Personality of the Month: Mrs. Alice Nahhas

Personality of the Month

"I am a queen inside the house, and the man is a king outside it."
"If our young men expended in their own country the energy, diligence, and work they expend abroad, they would not need to leave the homeland."
So says Mrs. Alice Nahhas

In the days of the Arab woman's renaissance, people were apprehensive of this awakening and feared that the fabric of the family would be shaken or collapse. But the wakeful woman, who knew that eyes were watching her and that doubt enveloped her, has given the best possible proof that every role in life has its hour and every work its season; and she never once forgot that her first role is her home and her family, and that her loftiest work is the service of the homeland through raising the rising generation soundly. Here is a woman who has done her duty in life even as she has kept her rights from it.

On a clear morning I set out with a friend of mine for a house which, the moment one enters it, takes one with its fine order and elegance, and with the beauty of the refined artistic spirit that rules its atmosphere. This house is the home of the Honorable Adib al-Nahhas, and the gentle womanly taste that presides over the furniture and the pictures, over the flowers and the arrangement, is the taste of his wife, Mrs. Alice.

Her smile had gone before her to receive us, and her conversation ranged over all manner of subjects until we came to the countries she had left a few months before, where her husband had been our Minister Plenipotentiary — I mean Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and Paraguay. After ample discussion and talk, I was able to record something of Mrs. Alice's admiration for the life of the Argentine people in particular; she is very proud that many of their customs are no less fine than some of what we have here in this East.

As for woman and the family in Argentina, Mrs. Nahhas answered, saying:
"Argentina has enjoyed her independence for nearly a hundred and fifty years, but only this year did she give woman her political rights — not because the people do not value woman, but because woman herself feels that she has duties far more important than the exercise of these political rights. The greatest credit for giving woman these rights belongs to a woman who was not like all other women: Argentina's late lamented Mrs. Eva Perón, who raised the standing of woman in particular and of the citizen in general. In the national field, political and social, she played a great and weighty part, and she left behind her a name of gold and a flame of light that will not go out.

Then Mrs. Alice asks: "If we raised the new generation on love, equality, and understanding, would we not, I wonder, arrive at what these rights give? Is that not sounder and better than instilling in their souls partisanship and politics and the withering they drag behind them? I am not against these rights — let woman obtain them and stand equal with the other women of the world — but I want the woman citizen not to make this her sole aim in life, for there are many important matters, if I do not say matters far more important. For I feel that I am a queen inside the house and the man is a king outside; if the man fulfills his duties, and the woman likewise, and we then join these services together, we attain perfection."

"Woman belongs to her home and her children. My son, for example, asks me every day a question that never changes: Mama, will you be at home at lunchtime when we come back from school? And I take care to be home at that hour, just as I like to supervise the children's supper myself and their preparing of their lessons before I go out for the evening."

(Mrs. Alice has a boy and two girls, their ages ranging between seven and twelve.)

Q — Does what you have said accord with the feeling of native Argentine women and Lebanese women alike?

"The Eastern sentiment shows itself in every woman there, without regard to what nation her origin goes back to or from what branch she descends. I have noticed that this national sentiment appears most of all in the inland towns, where one feels the Lebanese spirit in its fullness. The sons of the community there have kept the Lebanese customs, whether in their homes or in the public clubs they have founded in the capital and the outlying districts; in these clubs the fold gathers, opinions are exchanged, and sentiments mingle, and in them they also celebrate the national holidays and private occasions."

Q — What does the public there concern itself with, besides private business?

"Women and men there concern themselves with local charitable projects, but this does not keep them from also joining in offering help to their own country — I mean by these the Lebanese in the Mahjar. They are ever ready to serve and never slow to help whoever turns to them. Their latest gesture was the grant which I carried with me, in the name of the community in Argentina, to the Lebanese Red Cross society: its amount is five thousand and twenty-five dollars."

Q — And outside Argentina?

