Diala Arslan was much more than a writer – she was a writer with a conscience and a concern for humanity.

Although she lived and worked in Dubai for many years, her heart was always with her homeland.

This excerpt from an article published in Druze Worldwide magazine in 2015 gives an insight into her deep thinking:

“It wasn’t easy for me to decide to write children’s stories, these stories will be read by innocent children with a young mind that absorbs ideas and is influenced by them.

At the same time, it was this fact that encouraged me to enter this field.

I was stuck between wanting to write and preparing for it, and the dread of that step.

The subject is sensitive and delicate, especially since they did not inherit from our generation a homeland, but sectarian farms. What country will they inherit and how will they rise to it?

Having forgotten the possibility of reforming the logic of adults that has been crooked by circumstances, I decided to go to the children, publicly, instilling in them some of the values I hope they will preserve – mercy to Lebanon, values forgotten by adults, such as democracy, compliance with the law, rejection of injustice and tact in speech.

In “The Queen’s Story”, it was queen who was jealous of the workers and was superior to them, so they staged a coup against her and replaced her with another.

With bitterness, I realized that forty years of my life had passed, and I am still waiting to live in Lebanon, the Lebanon of light and glory, the Lebanon of openness and development, the Lebanon of Fairuz, Gibran and Naimy …

Lebanon is my family and my grandparents who have always sung about it and felt nostalgia for its blessed days.

And I’m still waiting… And Lebanon is still going backwards, not to the days of solitude and affluence, but to the dark, compelling, stifling days. 

There are those who forget, and there are those who have left, and there are those who have become impoverished and are waiting for a few dollars or lira to come to them every four years … a bribe from a political candidate, leader or militia.

But it entrenches corruption and nepotism and gives its donor the power to seize tens of millions in return at the expense of the poor!

Immigration must be stopped … What is required is to overcome despair… It is required to adhere to Lebanon…

I detailed the disease that we complain of and started treating it within my stories in a soft and smooth way to enter the heart and mind of children at the same time.

I am ashamed of a Lebanon where teachers, intellectuals and great artists are marginalized.

My message is that pride is in knowledge.

I am ashamed of the Lebanese who surrender to an unjust reality and do not move a finger. So I made in the suggestions from the workers’ revolution against the Queen a message to the children not to accept injustice or bow before it.

Justice, as Jean-Jacques Rousseau said, is manifested when political action seeks “to serve the greater public interest without exception.”

I’m ashamed of the people who teach their children sectarianism and disdain.

I tried to instill in them a love of justice, independence and self-confidence. It also drew their attention to the fact that religion is for God and the homeland is for all.

Religion is essential to an individual’s relationship with his Creator. Religion elevates us and makes us tolerant.

As for sectarianism, it is abhorrent, diving and degrading people.

Do you think that tomorrow’s generation will save Lebanon from disintegration? Do they rise up? What helps them do that?

I encourage my readers to keep pace with the times and to benefit from everything that is new and useful in the world be it from the east or the west.

Evolution comes only from science.

I warn them that science shows us truth from falsehood, right from wrong. And that we can take advantage of inventions for the benefit of our societies that are fed up with their narrow-mindedness.

Do I see Lebanon healthy and purified from the politicians who are eating away at its entity?

In an indirect way, in my meetings with the children, I would tell them that they must save Lebanon from disintegration and loss.

Let every person take his role in life, to know his size … this is how society is straightened. Just as each worker in the beehive knows her rights and duties, do not infringe on the work of others, but comply with the law of the cell, that’s when it produces honey…

If they fail or allow chaos to ensue, there would be no cleanliness or order and it would not be able to produce honey.

I have great hope for the children of Lebanon, so I turned my thoughts to them, with a glimmer of hope.

Small ideas … High expectations … I can publish it to as many readers as possible.