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In honoring the unsung women, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee is reaffirming the essence of its purpose: the eradication of discrimination in all forms. The concern of ADC with Palestine, Lebanon, and women is part and parcel of one commitment, the dignity and equality of men and women everywhere. Ours is a struggle to reassert the basic values of human integration, pluralism and equality.
The Arab woman who participates in the national struggle anticipates the prospects of socio-economic liberation of her society and her own fulfillment as a woman. Arab women realize that their ultimate self-realization cannot be achieved except through political involvement. The challenge of the Arab woman is how to keep the balance between national priorities and her concerns as a woman. Our women are aware of the dialectical relationship between the social and political.
Our concern with the Palestinian problem and the Lebanese tragedy is not only for the purpose of regaining a piece of lost land to which we are deeply attached it is a commitment to the dignity of the Arab citizen in particular. We seek to reestablish the secular, democratic and Arab countries of Palestine and Lebanon. With this understanding, we are all Palestinians as long as Palestine is occupied and its population disenfranchised. We are all Lebanese as long as Lebanon is suffering, bleeding and dominated by armed illusions which rain terror on its people.
The clarity of commitment to the unity of the struggle has allowed the glorious intifada in Palestine to galvanize the whole world and capture the hearts and minds of friends and foes. While the Palestinians are liberating their country using stones, we in Lebanon are destroying our country using the most sophisticated weaponry. While the Palestinians have gained through their long struggle, a clarity of purpose, we in Lebanon have lost it.
The war in Lebanon made sense when, under the duress of Israeli occupation and US pressure, the Lebanese achieved the abrogation of the May 17 Agreement which reversed the Israeli hegemony over Lebanon. Of course, Israel had a stake in showing that pluralistic experiences cannot be successful and, thus, helped the sectarian forces within our body politic to blow apart. Yet, it is easy to blame Israel and exonerate ourselves.
We owe it to ourselves and the next generation of Lebanese to the harsh in our self-criticism and to admit that we allowed a lot of what happened to happen. We owe it to those who have lost their lives, and those forever scarred, to recapture a rational Lebanon. Obscurantists from any religion should be isolated from the mainstream of humanist Islam, Christianity and Judaism. The lunatic fringes on all sides must be disowned.
We Lebanese and Palestinians have suffered long enough. With the experience we have, with a clear commitment to liberate our land and to rebuild our societies, having learned from our mistakes, and by avoiding the earlier mistakes and pitfalls, we are bound to succeed.
Excerpt of a speech delivered in Los Angeles in 1989, at a time when Lebanon was emerging from civil war and still recovering from the 1982 Israeli invasion.
