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In the years we met this American university graduate as a professor of economics, we felt with him the humility of the self-assured world, to the point that he agreed to be in a responsible party circle of one of his students in the department of economics from the American University who became a minister and deputy for Beirut three times. After that, Professor Bechara Merhej.
Also in those years we accompanied the establishment of one of the most important publishing houses of the renaissance of its time, namely “Dar al-Tali’a”, in which I remind us all with our few piastres contributing to the purchase of shares on day of its foundation.
In those years, we were introduced to a type of man who enjoyed a rigidity of principle without bravado, a Renaissance vision without ostentation and a high critical sense associated with a sublime commitment to what he believed, realizing that criticism of frames where you work is the highest degree of commitment to it. Honesty with people if it doesn’t start with being honest with yourself?
The most beautiful meetings were those that brought us together with Dr. Bashir and the late thinker Professor Manah Al-Solh, especially in the “Al-Arwa Al-Wuthqa Club”, which was headed by Professor Gah Al-Solh in the early 1900s sixties of the last century … and it was in those sessions of circumstance, depth and mental speed that makes you feel like you are in one of the most important universities.
At the end of the sixties of the last century, I was in Jordan, contributing to the establishment of the “Arab Liberation Front”, as a framework for Arab participation in the Palestinian revolution. We received the news of Bashir Daouk’s marriage to the great writer Ghada Al-Samman, who brought me back to her working days at “Al-Hawadith” magazine after the June 1967 war. At her home from the eyes of the devices, in what I considered a show that only my dear brothers and sisters present.
When I returned to Beirut from Amman on a short vacation, my teacher, Dr. Bashir, surprised me by saying, “I want you to accompany Ghada and me to the Fedayeen bases in Arqoub.” And he added, laughing more, that we spent a “honey night” in one of the bastions of the dignity of the nation … And so it was, and Ghada wrote that day an investigation of that trip at a time when the look of the entire nation was directed towards its guerrillas in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.
He wanted to emphasize that his belief in Arabism and his commitment to patriotism was born out of his Beirut.
Bashir al-Daouk was not proud of an order, just as his uncle Omar al-Daouk was the first Arab head of government in Lebanon under Prince Faisal Ibn al-Hussein after World War II and before the announcement of the mandate. French, and he was proud that his uncle was the first to raise the Arab flag in the government palace of the capital. . And it’s something that friend and colleague, Professor Khaled Youssef Al-Daouk, cousin of the late Dr. Bashir, still cherishes.
Al-Daouk did not boast of his belonging to the capital, whose history and his gift to all Arabs he is proud, as much as he was always willing to emphasize that his belief in Arabism and his commitment to patriotism, the pursuit of justice and a victory for freedom, he was a son of Beirut, because for him and for us, Beirut is not just a city. A beautiful or different capital, but rather a title of national commitment and a beacon of civilization.
The night of your separation, Oh Abu Hazem, and you are the most distant from Paris, it was a really sad night, as your dear wife Ghada (Umm Hazem) said, but very sad … days and circumstances have separated us for years in the ones who miss you all the time, but never lost sight of you.
* Lebanese writer and politician
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