 In the aftermath of the bomb blast which killed three policemen I was invited to be interviewed on Bahrain TV. As I was given a choice of 15 minute slots, I imagined that it was only 15 minutes, but in the end it was an hour’s live programme, which included phone-ins from Bahrain and overseas – there was one call from an Arab specialist in London. I was a little anxious as what would normally be a twenty-minute journey took nearly an hour, but no-one in the studio seemed too anxious that I was late. The interviewer was Ahdeya Ahmed, who focused particularly on the pain that the families of the bereaved must be facing and how Bahrain should respond to the terrorist attack on the police. At 11pm that evening, when I was sound asleep, my phone rang: a Bahraini friend telling me that I was on TV and then passing me over to the new US Navy Fleet Chaplain, who I haven’t yet met. The only other comment I received was an e-mail from Dubai from Helen Waddilove, the Administrator of Christchurch, Jebel Ali. Her husband was flicking through the channels and chanced upon it and they watched it to the end. As she wrote: we learn to lead our lives in the places we live. |
