A Memory ... and a Call

The Woman's Word

Dedicated to two ladies: Ibtihaj Kaddoura, president of the General Arab Women's Union, and Laure Tabet, president of the League of Women's Organizations in Lebanon

With the return of the twenty-second of November, there leaps to memory an honorable picture whose events our land witnessed — the day we firmly resolved to be masters and spoke our memorable word: "No more colonialism for us."

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On that day the granddaughter of Elissar stood beside her brother, man, in a stand of glory; for she knew her duty, and walked in the ranks of the people, awakening the citizens to their deep responsibilities — working with courage, under wise direction and with conscious ardor. And those historic events brought forth the birth of "the Lebanese Women's League."

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That was twelve years ago. How strange, then! How can woman today be heedless of the critical moment through which we are passing — of the frightful danger that confronts her country, threatening it not with colonialism alone but with utter annihilation?! What a shudder runs through the veins when its horrors take shape in the mind — I mean the Zionist danger crouching at our gates, lying in wait, its grim conscience betrayed by the scandals of its sin...

What have we done, and what are we doing, by way of preparation to ward off this evil? Can the conscious mind imagine the horror of the fate to which we would come, were the fuse to be lit and the dreaded thing to happen?

It lies within woman's power, history tells us, to act whenever the homeland calls her... What energy of devotion and loyalty gushes forth from the wellspring of her heart!

So, my sister woman: your homeland needs you today. Long has the time stretched on without its claiming from you a single one of its many rights over you. It calls you to the struggle — to the defense of its sacred precincts, that no lying hand may touch them.

Your first duty is to band together and to sharpen your forces, for without union there is no guarantee of final victory. And the second duty is to organize directed work and to apportion it in readiness for emergencies. The field of work is manifold and wide.

And, my sister woman: the sky above our southern borders warns at every moment of the hurricane about to blow and the fire about to break out. Is it permissible, when matters stand at such a pitch of gravity, that we should remain far from the field of the struggle, paying no heed to responsibilities that have clung to our very existence and been laid upon us ever since we first toddled upon the soil of this homeland?

They have said, by way of accusation: "The Lebanese woman of today has not yet grasped the meaning of true patriotism. She has not accustomed herself to generous giving and to the offering of sacrifices for a national end. It is as though she had forgotten the pages of glory that history recorded for her grandmothers in the siege of Sidon and of Carthage!"

Give them the lie, my sister. I beseech you, give them the lie! Remind them that history may repeat itself. Today you are called upon to play a decisive role in the destiny of your country. So up, to work — to the sacred national duty.