It is remarkable how sensitive people are about certain news items published in the media, whether true or not. Perhaps, more than any other group, ambassadors are the most sensitive about news. They do not wish to have any unpleasant news about their countries reported even if it was carried by their official news agencies.
Some people get very upset if an unfavorable news report, no matter how insignificant it may be, appears in the international media about the citizens of his own country.
One of my articles harshly criticizing the system of Saudi university education drew severe criticism from unexpected quarters. I had expected objections to come from my fellow Saudis. Instead, to my surprise, they came from the Sudanese, and came in the most violent form.
Several of them were incensed by the article because I had written that Saudi students, after being refused admission in universities in their own country, got enrolled in universities in every corner of the world, including Slovakia and Sudan. The Sudanese felt offended by this statement in which Sudan was equated with Slovakia. They argued that Sudan was the first country in the Arab world to adopt modern education and that the first Sudanese university was over a century old. This is a fact indeed. Yet, Sudan, Slovakia and Hungary are not among the countries renowned for welcoming university students. Secondly, sad to say, the present-day Sudan is not the Sudan which people used to know 30 or 50 years ago. That is the truth. It is something like saying that the Moscow of today is not the Moscow of 50 year ago, when it was a capital that could shake the world. It is not a question of prestige, but of fact. I do not believe any Sudanese aware of the world around him will refute this reality. I was not belittling anybody. I was just exploring various aspects of an issue under discussion.
In the same manner, some Algerians expressed their displeasure a while ago when we published some news about the problems in their country. Their objection was that such reports were damaging the country’s good reputation. What is important to them? The image of the country, or its stability and the safety of its people? What they seek is a false image. There is no way in which anybody can hide with his fingers a mountain of mayhem and massacres.
There are also people who disapprove of the media’s describing an accused in the millennium bombing plot to blow up the Los Angeles airport as an Algerian. What is wrong about it as long as his identification papers say so? The argument against using the national identity is that the media refers to a well-known football player of Algerian origin, Zinedine Zidane, as a Frenchman and not as an Algerian. That is simply because he calls himself French and agencies refer to him as a member of the national team of France and not of Algeria. His country of origin does not come into it unless we are giving his life history. People should not consider it a stigma to their country if a person of bad repute came from there, because such a reference does not reflect the nature of that country’s people. Such references are only part of the information.
It should also be kept in mind that no nation is free from defects and blemishes and that no people are judged by one incident or disturbance.
