Miss Sabiha al-Sheikh Daoud's Appeal

Sons of the proud mountain!

The newspapers of the Arab lands overflow, and the tongues of their forums speak insistently, with the economic and military rapprochement between the Arab lands; they devote the greater part of their studies in this field to the researches that concern the sons of the speakers of the dad, and they treat with every attention this weighty side of fruitful cooperation among these lands, which are bound together by the ties of blood, history, language, and geography, and by everything that must make of them a complete and undiminished unity. But what caught my attention — and it is the subject of this word of mine — is that attention to literary and spiritual rapprochement is very slight indeed, and nearly nonexistent. Economic ties, military cooperation, and commercial exchange can have no effective result unless there is a genuine intellectual cooperation to make the edifice of this solidarity complete, strong, and solid.

We find conferences convening and others dispersing, programs being laid down and others revised and altered — most of them aiming at the organization of trade, the exchange of material benefit, the establishment of the means of defense, and other matters that never leave the orbit and axis of the material; but amid all this blessed activity we find not a whiff of the scents of real cultural and scientific cooperation, or of intellectual rapprochement. It is a deficiency the Arab lands must remedy and attend to with the utmost care; for without it, everything accomplished today is no more than ink on paper, or a work already beginning to dissolve, so long as the spirit of these countries remains far from understanding one another and from grasping each other's spirit — its anxieties, its inclinations, and its instincts.

Take, for example, the woman's movement in the Arab countries: despite the efforts of the Arab Women's Union to unify its ranks, and despite its being an active movement disposed toward every good, they remain scattered efforts, with no single bond gathering them among these countries; and when efforts are scattered, their strength dwindles and their effect dissolves. Necessity therefore demands multiplying the contacts among the women's associations and organizations of these countries, and laying down a unified, practical plan to unify the direction of the woman's movement's march, and to free her from the worn-out shackles in which she trudges — fetters for which God sent down no warrant, and which do not accord with the necessities of the life of today.

And although we salute the blessed movement that crystallized and brought into being the Athletic Tournament of the Arab Lands, we find that contact between the athletic bodies of the Arab lands is very weak — far weaker than the athletic ties between many countries not bound by the strong bonds that bind the Arab lands one to another. It is an imperative duty that there be continuous contacts in the field of physical athletics, close cooperation among their teams, and constant exchange of visits between their various bodies, so that in these countries there may arise a strong generation, believing in a mission, ruled by sound cooperation, and bound each to each by a brotherhood burning in hearts and souls.

And what is said of the athletic bodies is said likewise of the bodies of culture — teachers, writers, men of letters, and poets. Rapprochement among this enlightened class, exalted in its thought, its letters, and its learning, is far more important than financial, commercial, and military cooperation; for cooperation in the fields I have named inevitably opens the way to political, economic, and military cooperation. Every edifice one may wish to raise in the field of Arab cooperation will be built upon sand or in the air if its foundation and its support are not intellectual rapprochement, unity of feeling, and a brotherhood saturating souls and spirits.

Alongside what the Arab League and the political bodies have done in an official capacity toward this rapprochement, there must be a popular cooperation coming from the public — and that is what we aim at in this word of ours, so that our mission may be fulfilled from every side and quarter; especially since it is the renaissances of the masses that rise to noble purposes and wise aims.

To such cooperation and unity I issue my call from the land of radiance and freedom, the institute of culture and civilization, proud Lebanon, which has always stood in the vanguard of the Arab lands in working for the spread and diffusion of culture, and in adopting the coming renaissances whose first signs have begun to appear in the various Arab countries — renaissances we hope will be crowned by complete cooperation among these beloved countries. And God is the giver of success.