We cannot keep pace with this age - its achievements and inventions—unless we create a scientific environment in our societies. This requires adopting disciplined scientific methods, establishing research centres that conduct diverse experiments, relying on organized and systematic inquiry, adhering to methodological principles and quantitative approaches, and ensuring the orderly accumulation of knowledge in pursuit of understanding society and its problems. Scientific certainty must be attained through rational inference, supported by logic and compelling evidence. Reason is what guides human beings in all spheres of life; it drives them to work, strive for their aims, and live with dignity, freedom, creativity, and honour.
All the internal and external challenges we face should serve as a powerful incentive to become conscious of our national reality, to know ourselves properly, to benefit from scientific methods and principles of rational thinking, to reclaim our place in the march of civilization and human advancement, and to become creators, producers, and innovators rather than mere consumers of others’ achievements. As history reminds us, “it records not wishes or intentions, but actions and events.” [1]
What we lack is a conscious, resolute will—one that drives us to plan, to work systematically, and to unite around a constructive renaissance project that aligns our direction in life and frees “our thoughts from worn-out doctrines and illusions that have kept us from seeking what is worthy of us—such as the illusion promoted by a group of sick souls and sterile minds that we are a weak people, incapable of anything, with no hope of fulfilling a goal or will; that the best we can do is surrender to our impotence, allow our national personality to fade among nations, and accept any condition to which we may be reduced.” [2]
Achieving great aspirations requires self-confidence, courage, cooperation, solidarity, organized planning, determination, creativity, beneficial knowledge, research, investigation, serious work, and perseverance—not chaos, haste, improvisation, ignorance, lethargy, procrastination, fear of the unknown, lack of steadfastness in the face of difficulties, or reliance on chance.
[1] Antun Sa´adeh, Al-Muhadarat al-'Ashr (The Ten Lectures) 1948, Beirut, 1976, p. 31.
[2] Ibid., p. 33.
