Mixed memories of the Middle East

Frank Gardner will miss the Middle East

		By Frank Gardner BBC Middle East Correspondent

As I walk from our flat to the BBC Cairo bureau for the last time, past the conscript soldiers with their rusting rifles, I wonder what I'll miss most about the Middle East.

The kindness and good humour of the Egyptians perhaps, or the taste of apple-flavoured tobacco in a hubble-bubble waterpipe. Or the soft caress of fine sand on a starlit night in the desert. Or maybe the smell of molten frankincense, in the lobby of an Omani hotel.

I awoke to the sound of heavy machine-gun fire, loud and rhythmic. In fact, it turned out to be an open-air rave for Israeli teenagers

But I can also think of quite a few things I won't miss. The silent Egyptian flies that settle on your lips and eyelids, for example. The maddening bureaucracy of countries ruled by ageing, unelected autocrats.

The blind bigotry of Islamist zealots, who blame all their society's failings on Israel and the West. The sad hopelessness of whole generations of young Arabs, pouring onto the job market, only to find their dreams frustrated by corruption and inefficiency.

Since I've been in this job, two major events have rocked the region - the Palestinian intifada, and of course, 11 September.

Heart-wrenching sadness

Soon after the Palestinian uprising began, in September 2000, I was in my hotel room in Jerusalem, getting an early night before the dawn shift. I awoke to the sound of heavy machine-gun fire, loud and rhythmic. In fact, it turned out to be an open-air rave for Israeli teenagers, just down the road.

I laughed at my mistake. But there have also been many encounters that have left me with utter, heart-wrenching sadness. Like the 10-year old boy in Gaza so traumatised by the daily violence that he was still wetting his bed. All he could do, all day long, was draw pictures of tanks and rockets, and of his own family's house in flames.

The violence in Israel has heightened in the last few years

Or the 16-year old Moroccan girl we found in a Casablanca refuge. Raped by her employer, her family had thrown her out on the street in disgrace. Her youth already over, she faced the rest of her life in a chauvinist society that would now treat her like a prostitute.

And in Kuwait, I will never forget the sister of a PoW I interviewed. She told me how her brother had been taken away by the Iraqis in the final days of their occupation.

Struggling to hold back tears, she looked at me almost accusingly. "You cannot begin to know what it's like," she said, "not knowing, 10 years later, whether he's alive or dead. Every day we lay a place for him at the table, and every day we wait for him to come back."

Tea with kidnapper

But it isn't all doom and gloom, here in the Middle East, and some stories always bring a smile to my face - like the time I went in search of a kidnapper to interview, in the wilds of Yemen.

I took a couple of local bodyguards with me - nice men, very honourable, and more importantly, well-armed.

Meeting the leaders of the Arab world has been fascinating. You see them so often on television that when you meet them in the flesh, they have surprisingly human traits

When we found our kidnapper, he received us with elaborate courtesy in his mudwalled fort. Over tea and oranges he told me how he'd released his western hostages when the government had promised him a tarmac road.

He said the government had broken its promise. So, now he was looking to kidnap again. He glanced at my bodyguards and then with great candour, I thought, said that I was too well protected to be worth the risk.

Then at the height of the Palestinian intifada, I was attending an Islamic summit in Qatar.

The talking was over, the statements issued, and it was time for a photocall. Now journalists often dress like they're ready to be tossed on a bonfire. But as I was in a suit, there was some confusion at security.

Centre stage

Suddenly I found myself standing on a plinth, in between Iran's President Khatami and Jordan's King Abdullah. So it seemed only natural to turn and chat to the king, who was charm itself.

But tempting as it was to masquerade as the head of some newly created Central Asian republic, I made my excuses and left.

Jordan's King Abdullah was charm itself

I have to say that meeting the leaders of the Arab world has been fascinating.

You see them so often on television that when you meet them in the flesh, they have surprisingly human traits. Like the quivering lower lip of Yasser Arafat, trembling as he begs me to relay some message to the world.

The dark, slightly manic eyes of Libya's Colonel Gaddafi, flicking across a throng of journalists, as he reveals to us some new and bizarre theory about the Lockerbie bombers.

Then there's Egypt's President Mubarak, who I interviewed just after 11 September. His big, well-fed face cracked into a grin, as he told me how the West had ignored his warnings about terrorism, and now look what had happened.

Accountable

Every year we journalists keep saying that the Middle East is at a turning point. Usually, we're referring to the Arab-Israeli question.

Yemen is a wild and intriguing country

But, thinking about it, there is one way that the Middle East has already turned.

Thanks to the internet and satellite television, Arabs are no longer spoon-fed on a dreary diet of state broadcasting.

They now know how much of the rest of the world lives, and they would like a slice of that peace and prosperity for themselves. Increasingly, Arab governments and rulers are going to have to be accountable to their citizens.

Some will adapt to that and survive. But other, more autocratic regimes, will find democracy a bitter pill to swallow. I wonder if they will outlast my successor.