Don’t Tell My Mother I’m In…

I had that episode in my real life recently.

Perhaps, I was lured to do so after watching lanky, soulful and easygoing Diego Buñuel in his documentary on NatGeo (10.00pm). Last night, we went to Balkans after a trip to heavenly Shangrila Lake in Pakistan last week.

Balkan trip for Diego, I shall say, an emotional trip as he once served under the French Military Service in Sarajevo. In this episode, we were told that the Serbs attacked the Bosnians based on a topography map (Why? Oil-rich lands belonged to the Muslim Bosnians), there is a pyramid in Bosnia, and underneath the peaceful ambience in Balkans, even a small issue could turn into a fight (Why? Western = too Christian, Eastern = too Muslim, so they opted to look north). Do you think you would know these from regular media? Awesome!

Here’s what I got from NatGeo’s site: -

“For the past ten years Diego Buñuel has been a foreign correspondent for French Television covering all kinds of countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, or the Congo.

Every time he left for one of his stories, he would tell his production crew in the Paris office, “Don’t tell my mother I am in Colombia, it makes her really nervous.”

After a few years of travelling repeatedly, Diego realised that the international news coverage, of which he was part of, only focused on the worst headlines possible.

So Diego embarked on a rather unusual effort; to talk about countries that make headlines, but instead on focusing on the same three basic stories, he extended the reach of his eye to look at a more subtle vision of these countries, full of culture, people, interests that rise high above the daily news reports".

This is a must-watch documentary, after the absence of Ian Wright’s Globe Trekker. This is soul-searching, hope-renewing show that rejuvenates your belief – as perfectly quoted by Arthur Golden -“Adversity is like a strong wind. It tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that we see ourselves as we really are”.

I hope we could see people without prejudice and the key to that is – to know these real people, simply.

Let’s make the soles of our Yang Berkhidmats well worn, walking and talking to us, the people. Then, whatever policies and projects they come up with, will reflect what we, the people, really need.