Q. 3 — A quick glance at our students' abilities in the Arabic language reveals a painful truth: that these students find the foreign language — English or French — the easier, and throw themselves into studying it and going deeply into it. As for our students who take up the study of Arabic with longing and desire, they are a tiny few, surrounded by special circumstances. What, in your view, are some proposals for making Arabic beloved to its children and strengthening them in it?
Q. 4 — It is observed that sectarianism in Lebanon today is stronger and more active than it used to be, even in the time of the Mandate. What, in your view, are the elements that feed these poisonous currents, and what is the way to do away with them, when we, at the dawn of this era, are in the greatest need of uniting ranks, joining efforts, and striving for a general national interest that stands above every other interest?
One of the men of the Lebanese and Arab press; he has made felicitous literary excursions marked by sobriety, boldness, and precise, conscious analysis.
A. 1 — Let me first be permitted an observation on the question. The multiplication of benefit is not the opposite of a diminution of the importance of the reputable papers — unless what is meant is that the multitude of newspapers becomes a means of diminishing the standing of the press as a whole. And that is not necessarily the case.
There is no doubt that the multiplication of any thing lowers the value of the single unit of it — what in the field of money is called inflation. Inflation in a country's currency lowers the value of the unit of that currency, but it does not affect the properties of money as an indispensable instrument for obtaining one's needs. The apple season may come round, for example, and apples grow plentiful in the market, so that their prices fall; but that takes nothing away from the pleasure of apples or from their nutritive properties.
And let us take a human example. In a small country like Luxembourg, the deputies are many, which lowers the value of the single deputy and lessens the weight of his vote; but that does not lower the value of the parliament.
The newspapers in Lebanon are many. It would have been better for the journalists had they not been so enormous in number; then their revenues would rise, the position of each of them would grow stronger, and he could introduce material improvements into his paper in size and quality. The existence of only one, two, or three newspapers might make easier the formation of a public opinion. But that must take place within the bounds of absolute freedom
— that is, without interference by the state and without pressure from any financial bloc.
Thus I see that the question is a question of freedom, first and last.
Nor does the point lie in the fewness of the papers or their multitude, for multitude too has its benefits. This is what we actually observe in Lebanon, where the multitude of papers has not led to a fall in the value of the press as a democratic institution, which they style the fourth power. The press has been the vanguard of most of the blessed movements, and often — if not always — it is unanimous on a matter when the good of the people lies in it; unanimous despite the difference of its tendencies, its colors, and its values; and its multitude then has a value, for there is no doubt that the championing of a cause by thirty independent papers is better than its championing by two or three. Add to this that subduing two or three papers to an authority, a bloc, or a company is far easier than subduing thirty... and there is no scandal that can be smothered once the papers are many.
The sum of it is that our newspapers, numerous in number, each one weak taken by itself if measured against the great newspapers of the world, are most like handwork set beside machine work: they have in them the superiority of man over the mute machine. Or say they are like the small restaurants, each of which excels in one special dish, beside the great restaurant that serves you every dish by automatic methods...
A. 2 — This depends on the extent of the progress of the government schools, and on the state's will to direct education and unify it. If a prophecy must be made, I reckon that the importance of the foreign and private schools will shrink with time. And I hope this will come to pass at no distant time; for if I am a partisan of absolute freedom in the press, I believe in the virtues of a unified, directed education that fuses the citizens in a single crucible — provided the unification and the direction rest on a progressive basis.
A. 3 — The basis of this painful truth is the teaching curricula; the fault is not in the Arabic language itself. Whatever difficulties Arabic may have, for its own children it is easier than any foreign language. It is enough that we create in our children an inferiority complex toward their language when we place it and the foreign languages on one level in the elementary classes, and then on a lower level in the secondary and higher classes. Here are some proposals apt to correct the situation:
a — Teaching the Arabic language alone up to the elementary certificate, with all the other subjects, such as natural science and arithmetic, taught in it, as