Today, I will present two issues to the reader, at the price of one, and which have nothing else in common other than not being long. The first issue is that some of the spouses of Arab leaders are rather more popular than their husbands. Of course, this is not to belittle our brave leaders; but since these heads of states dabble in politics, an often dirty domain, while first ladies focus their efforts on social and humanitarian issues, it is not surprising that they succeed in rallying people around them. For instance, I was in Bahrain and witnessed Sheikha Sabika sponsoring the Women's Rights Day, and before that, I had visited Qatar where Sheikha Mozah is leading a social renaissance, of which women are fundamental participants. And in Cairo, between this and that, there is Mrs. Suzanne Mubarak, who is engaged in efforts that go beyond the borders of Egypt; I have heard her giving lectures in London and in the south of France, and seen her rallying around her many Egyptian citizens who have the means to assist the needy. What inspired me to write about this is what I found on my desk upon my return to London. The secretary had placed there an article published by the Sunday Telegraph about Queen Rania, and her efforts to put an end to “honour killings” in Jordan; this is a subject that I have written about time and again, while specifically referring to Jordan, and hence I would like to give my thanks to Queen Rania and King Abdullah II who supports her efforts in this regard. Across the border and into Syria, there is Asma al-Assad. Having youth, beauty and good intelligence in common with Queen Rania, she has now acquired a crowd of admirers who appreciate her social contributions, from the city and all the way to the countryside. Mrs Asma and Queen Rania have both become the centre of attention of the international media because of their contributions to their countries, and because they are the role models of a renaissance that we all seek. And although Mrs. Wafaa Suleiman is new to the presidential palace in Lebanon, I expect her to catch up quite quickly; in fact, she reminds me of the contributions made by Mrs. Mona Hrawi during the presidency of her husband, and of Mrs. Nayla Moawad, who carried the legacy of her martyred husband and took it further and beyond. When the late King Fahd bin Abdulaziz, may he rest in peace, was still alive, I followed the work of Princess Al-Jawhara in the areas of combating poverty and spreading literacy and education, from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the various Arab countries. Today, I hear that similar work is being done by King Abdullah's daughters and the senior princes; however, I will suffice myself here with this reference because the Saudi society is conservative, and prefers to keep its women away from the limelight. Since I wrote about what I know only, I acknowledge that I may have neglected the efforts by other leaders' wives whom I do not know, but of whose work I am aware despite the distance involved, such as those in Morocco, Tunisia and other countries. Now that I have somehow fairly spoken about some of the spouses of Arab leaders, I will continue with the second issue: Rarely do I watch Arab TV stations when I'm at home in London, because the television lounge where I receive Arab satellite channels is restricted to the family, whereas the small set in the library in the house is only connected to the Sky network; while there are hundreds of channels that I receive there, none of them is Arabic. When travelling, I manage to watch Arab channels in hotels, even in Paris and Rome. I thus watch political news on Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya, while not overlooking the entertainment, dance and music channels because I am not a fanatic. Also, these entertainment channels are very necessary to calm the nerves after watching the political and economic news on the two major channels. Last week when I was travelling across Bahrain, Kuwait, and Beirut, I switched the television to Al-Jazeera; I found the screen to be fuzzy and thought that the reception must be bad. But then, it became clear to me that the channel was broadcasting footage from yet another criminal attack in Iraq. The news ticker at the bottom of Al-Jazeera's was practically a scary “obituary”, as I read that there were 112 killed in simultaneous bomb attacks in Baghdad, while 12 were killed and 30 were injured in Pakistan, in addition to three killed in a raid that is believed to be by the U.S military, and 12 killed and 20 injured in the Laghman province in Afghanistan. Actually, the news item from Baghdad mentioned the neighbourhoods of Shorja, Cairo and Doha, which startled me at first because I feared that terrorism might have returned to Egypt, or to Lebanon where there is a neighbourhood called Dora as well. However, I quickly noticed that the entire news item was about the ill-fated Iraq, which was first beleaguered by Saddam Hussein, by the occupation after him, and then by some of its own inhabitants today. I hence escaped with my mind and my nerves from Al-Jazeera to Al-Arabiya where I saw an anchorperson wrapping up a news story about Iran, something that has become regular in this channel like the dish of the day, and was followed by a young anchorwoman with economic news. There is a global financial crisis that was started because of the politically, economically, and ethically bankrupt administration of George W. Bush. It affected each country, including the [Arab] Gulf countries, in particular Dubai. Despite the fact that the anchorwoman was very beautiful, her beauty did not prevent me from noticing that the Gulf stock market indexes were all pointing down, to the extent that I feared that some of them will fall out of the screen and into the room's floor. I will not rub salt in the reader's wounds because the reader must definitely have been affected by the crisis as well. Instead, I will suffice myself with some humour. When I was in my twenties, I wanted to save Palestine; now, however, it is enough for me to save a part of my salary, and I know that both I and the reader will continue to be in a personal financial crisis even if the global crisis is to end, because each one of us works five days a week, while the family spends money seven days a week. As such, it is not the purchasing power of the dollar that worries me, but rather, it is the purchasing power of the family that does. I have a solution for this: let us listen to the preachers in the [Arab] Peninsula, who want us to live in the past, because the past is cheaper...either this, or let us leave Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya to the political and economic sadomasochists, and switch to an art channel and to Haifa. [email protected]
