Beirut’s sorrow and a long-time friend

The stories from the newspapers are harrowing enough. But when you have a dear friend personally suffering from Beirut’s woes, it is magnified many times. On the other line was my dear friend, Lebanese Baria Alamuddin, an articulate spokesperson for the Arab world on Western television. When the first pictures of Israeli bombing of Beirut came out, I thought of her immediately and texted her to find out just how she was. A busy journalist, she is the foreign editor of the distinguished Al-Hayat which is read by Arabs around the world.

She was at work in her London office but she was in tenterhooks at the time we spoke, waiting for word on her husband Ramzi and their daughter who was on a visit. She studied in Oxford and was now a lawyer working with the international court of justice in Strasbourg. They have become British nationals and they were waiting for passage on a ship which would bring them back to England. I first met her in 1986. Then I was the exile and as she watched me fleet from one television program to another explaining what was happening in the Philippines, she lost no time in getting in touch with me. Indeed, she visited me at home and interviewed me for her newspaper.

I cannot forget that day. A beauteous look-alike of Elizabeth Taylor as STAR publisher Max Soliven once described her (he met her when he was a guest in my London home then), I had never could quite get over the way she would run around in stiletto heels. She was very tall and did not need the heels but she wanted always to present an impeccably fashionable lady journalist meeting heads of state, Nobel prize winners and the like.

She was the last journalist to talk to the late Indira Gandhi before she died. We became very good friends. There are few with whom I could have long drawn conversations on world politics. Baria is one of them. We exchange notes about our countries and have continued our friendship across the miles. She has never thought of herself as different from any Western women journalists and could match them in acumen and openness. Genes might explain that – her mother was the first woman graduate of the American University in Beirut.

All this is background on understanding the war in Lebanon from her perspective. She could not understand why the Israelis should want to bomb and destroy Beirut. There were ongoing negotiations on the Israeli prisoners taken by the Hezbollah in exchange for their own. I could barely hear her but what I did was enough to explain her distress…" We don’t want war…the destruction…the loss of life…it is playing into the hands of the extremists… Hamas has been in power… why didn’t they give them a chance to govern since they were voted in like any democratic elections… I am afraid this time there is no benefit for a ceasefire … at the end of the day there is going to be even more hatred against Israel among the Arabs … nothing will be solved by this senseless violence."

Her words pieced together and the distress she was in as she waited for word on her husband and daughter to be home safely more than explained her position. At other times, Baria has seldom lost her composure to be a credible voice for the Arabs. She represented well the Arab moderates and their desire for peace. To be fair, I am sure that had I an Israeli moderate friend she would have said the same. Ordinary people do not want war but they have to suffer because their families and homes are in the line of fire.

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Still when I opened my internet for what Baria might be doing, well she was back at work. Even with the uncertainty of where her husband and daughter were, she was on television, giving her analysis of the ‘presidential’ expletive which has come to be known as the ‘shit’ heard around the world. This was about how an open microphone during the G8 summit meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia heard US President George Bush say in conversation with Prime Minister Tony Blair. This fateful conversation as transcribed by Reuters was thus:

Bush: I think Condi (Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice) is going to go (to the Middle East) pretty soon.

Blair: Right, that’s all that matters, it will take some time to get that together. ... See, if she (Rice) goes out she’s got to succeed as it were, whereas I can just go out and talk.

Bush: See, the irony is what they need to do is get Syria to get Hizbollah to stop doing this shit and it’s over.

That exchange has sparked a debate among print and broadcast bigwigs, some of them quite witty on whether or not to report the Bush word as it was. To CNN the expletive was used in a very newsworthy segment of the president’s serious yet casual discussion with Prime Minister Blair. It reflected how the two world leaders talk with each other so it was reported as it was. So, too, with the New York Times. A spokeswoman said "the paper considered the term news fit to print despite its "Style & Usage Manual", a strict rule book on when "it might be appropriate to publish obscenities, vulgarities and profanities." The shit word she claimed was a rare exception, since "the use of an otherwise forbidden word will give the reader an essential insight into matters of great moment, an insight that cannot be otherwise conveyed". She added in such a case it would almost certainly involve the use of the term by a figure of commanding influence or in that person’s presence, in a situation likely to become momentous." Los Angeles Times Managing Editor Douglas Frantz agreed. "The news value of the president’s unvarnished remarks and the glimpse they offer into his administration’s Mideast policy outweighed whatever reluctance there might have been to including the word," he said.

But to go back to Baria. She echoed the opinion of those who argue that running the remark as it was – a vulgar word – gives an insight into Bush’s foreign policy. But it could also work the other way around. The vulgar word reported as it is could itself create an unexpected impact on foreign policy.

Invited to an interview on the British Broadcasting Corp., where a newscaster quoted the president verbatim and ran an unedited tape, Baria Alamuddin, as foreign editor of the Arabic newspaper Al Hayat, said, "It’s amazing and disheartening how lighthearted [the way] the prime minister and president have been talking while hundreds of people are being killed, maimed and displaced."

She made the remark after the BBC newscaster said something about comparing this with how his mother told him not to speak with his mouth full. Alamuddin remarked "I totally agree with you". The comparison may be trivial but it should not diminish the fact that ordinary people living through this latest Mideast crisis know what they’re going through and it has little to do with a rude word from the American president.

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My email is [email protected]