(Or I could neglect some of my responsibilities and write something now! I've tried to imitate Nahda literature, a particular strain of extremely melodramatic literature and thought common in bourgeois Arab circles around this time (and which underwent a heck of a revival a couple decades down the line for interesting reasons). The piece I've written is named after (Nafir Suriyya means "The Clarion of Syria"), and very loosely based on, a series of pamphlets published 30 years earlier by a Protestant Beiruti citizen, Butrus al-Bustani, which make for a pretty interesting read. The in-game author of this piece has presumably read al-Bustani's pamphlets, which, considering their popularity at the time, is unsurprising. Opinions of in-game author should not necessarily be considered opinions of actual author, etc.)
Nafir Suriyya, issue #1
Editorial statement appended to periodical (anon, 1889)
For how many hundreds of years have we been sleeping, O Arabs? For how many years have we lazed around as if dead while Progress moves on all around us?
Countrymen, for how many years have the Great Powers of the world said to us “brother, we must civilize you, brother, we must work together in peace and harmony”?
Countrymen, for how many years have these selfsame Powers both generously delivered the benefits of Progress to us yet split themselves apart with disputes and fighting?
Countrymen, when shall it come the time for them to go, “come now, brother, pick a side and let us fight until our enemies are vanquished”?
Countrymen, how many of your sons died in the false partition of Russian-administered Beirut and the lands of the Pope?
Countrymen, what happened to the Syria we knew, with, in the words of that noble writer from which Our periodical’s name is taken, “all its diverse plains, coastlines, mountains, and barren lands”?
Countrymen, the rule of the Russians is not as bad as it could be (I know many Russians living in Our great city of Beirut and I have found many to be men of culture, refinement, and dignity, with naught but charity for the poor and noble, positive mien), nor the potential rule of the Austrians, who are even now coming down the mountains of Askaleh, sweeping up the land before them, but best of all must be to be ruled by our own People, in cooperation and conjunction with the noble Powers of Europe, driving into the future together as true equals.
Countrymen, many among us have said “we are good and faithful Muslims, and the Europeans are not. They desecrate our traditions, our way of life, and bring nothing but evil and ruin onto our land and slaughter our sons and our daughters. Therefore, let us rise up against these malefactors, and proclaim a land of the Faithful and for the Faithful, and drive them out with the strength of our arms and God’s mighty wrath”.
Countrymen, consider how our history has been shaped by the vile forces of prejudice, how the turmoil of our past civil wars, oh most evil of evils, barbarity of barbarities, ignominious of ignominies, forced the Great Powers to intervene and promote peace and security. Consider too that if we should ever want to promote peace and security between the entire portion of our people, within and without Syria, that we must embrace the whole portion of our people and not preach against, or act against, our Christian or Jewish brothers, but rather stand beside them with open arms. Such acts of prejudice would not only be vile and contrary to the pacific nature of our people and traditions, they would divide us at a time that we must be united, make us weak at a time that we must be the strongest that we can be.
Countrymen, we must draw equally from West and East, forgetting not our noble practices and venerated traditions but also embracing the most modern thoughts, technologies, and items available to us. We must not fall prey to the false idols of blindly relying on the Great Powers of the world for support, lest we blindly fade away when their eyes are elsewhere and no longer providing charity, or be bled dry for their wars. We cannot, however, turn away from the greatness of the present age, and blindly ignore the miracles being performed in front of our very eyes, or fall victim to the same old demons of prejudice present, as now as in the past, under thin disguises.
Countrymen, be you, in this quest for a new solution, not enamored of and deceived by the followers of Marx, and rather follow a path of sensible moderation. For those by whom it is said “the workers of the world are oppressed; we must free them” wish themselves to, in freeing the worker, enslave the human, and make a mockery of our people’s traditions. We have no cavil with the honest merchant, the chatter of the marketplace, the progressive and moral factory owner. It is by these institutions that our people are and shall be raised up.
Countrymen, this periodical is brought to you to promote the best ways of living and the most elegant thoughts and thinkers of our modern age as can be found by Us in the city of Beirut at present. We shall endeavor to bring to you a periodical of which We are proud and which will spark the interest of the intelligent reader, a paper of honesty, civility, and unity. Appearing shall be a variety of short fiction, conducive to enlightening and enlivening modern discourse and conversation, advice on how to best compose a household fit for our future, biographies on the lives of the ancients and on important figures of the day, advice for the general good comportment of our ladies especially as regards interaction with foreign customs and personages, and the national and international news.
Countrymen, to quote a most wise and revered figure from the West, “we must all hang together, or rest assured, we shall all hang separately.”
Signed, this day April the Second, 1889, Beirut,
A Patriot