Michel Chiha and the Personality of Lebanon

The hall of the Ministry of National Education was packed on the evening of the seventh of May for the memorial ceremony for "Michel Chiha," held by the Ahl al-Qalam Society under the patronage of His Excellency the President of the Republic.

Mr. Salah Labaki, president of the Ahl al-Qalam Society, opened the ceremony and spoke on "Michel Chiha the Man"; he was followed by Mr. Muhyi al-Din al-Suli, who spoke on Michel Chiha the thinker; after him Mr. Élie Tyan took the podium and spoke (in French) on Michel Chiha the man of wide reading; then Dr. Salim Haidar on Chiha the poet; and Mr. Michel Asmar closed the ceremony, speaking on Chiha and the personality of Lebanon.

The Woman's Voice has seen fit to excerpt some passages from Mr. Asmar's address, to reveal certain rich aspects of the late man's life, in the desire to introduce him to those readers who missed the chance of knowing him...

"In 1919 Michel Chiha was twenty-eight years old. He had completed his studies at Saint Joseph College in 1906, then spent three years in England studying commercial and financial sciences, returning from them to Lebanon, which he left unwillingly for Egypt in 1915 to continue his law studies at Cairo University, before coming back at last to his homeland.

And let our friend Élie Tyan permit us to use here his symbolic, poetic language in speaking of this stage of Michel Chiha's life.

Michel Chiha ends one of his poems with a line in which he says:
"You have given me, O Lord, a heart too great for me, and I am straitened by its outpouring."

"In the life of Michel Chiha there is a great adventure. From his twentieth year he met the beautiful captive. That was during the First World War, in the days when empires were breaking apart and homelands collapsing. It was the beginning of the adventure. Then he led the campaign to prepare the garment that would befit her, suit her condition, and guarantee her continuity and flourishing."

"Gentlemen, I do not doubt that you have realized this captive was embodied in Lebanon. And there is no exaggeration whatever in embodying Lebanon as Michel Chiha's bride.

The garment in which Michel Chiha dressed Lebanon is its constitution, whose design he drew and whose articles he framed as an impregnable national rampart.

After the end of his term as deputy in 1929, the owner of that great heart felt that the field of work under the dome of parliament was narrow, and that practical politics had limited horizons — wearying, with no proportion between the effort demanded and the result to be expected — as if, consciously or unconsciously, he had touched the need for comprehensive political work, for guiding leadership, for the wise mind committed to the struggle above party loyalties and attachments, for the sake of the new Lebanon. Lebanon in those days was a youth feeling out his way. So Michel Chiha took it upon himself to trace for him his right path."

Until he said:

"He founded his newspaper 'Le Jour' in 1934, and for twenty years — from that date until three days before his death — he went on sounding the depths of books and living with everything, inert or alive, that passed through this country, with deep culture and perceptive awareness, until he defined the personality of Lebanon and established it as a faith in the heart, a law in the conscience, and a rich heritage in life."

He was the center of gravity in Lebanon, and after his passing it falls to all the Lebanese, government and people, to redouble their caution and their vigilance over their homeland, and to strive to preserve its mission."