The Woman's Voice Questions Our Leaders of Thought: Dr. Constantine Zurayk

Dr. Constantine Zurayk, Vice-President of the American University of Beirut, previously occupied a number of high posts, the most important of which were President of the Syrian University in Damascus and Chargé d'Affaires of the Syrian Legation in Washington.

Beyond this, we are entitled to call Dr. Constantine Zurayk the foremost leader of Arab youth, who regard him with profound respect and esteem... It pleases us that he answers here a series of questions on the problems of our rising youth.

Q — There is confusion in the minds of the popular circles about the meaning of "the Arab cause," and people differ in understanding it, and even in practicing it. Would you define your own conception of this cause, as one of its advocates?

A — The Arab cause has two conceptions: one is narrow and confined to the political side of Arab life alone; the second is broad and takes in Arab life in its various aspects.

In the first conception, the Arab cause is the cause of the liberation of the Arab peoples from colonialism, domination, or the influence of foreigners. Yet this liberation from outside rule is not enough by itself, if it is not accompanied by an inner liberation from feudalism, clannishness, and sectarian fanaticism, and if a national society is not created, furnished with economic and social factors that support it and set it upon a sound foundation. The Arab cause in the broad, true sense is the cause of the liberation of the Arab peoples, inwardly and outwardly, permitting them to build a flourishing, progressive society and to establish a secular state that assures justice and equality, and opens to the capacities of individuals and groups the field of growth and fruition.

Q — National orientation in Lebanon is meager and scattered in its tendencies, unlike what it is in the sister Arab countries. What do you propose to fill this gap?

A — National orientation in Lebanon will remain weak so long as the thinking that dominates many of its rulers and leaders is not the building of a state but the service of a sect, a clan, or a party. The basic condition for strengthening national orientation is that there spread among all the belief and the faith that the state, whose building is to be hoped for, is broader, more important, and worthier of service than any institution or organization, and that national loyalty stands above every other loyalty. There is no doubt that the school plays a great part in fostering this loyalty, and the most important element in the school is the teacher. The state can serve the cause of orientation by rearing good teachers who believe in the cause of their homeland and are able to instill true loyalty in the souls of the rising generation.

The government has so far followed the policy of attempting to unify the people by unifying the curricula; but curricula alone do not achieve the desired end, especially when they are looked upon, as they are looked upon now, as a body of information to be dictated and memorized. The soul of the pupil, his inclinations and his leanings, do not concern those in charge of our government and private schools so much as the information the pupil absorbs. And so long as we

look upon instruction as dictation, and not as teaching in the true sense, nor as education, our schools will remain far from the national orientation that is required.

Q — At what age may the rising Arab generation be given the freedom to join political parties and take part in their activity?

A — In my view, the young should not be given the freedom to join political parties before completing the secondary stage of study, because joining a political party means taking a grave decision with regard to the loyalty of the individual human being, and it is not right that such a decision be taken unless the individual has acquired the knowledge and the maturity sufficient for it. Hence I believe that those who work upon boys and girls who have not reached this stage wrong them, wrong the party for which they work, and, in the end, wrong the country. As for the university student, who is presumed to think for himself and take decisions on his own responsibility, there is no objection to his joining parties and taking part in their activity, on condition that this not affect the essential task to which he is called: the task of learning and of preparing himself to do his duty in the service of the homeland.

Q — What is your view of students' resorting, from time to time, to the general strike as a means of gaining their rights?

A — I have said that the first duty of university students is to devote themselves to preparing for the struggle that comes after they finish their studies. If they resort to the strike in such a way that their essential duty is suspended, there is no doubt that the strike harms the higher interest which they are bound to serve. The young have erred in this matter in the past on two counts: the first is that they used this means to a degree that told badly on their scholastic duties; the second error is that they confined themselves to this one among the means of struggle—and this means is by its nature a negative one, demanding of him who undertakes it little in the way of sacrifice—while there are many positive means which the students have not used in the past to the extent possible or required: preparing thorough studies on the questions of their countries, or denying themselves some of the comforts they enjoy in order to relieve the stricken among the sons of their homeland, and enlightening public opinion at home and abroad on the aims of the national struggle and its means. In these fields and others there are wide ranges for their activity and their sacrifice, and no doubt there is in them what makes the strike unnecessary, or makes up for what it lacks.