There are not many occasions that I can remember where I have been left speechless. There are also not many occasions I can remember where something that has no proximity or immediacy to me moves me to tears. The bombings in Jordan on Wednesday of this week were one such time.
Al-Qaeda has claimed responsibility for this sickening crime which will be added to their long list of travesties and tragedies.
Today there are 56 families who are missing one of their members and many hundreds more who have lost friends or have someone who was severely injured in the blasts. I have staff in my offices across the Middle East who knew people who were killed.
I spoke to three clients yesterday about the bombings. One lost a cousin, one his old friend from his university days and the other lost two of her closest friends in the bombings. Everyone in the Middle East has been touched by this appalling and cowardly attack.
Two of my staff were in Amman to run a major press conference for a large international American client in the Grand Hyatt. The event was a great success and fortunately was concluded a few hours before the bombs went off. If they had exploded earlier we would have lost many people from our firm and our client’s company, as well as journalists.
Later that evening, one of my team – a Jordanian who now works for my firm in Dubai - met up with one her best friends in the lobby of the Grand Hyatt hotel. After she said goodbye to him, they walked off in separate directions in the lobby. He towards the bar, she towards the entrance. 15 seconds later the bomb exploded and he was dead. My colleague was miraculously unhurt and lived – only to turn around and see the death and destruction just feet away including the remains of her friend.
Instead of breaking down, she started to find clients and journalists and assist them in their evacuation of the hotel. She then spent the next 10 hours arranging for new hotels, flights and cars to the airport. A group of Egyptian journalists refused to co-operate and told her that they were not going to go anywhere until she – the PR person – went back into the hotel and got their bags and personal belongings. They even started to abuse her when she explained that the police would not allow anyone back into the hotel. Idiots.
When I heard of the bombs back in Dubai – just 30 minutes after they had gone off – I spent the next three hours on the phone co-ordinating with my people across the Middle East to check on staff, clients and others. The girl who lost her friend in the blast was the last person I managed to reach and I was very concerned.
She was in tears and in a state of shock – She told me about her friend who was killed and I gave her my condolences. I had imagined that she was at home with her family by now so I rang off as I did not want to intrude into her privacy at such a terrible time. I didn’t know that actually this was just the beginning of her night and that she would spend the next eight hours or so ensuring the safety of others including the ignorant and intolerable Egyptian journalists.
Another member of my staff was at the Days Inn hotel, which was also blown up. She too was miraculously unhurt, although her car - which was parked outside the hotel - is now a windowless convertible as a result of the blast.
When I learnt of the bravery of my colleague in the Grand Hyatt I was simply astonished and totally humbled. I cannot imagine the feelings one has when one sees one’s best friend blown up and killed, seconds after saying goodbye to them. To see one’s home city brought to its knees with death and chaos all around. And then to spend the night taking care of others and making sure they are safe. Her bravery has been recognized within the company at a global level and indeed by the CEO of the WPP group - which owns our firm -who wrote her a personal letter. At my request we will also be making a donation to the appropriate fund that will help the victims of the blasts in Amman.
There were of course other tragedies in Amman. Ashraf Mohammed and his bride Nadia Al-Alami were celebrating their marriage with 250 guests in the ballroom of the Radisson hotel – scene of the worst blast which went off when the wedding party was taking place. Both bride and groom were injured and each lost their fathers. To begin your married life in this way is truly awful – and for the bomb to claim the lives of their respective father-in-laws was also tragic – (particularly as the mother-in-laws were unhurt!).
Jordan was targeted for three main reasons. Its close relationship with the US – politically and economically is perhaps the first reason. The second that it has maintained much closer relationships with Israel than the other Arab nations and this is seen as a betrayal. Finally, it is a hub now for mainly American and other foreign forces who use Amman and Jordan as a “pied a terre” for their activities in Iraq which the country borders. The attack in this sense was no surprise as it has been widely anticipated that the country would be targeted, and only the hitherto tireless work of the efficient intelligence service in Jordan has protected the Hashemite Kingdom from Al Qaeda until this week.
The Jordanian Royal family are Hashemites. This means they are blood descendants of the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) and yet evidently Al Qaeda do not feel they are “Islamic enough”. This goes to show that actually Al Qaeda is nothing to do with Islam. These attacks and others around the world have nothing to do with Islam or the Muslim people. These are acts of pure terror without rhyme or reason and there are no excuses or ways of defending them.
This is the world we live in. New York, Madrid, London, Bali, Jordan, Egypt and so on. Nowhere is safe from this scourge and no-one can predict where next. Death and mourning in this part of the world are sadly so commonplace in the last hundred years or more, that society and communities have developed their own mechanisms for dealing with it. The Westerners are beginning to learn how to do this too. Not lessons that we would hope for in the 21st century.
It is God’s will say some, perhaps to remove the need to question the mindlessness and brutal unfairness of such early deaths in such tragic circumstances. Maybe this makes it easier.
The bravery, courage, commitment and strength demonstrated by my colleague in Amman on Wednesday and indeed many other Jordanians, made me realize how pathetic most of the problems we all worry about on a daily basis are. I was and am humbled by her and her actions.
I hope you will be too.
