My job is to go where wars are
I travel to places where others leave
Look around me to see people wearing their suits and going to work
Their bags on the train,
I wonder about the shape of normal life,
Where she leaves for work in the morning and returns in the evening
You do not have to worry about being shot or kidnapped
Or to live in war,
To know that it will not end your order to appear in one of the videos and one of those knives touching your throat
Sometimes I make some natural disasters to feel a little satisfaction:
Floods, earthquakes, and possibly famine.
Between Plunk and Plush Sacks in my fridge,
Keep cholera vaccine.
In a wardrobe, where women usually hold a simple black dress,
I kept a bulletproof vest.
This is often mentioned in difficult situations.
Ten years ago, on October 18, 2007,
Where I was supposed to be on my parents’ school day,
I was on the bus carrying Benazir Bhutto,
When it was detonated in the biggest explosion in Pakistan.
I know (Benazir) for 20 years.
In fact, it had a great impact on my career.
When I was in my early years as a young intern in the Financial Times,
She was the leader of the opposition party for the exiled Pakistani people in London,
She was interviewed.
The day I met her,
Announced her engagement to Asif Ali Zardari.
A few months later, the most beautiful invitation card engraved with gold
Put on the entrance of my house.
The wedding was the first call for recognition of Pakistan
I have not been there before,
The wedding was the most delightful party ever.
After the end of the ceremony every evening,
There was a gathering of political colleagues (Benazir)
They discuss
How to overthrow the Pakistani military dictator General (Dia).
For me, working in local news in Birmingham,
(Laughter)
It was very different.
Least of all being the youngest girl in the office in the area
With high traffic accidents,
One of my tasks was to go to see the families of the victims
He asked for pictures of their dead sons and daughters.
I went to Pakistan to work as a foreign correspondent.
I had no idea what the foreign reporter was doing or what he needed
And began to travel with the Mujahideen
Who were on their way to war to fight Russian troops in Afghanistan
It was not long after I was in Pakistan,
General (Zia) was killed in a plane crash and became (Benazir) Prime Minister,
But it was not long before the army got rid of it again.
When she returned from exile nine years later, she offered to accompany her.
I did not intend to be on the bus
That year she barely survived several times.
I was in the province of Helmand, which was attacked by the Taliban.
I stayed at a hotel in Peshawar that was bombed
When I spoke to Benazir before her return,
She told me all the threats of assassination that were directed against her.
She decided to go behind her on the media bus.
But when I arrived in Karachi I saw Benazir sitting at the top of that bus
I knew he had to be on board.
I went upstairs and was very excited.
There were people wherever I looked, on trees and on poles of light,
On the bishop, and on traffic lights on the street.
There was music, people flying the bathroom
We were on the top of an open bus
Which would pass under 15 tunnels and low bridges to reach its destination.
Which led me to ask the security official, “How will you protect (Benazir)?”
He looked at the sky and said to me, “It is in the hand of God,”
What I did not find reassuring.
(Laughter)
But the journey was long and with many people
We stayed on the bus for nine hours
The dark began to solve, we asked for pizza
We exchanged jokes for breakfast on a bus
The lighting of the roads has been reduced as we move forward,
As pointed out to (Benazir),
The supposed jammers also detect anyone using a remote control
To detonate a suicide bomb that was not working.
But we have traveled a long way from the humanitarian threat.
And then the shock was when we heard the sound of a low explosion
Like the sound of a steel door drawn on solid ground
The bus tilted until it stopped completely which threw us to the ground.
The music stopped.
I have experienced suicide bombings before.
I realized that there would often be another explosion
Much stronger than the first explosion.
I shouted to the passengers, “Do not get up!”
But within a minute, there was a much stronger explosion
And then there was an orange flame everywhere,
There was silence, and sirens rose.
Three people were killed at the top of the bus,
The rest of us were very concerned
From the fuel tank picking us down fire with all that flame,
We jumped from the top of the bus and fled to the streets,
Across the blood and the shards and shoes dumped.
150 people died that night.
Later, when I was in the bathroom
Wash from the burning flesh of other people,
I thought, “Maybe it’s time to stop.”
My share of life was more than nine.
But my first night in London,
I went to a dinner honoring a courageous lawyer specializing in human rights,
(Beatrice Mattewa) from Zimbabwe.
I spent a lot of time reporting news from there,
Despite the ban on British journalists,
Indeed, I have been declared an enemy of the state,
Accused of writing about “bodies on golf courses”.
I told Beatrice, “I do not know if it’s worth the risk”
To engage other people by going and talking to them
At a time when it does not make a difference.
“If people like you do not know what people like me do,
What is the purpose of what we are doing? “
But sometimes, I wonder, “Is it enough to just preview the scene?”
Sometimes, I think of all the atrocities that I associate with them,
That does not seem to make any difference.
I have worked with reports for 30 years, but over the past year,
I’ve seen things worse than I’ve seen before.