"...In both Uruguay and Chile there is a readiness like that of the Argentine people. I should like to mention something here that may please the readers: the schools in these two countries are state schools, and it has become the custom for some of the communities there to take upon themselves supplying the pupils with whatever clothing or school supplies they need. The school thus helped is given the name of the country of the community that helps it. Lebanon today has a state school bearing its name both in Chile and in Uruguay. The community in each of the two countries concerns itself with offering some assistance to the boy and girl pupils, and I must mention that the Lebanese woman has a large share in this field. At the ceremony at which the name 'the Lebanese Republic' was bestowed on one of the schools of Uruguay, a welcome gesture came from those in charge of it: they taught the boys and girls the Lebanese national anthem, and they sang it in Arabic, a language wholly unknown to them. Of course, when we say a school bears the name of some country, we do not mean that it teaches that country's language, since all the schools are state schools run according to a single official program.

Nor has the giving of Lebanon's name been confined to a few schools only; it has been given to streets in some provinces of Argentina."

Q — Tell us about the young people there, and how they spend their time?

"The young people there have a special passion for sport. After finishing their studies or other work, they make for the many athletic clubs, and the whole people encourages them, since they themselves are devoted to sport. You will see thousands of spectators at a football match, and I like to mention that one of the world-class players in Argentina, a specialist in football, is descended from a Lebanese father — and my elder son came to love this game because of its champion of Lebanese origin!...

The government concerns itself with the young and offers them all manner of assistance, just as it concerns itself with children, multiplying their gardens and playgrounds, because it appreciates that the boy will one day be the man of the nation and the pillar of the homeland.

And here there comes to my mind the alert young man who emigrates from his country in search of work in foreign lands. If our young men expended in their own country the energy, diligence, and work they expend abroad, they would not need to leave the homeland; but they will not be persuaded by the facts, nor do they value the counsel given them by those who have had the experience. The field of work is wide, but it is for the young to knock at its doors and find it. When I went to South America, I carried with me the notion that the emigrant refuses to return to the homeland. But after meeting people and living there, I felt how hard it is to carry out such a resolve. For the man who has gathered his fortune by the sweat of his brow, or the man bound to the Mahjar by a wife and children who are citizens of those countries — such a man finds it very hard to forsake a country after he has taken it as a second homeland for himself and his children. And yet they yearn with a powerful yearning and greatly desire to visit the homeland, and they are not slow to fulfill that desire at the first opportunity that favors them. Upon the men of the legations there falls the responsibility of kindling this sentiment and that yearning, so that the bond may remain unbroken between Lebanon abroad and Lebanon at home."

Q — Can the diplomat's wife do her duty as mother and housewife and at the same time carry out her official functions?

"The Minister Plenipotentiary and his wife must belong to everyone alike, for every member of the community abroad looks upon the representative of his country as though he were the country entire. Upon the minister's wife in particular falls a great responsibility, for she is bound to be tactful and modest, treating everyone with equal treatment, and every movement she makes is watched. And this work in no way conflicts with her first mission, which is caring for her home and her children.

We ourselves felt the community's sentiment toward the homeland in the feeling they showed in Argentina when they bought a splendid house to be the beloved piece of the mother country — so how would you have the minister and his wife answer such a sentiment? At the least with good welcome and hospitality, and by letting the members of the community truly feel that the house is their house, and that the ground on which it stands represents the homeland they love — nay, hold sacred. We were much envied by the other legations, not for the eminent material position our community enjoys, but for that sentiment they hold toward their country and the way they showed that feeling by presenting the legation building. It is, then, a gift whose importance is not confined to its material value, but lies in its being a symbol of the community's sentiment toward homeland and kin. This tenderness showed itself on the day of our farewell: emotion and yearning were plain on old and young alike, and the scene was truly moving — which only deepens our attachment to our emigrant half."

Q — How do the people of Argentina treat the stranger?

"The life of the peoples of Latin America closely resembles our own, especially in what concerns the family, as we have said. And just as it is our custom to honor the guest and love the stranger, so it is theirs; a person never feels himself a stranger there at all."

Q — And what is your final remark to the ladies and daughters of the homeland?

"I call upon every lady to care for her home and her family before all else; in this she will have rendered the country the greatest service. For if she concerns herself with raising the rising generation in a sound national upbringing, she plants in their souls not only love of the homeland and concern for it, but accustoms them to the truth that understanding and love among all the sons of humanity bring individuals closer together and make peace prevail. And she must cooperate with the school in the training of her children, for instruction and culture alone are by no means enough."