“Women in the contemporary Arab Renaissance are pioneers from Lebanon and the East” for the Lilian, Qasran Aqel

Former MP Ghassan Makhiber
The book “Women in the Contemporary Arab Renaissance provides pioneers from Lebanon and the Levant” by the writer and researcher, Dr. Lillian Qurban Akl, for the reader in search of the historical roots of the feminist movement and its struggle in Lebanon and the East from 1858 to 1928 through the press and literary production.

The writer and researcher, Dr. Lillian, lit up this long struggle, which took about 150 years to obtain their rights and freedoms, and shows the need to remind Arab women specifically and Arab readers in general, with the sacrifices and achievements she made to launch their freedom of work and establish their active presence in society and the state.

The writer and researcher, Dr. Lillian, worked to draw the image of this struggle through the press, writings, various versions and literary productions, at the time of the eastern Arab renaissance (especially through the women’s press), and this press was the field of a large number of struggles, and their pioneering presence has emerged despite the challenges they faced at the time.

The writer and researcher, Dr. Lillian, presented an uncommon and unfamiliar picture of this era, showed the extent of the interaction of these pioneering militants with the proposals of that era and the levels of their differentiation from men in thinking, literary production and community movement, so that this book gave joy and unfamiliar images of the role of women as a full partner in the resurrection of the Renaissance thought in Lebanon and Egypt (mainly), the Levant and other Arab countries.

The writer and researcher, Dr. Lillian, focused on an important event in that era, which was represented in the first general women’s conference in Beirut in April 1928, and also elaborated in the shortcut of a very interesting autonomous course of 75 Arab pioneers (including in particular Lebanese, Egyptian and Syrian), which included excerpts from their literature, especially from beautiful poetic production.

The writer and researcher, Dr. Lilian, explained the site of women at that time of historical and social transformations that affected the emergence of the Arab Renaissance movement, and the main factors that affected and interacted with the women who are struggling, including the emergence of a feeling of Arab nationalism (confronting Turkish and Ottoman Islamic nationalism), and the spread of education, especially with European Christian and American presets, intellectual and civilizational communication in the West, and the involvement of women in the frameworks It was able to work for her work and movement, especially through feminist press and forums – salons – literary and intellectual that she managed and moved by feminist militants.

I invite you all to read this book, because in understanding history is a lot of lessons that can enlighten the ways of the future. Here are some of the lessons that I extracted from my reading of the book and from my own experience in the struggle for human rights, including women’s rights:

First: History teaches us the importance of cumulative action, patience and long -term stubbornness in the reformist renaissance issues, such as the issue of equality between women and men, on the basis of the saying, “Plant (planted) and ate … We grow and eat.”

Returning to the issues of the woman for which the pioneers struggled for the premises, we can notice that many of them have been achieved, and a lot also remained to continue the struggle in order to achieve it: these pioneers have succeeded greatly in provoking and facing the pests of their time, and every time,
• To break the isolation of social women,
• And secure its right to education
• And entering the work battle in all fields
• Confronting the legacies and firmly popular male beliefs.
• And the abolition of the crime of honor
• And possessing the right to vote and nomination

It remains a lot to continue to achieve it from reforms and a necessary change, especially for the following issues:
• Activating women’s participation in political life.
• Canceling all forms of violence against women.
• Equality in personal status laws (including the issue of protecting minors from early marriage).
• The development of the Lebanese Fanon in terms of granting women sexual to their children
• Continuing in the face of legacies and firm masculine beliefs, religious and sectarian dimensions, or cultures that take the religion and argue with it to keep women in a state of inequality. The importance of the question of the veil and the veil in the time that the book dealt with, especially in the great impact of the Nahdawi militant, Anbar Salam, who symbolically expressed its struggle by removing the veil from its face.

Second: History teaches us the importance of the role that individuals play in the struggle for the development of societal culture, without neglecting the necessity of joint work
Which started at the “Beirut Women’s Conference in the year 1928”
And he continued in a path that led to the institutionalization of this struggle within associations and institutions that increase its momentum, and it was represented in the large number of associations that originated after the year 1928.
These efforts were crowned with the institutionalization of the feminist struggle with the United Nations Convention to cancel all forms of discrimination against women (CEDAW) that entered into force in the year 1981 and the mechanisms of following up and implementing them, and it did in Lebanon by forming the “National Authority for Lebanese Women Affairs” by law in the year 1998 and its new members were resolved at the first meeting of the government.
Returning to the importance of the role that individuals play in the work of the groups, it must be emphasized that these laws and institutions are effective only by the effectiveness and activity of struggles and militants working to apply them to defend and enhance them.

Third: History teaches us the importance of the role that they played and that women are still playing in the struggle in order to achieve their goals, without neglecting the role of men on the basis that the rights of women in equality and cancel all forms of discrimination against them are an issue that means society as a whole, men and women.
It was mentioned in the book a number of men who contributed to helping feminist pioneers and in the struggle for their issues such as Peter Al -Bustani in his book “Education of Women” issued in the year 1849 and Qasim Amin in the “New Women” magazine issued in the year 1901, and the first Lebanese women’s newspaper in Beirut in 1909 thanks to Jerji Nicola Baz, Nasir Al -Women. I was particularly impressed by the story of the “Mirror of the Beloved” magazine, which he founded in Cairo Salim Sarkis in the year 1896 and wrote under the name of a feminist pseudonym, “Maryam Mazhar”. Therefore, I invite the writer and researcher Lilian to work on a new book whose title and content is “The Pioneering Men in Women’s Issues” !!.

The issues of women must reach their desired conclusions in the continued work of women who are militant, provided that they are also joined by a greater number of fighting men because women’s issues are right social and legal issues.

I also invite women in this era to move away from the new stereotype that seeks to limit women to the subjects of their own rights or issues of a social, family and cultural nature (as in the time of the pioneers of the Renaissance), to compete with men in all economic, legal, financial, security and political issues.

In conclusion, this book is a story of how rights, especially in equality between women and men, are not a luxury or a gift that is granted, but rather a right that is extracted from struggle and will, and the necessity of a more just and fair future for all.

*The speech of the lawyer and former deputy Ghassan Makhiber at a symposium at the Book Fair in Antlias