Amidst the clamor of arriving high-ranking personalities at the Waco airport to attend the Texas summit between Crown Prince Abdullah, deputy premier and commander of the National Guard, and American President George W. Bush, a touching scene, a group of 30 elderly people offering a warm welcome to the prince, was ignored by the media.
An old lady, reputedly 102, carrying a bouquet of roses was the most conspicuous among the elderly group. She stood at the airport waiting for the prince’s arrival for over two hours. She wanted to tell the prince, who shook hands with them, that good relations are too valuable to be spoiled by temporary differences or provocative propaganda. Nobody can say that the old lady and the others in her group were there to seek jobs or favors from the prince. On the other hand, they came to show their support for the prince and stress the good relations between the two countries.
In fact, there were a few of the thousands of former employees of Aramco. All of them had spent years in the Kingdom and they remember those days with warmth and happiness. They are true friends of the Arabs and no media propaganda or political lobbying can change their impressions.
One may ask what a group of old men and women can possibly do in the field of fierce political battles. What they did, however, was to express their genuine feelings based on their own knowledge and first-hand experiences.
In the world of today, constant communication with ordinary people is a possible remedy to change political positions. In the American political setup, it is the sentiments of the voters that determine the decisions of a president, a senator or the mayor of a town or city. We Arabs are well-aware that, at present, the American public is not sympathetic to us. At present, our relations with them are generally poor, excepting with a few who have known us closely. We cannot afford to ignore the strength of the sentiments of these elderly people. How else can we explain a woman past 100 who was willing to undertake the bother of travel and the boredom of waiting at an airport?
The event is quite a lesson to all of us, particularly to me as a journalist. Our journalists should be more willing to endure the hardships involved in meeting ordinary people and explaining our views and feelings to them.
We, as media people, have all been through harsh and strange experiences in the discharge of our duties. One such experience was on Thursday when we stayed for nine long hours in a small hall at Waco Airport. It was like a military base guarded by heavily armed soldiers. The regulations did not allow us to leave the hall where we were held and we were even escorted to the bathroom by military police. We had no way of contacting the public. In fact, the denial of access to the public was not the fault of the military police. It was sadly the fault of some of our own government delegations that had come to the US to wage an intense political and media battle. And we, its media team, were held at the military base without access to the public.
The event undoubtedly shows very clearly the failure of our officials to grasp the significance of the media. The experience also gives a clear insight into the causes of our failures in the political battle which is fought primarily through the media.
Without communication, nobody can succeed in getting his or her arguments to the public; in such a situation, it makes no difference that those arguments are completely and totally correct.
