I believe that nothing just happens but everything happens for a reason. And this book fell into my hands for a reason. I have to admit that my history knowledge is not all that thorough and there are gaps in history which I know nothing about, I might have some vague ideas about different nations and what they went through, that I might have gathered from conversations with others, friends, senior family members or even from novels or movies. The Lebanese and Palestinian events at the end of the 19th century and the start of the 20th was one of those. And I was not aware of the role women played in this history and in shaping the future of Arab women.
This book was enlightening and beautiful, drawing a picture of the Lebanese social structure in that era, first under the declining Ottoman empire, then under the French occupation. This made me more interested to read more about these times and get to know more about other influential women like Huda Shaarawi, May Ziadeh, Malak Hifni Nassif among others.
The most painful part of the book was the part of her life spent in Palestine as she witnessed first hand the legal and illegal immigration of Jews to grab land and evacuate Arabs out of their homes and the Zionist propaganda. This part of history has been written and rewritten from different point of views. What I know is that whichever way you looked at it, it was a humanitarian disaster and no means can be justified by the end.
I have to say I am grateful to Anbara and all her contemporary women who fought for liberation and rights of women. If it wasn’t for them, my life won’t be as easy as it is today. It is still to this day challenging being a woman but it is not compared to being forbidden to learn, talk or walk the streets without permission of a male guardian and without a veil that hides even my eyes. The darkness they rebelled against gained up the light we live in.
Gaining PhD. degrees and travelling on my own to foreign countries, the luxury of chosing where you want to live and work, the freedom to chose to live alone were not an option in those time.
So, THANK-YOU LADIES!
It is a highly recommended book which is easy to ready and which gives you insights into historical events and social structure of a different era.