In northern Nigeria, where you can remember three years ago,
About 200 girls were abducted from their school in Chebok
Those that occupied headlines for two weeks
I went there and discovered that in fact thousands of other girls
Have been kidnapped, not reported,
When I spoke to them, they had terrible stories
For being subjected to gang rape by Bucco Haram fighters
They were forced to marry them.
Some of them fled and settled in camps,
But they told me that their loved ones would not accept their return
In order to take into account that girls have been contaminated,
Or they were afraid that they had been indoctrinated.
In fact, one of them, a young girl, has been severely raped
Where her pelvis was so badly damaged that she could not walk
She drew her feet like a crab.
Then there were the Yezidi girls, 5,000 of whom were kidnapped by a preacher
They sold less than a pack of cigarettes.
I spoke to one of them had been released,
16,
She told me that the worst night of her life was when she was detained,
A fat judge, brought back a 10-year-old girl,
And raping her in the next room as she cried to her mother all night.
This may seem somewhat strange, but in the past,
After reporting similar stories,
I go back home and go to the next story.
But now, with the Watspatch program, you keep in touch with people
Who interviewed them and knew what was happening to them.
Last year I was on the Greek island of Lesbos I meet refugees
Stranded in the camps,
I met a little girl from Afghanistan who had written about her,
After a while she wrote me.
she said to me:
“I saw the article you wrote, what difference does it make to me?”
Sometimes people ask me, “Why are you doing this work?”
This is actually easy because it is in the darkest heavens
You find the brightest stars.
I think of some people interviewed.
I told you about Beatrice Mattewa, who dedicated her life
To face the atrocities of the regime (Mugabe).
But in 2001, after the fall of the Taliban,
I was in Herat and met a group of writers
Who risked their lives to be able to write.
Think of what they can do, as women, under Taliban rule.
What they were allowed to do was sewing.
So they founded something in the name of “the golden needle of sewing”
The teacher was a professor of literature.
Under equipment and adornment in their bags,
Keep copies of the books of James Joyce and Virginia Woolf.
They never made one garment.
A few years ago, I was lucky enough to work with (Malal), who risked her life
Only for education.
She told me that despite everything, despite being shot,
She did not hold a grudge against those who shot her.
In fact, she said she would like to meet the gunmen so that she could explain to them
Why it is important for girls to go to school,
For no other reason than their sisters and their mothers
They can be treated by nurses and female doctors.
One of the great things about working with her
It was that with all her passion, maturity and eloquence, when she was at home,
She was just a normal teenager listening to Justin Bieber
And quarreling with her brother.
In fact my child told me when she won the Nobel Peace Prize,
“My mother, how can Malala win the Nobel Peace Prize?
She always quarrels with (Khoshal). “
(Laughter)
Then there (Nujin), an amazing Syrian refugee,
Who crossed from Aleppo to Cologne in her wheelchair
With her sister who was paying.
She was also deprived of education because of her disability,
However, she learned herself from watching the pirate,
I learned English by watching American soap operas.
She told me how disappointed she had been when she arrived in Europe
Because the food did not look like it did on the Masterchef program.
(Laughter)
When she was on the boat
On the dangerous crossing from Turkey to Greece,
The Romanov emperors listed in an attempt to ease their concerns.
I also met some widows
On those beaches in Lesbos over the Greek islands,
Who despite the fact that they were very poor,
They attended and welcomed the refugees coming,
They brought them food, dry clothes and drinks,
Most importantly, give them a hug to learn that they have not been forgotten.
Last month, I was in Afghanistan again,
I went out with a wonderful group of cyclists,
Who were riding on bicycles in the streets of Kabul
They throw stones at them, and abuse them by men,
But they told me that during their cycling, they felt like they were flying.
Best of all, I met a group called “Guitars from Kabul”.
These street children who collect money hard-earned through the sale of scarves and chewing gum,
Most have lost brothers in suicide bombings,
One of the many suicide bombings in Kabul
However, when they played guitars,
I’ve seen the smilies at all.
These are the stories I want in my possession,
Because it gives me faith in humanity.
A vision holds some of these people
In these terrible situations makes me realize
We are stronger than we think,
Is it a coincidence that the majority of them are women? I’m not sure about that.
For me, women are the real war heroes because they are the women
They protect, protect, educate, and care for their children
At a time when all this hell surrounds them.
I also see that we are women
We want the same things for our children wherever we are,
How we are stronger together,
And how what brings us together more than divides us.
I had previously wondered what was driving me to go to war.
Maybe when you think about war,
Think about danger, murder, death and destruction.
I’m thinking about getting things too.
I hate those things.
But when I think of war, I also think about the people I met
In the guitars, who told me one of them,
Find the guitar and do something similar in this terrible situation
It was like finding a yellow flower among the rubble.
I think that in the time of false truths and false news,
We all need to look for that yellow flower.
(clap)
”
Be First to Comment