds of ignorance and want. Come now, Her Majesty the Fourth Estate: the forming of public opinion, the reforming of individuals, and the lofty aims of the journalist are not to be reached by this road that you are following.