Friday, December 11, marked the anniversary of the immortal leader Mrs. Huda Shaarawi, and Radio Lebanon presented a special program for the occasion in its weekly corner 'Woman's Talk,' in which Mrs. Jihan Gazawi Aony delivered the following address:

If I wish to speak today of the great fighter Huda Shaarawi on the occasion of her fifth anniversary, then

I must speak as well of the stretch of time that sur-rounded that blessed leap taken by the first woman of our Arab East, so that the discerning listener may know how it was granted to that one woman to lead millions of women behind her, bearing in her noble hand the torch of light, without heeding the leaders of religion, or troubling herself with the disputation of the rigid, or caring for the debates of the approvers with these or with those. Her aim was one alone: to raise woman's standing and to lift her up from that level in which she had so long acquiesced — to lift her up in deed, after having pre-pared the way for it in word over a period of time which, for all the ruggedness of the path, was radiant and alluring, taking such hold of her thinking that she never ceased laboring at it night

and day with a convic-tion of steel.

True, a few striv-ing individuals had prepared the ground for this movement of transition with bold and righteous pens — such as Qasim Amin, Bahithat al-Badiya, May, and a few others besides — yet not one of them dared to put into practice what he said; for to change the face of history and to carry it from one condition to another is no light or easy matter, and there stand its inherited beliefs, reli-gious and traditional. Hence there had to exist a personality of revolutionary genius, with a self-assur-ance no barrier could withstand; a devoted, strong soul whose lance never bends and

whose zeal never rests, and a daring... in harmony with deep-rooted stock and nobility of lineage; a forcefulness joined to a great deal of woman's delicacy, the softness of femininity, and the innocence of angels — all of it encompassed by a splendor of beauty and a leap of intelligence. And that personality, which history prepared to be alone a fabric unique of its kind, was: Huda Shaarawi.

Huda — this wondrous woman, on whose study volumes ought to be written, and to whom, in every house of the women's unions, in every land of the Arab world, a memorial of marble ought to be raised, that all may know that Huda will remain through the ages one of the women of genius and greatness of this world, women who ought to be taken as examples. Not because her life was one long chain of struggle

stretching to nearly forty years; nor because she was the first to lift from woman's face the veil of ignorance and abasement; nor because she stood to defy history and say to it: after today there shall no longer be written in your glorious register 'men and men'... but 'women and men.' No — not for this, nor for that, but because she showed us a new face among the faces of women: a face in which, beside the freshness of beauty, there is a captivating radiance of thought; in which, beside woman's natural tenderness and compassion, there is the firmness of leadership; and in which, beside nobility of lineage, there are dignity and poise — all of them together that very thing

which the man-leader lacks, with his arrogance and vanity, his tyranny and recklessness.

Huda Shaarawi showed us the face of a young girl