(1)
The family gathers in the evening on the weekend, we look for a suitable movie for family watching, and the young people - with their "Khojati" tendencies - suggest the names of films that I do not like, I practice democracy - the Arab way - and I impose a film by itself.
The problem is not here; the problem is that I am proposing a film about the war!
With the sword of modesty, everyone acquiesces.
We finish it and our nerves are strained enough.
(2)
Do I like war?
I don't know why I am passionate about following every literary or cinematic production of wars; the novels that document them, the dramas that do the same thing, any testimonies or written or audible memoirs, despite my bad experiences in press coverage, which I used to return every time determined that it was the last time I went to a war zone.
I didn't stop it, even after I stopped traveling to war zones.
I read to the novelist Amir Taj Al-Sir that "wars are one of the most important materials of historical writing, and we will not ask: Why wars in particular? It seems clear: war provides saturated material for writing despite the damage it causes, all the possible tragedies happen in war, and as a result of war: hunger, poverty, homelessness, physical and sexual exploitation, sudden death of loved ones, and everything that is disturbing and despicable."
But I add, and I may not agree, that war is a rich material for other virtues, including, perhaps, love and romance!
He who can love while he is at war, who can be romantic despite the waterfalls of blood, this means that he survived, I mean his humanity survived, he did not turn into a monster, or a distorted entity as it sometimes happens to people.
War is a difficult test for one, forced to go through.
Many fail with different degrees, and many also succeed in different degrees.
Wars reveal the true metal of man: the malicious, the sincere, the generous, the sacrificial.
In war. Yes, we may die, get hurt, or lose a loved one, but we discover ourselves and our abilities.
The skilled journalist is the one who succeeds in discovering these cases, individual or collective, he - amid all these fragments and the sequence of news and work requirements - does the act of pearl hunters, and gold prospectors, and perhaps this is one of the main reasons that prompted me to move from the world of news to the world ofdocumentaries, from a world looking for quick news, to a world that searches inside the human soul, for its stories that were covered by the news of the dead and wounded and the statements of leaders.
War is what is worth looking for despite its cruelty and pain, so in my opinion every journalist should go to war even once in his life
(3)
Here's the story I told so often!
I frequented Sarajevo – about every three months – waiting for war to break out; I longed to be a witness to it, even though I had no military experience at all, and I did not participate in soldiering.
Indeed, the war began in 1992 and I am there, everything has collapsed suddenly, I was then a reporter for the newspaper "Muslims" Saudi Arabia, a reporter by piece and not an employee, and the owner of the hotel was Serbia, I spent one of the worst nights, and I suddenly found myself without any protection, the city was besieged, life stopped and the airport was closed, and there is no way to return to Germany where I lived.
They reached a calm, the airport opened, and I traveled to Stuttgart, Germany, and I fell into its airport from exhaustion, and I promised myself not to return;
Then came a small news, in a German newspaper, that a man was walking on a street in Frankfurt (Europe's economic capital) and a mass of melting ice fell on him from the top of the building he was passing by, and he died on the spot, and I decided to return to Sarajevo immediately.
You can never escape death, when it's time you get there, wherever you are.
But the danger of war is not limited to death or injury;
To watch people's torments – and you can't do anything – is indescribable.
What consolation can you offer to an elderly man whose face is black from the ice in which he remained in the open alone and trapped?!
What consolation can you offer to a husband whose wife was raped in front of his eyes?! Alhurra refused to eat any food until she died in the hospital.
What consolation can you offer to an old mother who offers her the remains of those they found, so that she may be inferred from her son or husband?!
Every scene, every picture, every situation leaves a scar in your heart, which is not erased by days, as evidenced by the fact that although I am very forgetful, the events are drawn in front of me. I still remember.
So why go to war, writers, journalists and sometimes artists?
(4)
Financial return?
What is the point of dying or being hit by shrapnel and becoming disabled, for example?
What can one do with money and fame if he loses his life, or even loses a part of his body, loses his sight, or feet, becomes helpless, what does money do to him in this case?
I don't think there is a single answer to everyone who goes to war by choice, journalist or otherwise.
In war, you do what other people don't, from fellow trouble-seeking professionals, you are looking for something different, for something precious, for a difficult matter, for an unfamiliar need, for something worth the trouble and risk.
In the war, it will reveal the true face of the leaders who implicated the people in it, and it will reveal the real suffering of ordinary people, which some media outlets surpass in numbers.
In war you are the correspondent of the oppressed and helpless victims.
It's not just a matter of professionalism.
There, in war, you will remember that every soul tasted death, but not every soul tasted life, and that you were committing a crime against yourself, when you lived without caring about its value, without tasting life.
In war, it will side – or so it should be – those who did not choose it and pay for it.
War is what is worth looking for despite its cruelty and pain, and therefore in my opinion every journalist should go to war even once in his life, he will come out of there with a thousand lessons and lessons, lessons for his profession; he will improve the choice of his issues and topics, and he will also come out with lessons for his private life; he will know the value of life, and his resentment and complaints will stop from the trivial things that he used to complain about.
(5)
Their war is harder or ours?
When the war broke out in Ukraine, and colleagues from Arab media organizations rushed to go there, memories came back to me years ago, but I asked myself a question: Is their war more difficult or ours?
We didn't have these modern technologies, very heavy imaging equipment, a satellite device that is difficult to carry and difficult to operate, very limited centers from which we can send our reports.
Colleagues and colleagues do not now suffer from these problems, but in fact they suffer from other things; this modern technology has made the door to competition very intense, anyone can send his video and written messages, and the number of correspondents, the number of institutions and channels, and although it appears good, but it is very difficult to compete.
It's easy to take your place in an empty area, it's hard to do it in a crowded area.
But the older generation and the new generation are at the same distance from the risk of death and injury.
(6)
The first war I experienced in my life was in Suez following the defeat of June 1967.
I have lived through war and migration, and despite their cruelty, they cannot be compared to the brutality that is taking place now, as if it were a simple test or preparation for me for the aftermath.
Some think that the Bosnian war in its years was the most difficult for me, but I remember Chechnya, which I went to cover and did not live in it all this time that I lived in Bosnia, but it was the most difficult, Russian planes destroy buildings Dhaka - as they did in Syria - there is no possibility that you will come out alive if your building is targeted, and if you happen to come out alive injured, there are almost no treatment centers except a house here or there with individual capabilities.
But the Congo – frankly – is the most difficult; Africans – myself – are very fierce in their civil wars, Rwanda is the best witness, and others, and others.
What is strange to me is that these memories did not push me to pay attention to war literature, as did the novel Zinc Boys, or as if the novel healed a wound.
This novel, by Belarusian writer and journalist Svetlana Alekseevich, combines two things I love: the novel and the documentary work: the novel and the documentary work: the author documents the living witness account of what happened during the Soviet war in Afghanistan between 1979 and 1989, and the scars it left on the souls of soldiers and their families.
It has opened my appetite to follow and document some of our wars, which are unfortunately many.
(7)
Shall I tell you a secret?
Sometimes I feel that life in "peace" is harder than life in "war".
In peace, our issues are trivial, we do not value life, and we do not treat it with respect.
In war, despite its cruelty, we discover life, cling to it, and promise ourselves to be saved from it, if we emerge unscathed.
Yes.. Life in "peace" is harder!