Blindfolded

In "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" Czech author Milan Kundera writes that "Man goes through the present blindfolded. He can only make inferences and suppositions about what he is really living."

This is very true. How many times do we believe that we know what is happening and in reality, we do not attain even an approximation of this reality, and even less do we understand the meaning of what is happening or can we communicate it. This reflection is closely related to the role that we journalists play in each society and the importance of being close to the events that we report or at least try to report daily. The situation in the Middle East is a clear example of this. The information that we process and broadcast through the media in which we work is canned. We obtain most of it from international news agencies or foreign media reproductions. Like us, in their daily practice, they apply "journalistic criteria" for distribution of information. Unfortunately these criteria often derive from the concept that "negative news" is the news that our public wants to read, hear or see.

Is it possible to know the reality with this one-sided bombardment? I use the word one-sided, because certainly there is no balance when only one side of the facts is presented. Or will we be going through the present blindfold? Thirty-three journalists from Latin America, Angola and Spain, on scholarships from MASHAV of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, recently participated in a course in Israel on The Role of the Media in Areas of Conflict, in August, 1999. Our stay in Israel certainly helped to remove the blindfold from our eyes with regard to the Middle East.

How many prejudices did we, the newswriters, have on our arrival at Ben-Gurion Airport, and how many prejudices had we managed to shed by the time of our departure? I cannot answer this question because perhaps even I have not fully assimilated this.

The case of military censorship applied to some news that is distributed and that is considered sensitive for matters of national security in Israel was a source of concern to many of us. We conceived it perhaps as a violation of freedom of expression, a government interference in the work of the press. In time, as the course progressed, and as we heard more about criteria from government representatives and spokesmen, we began to qualify our harsh initial conceptions. We finally arrived at the conclusion that behind the name of "military censorship" there is a security mechanism, the application of which is often almost impossible in light of technological progress.

However, the situation was presented as it is. We were told that there is censorship and the reason was clearly explained. At the same time, there are many among us who live in countries where there are mechanisms that hamper the work of the press far more, but efforts are made to conceal this. Briefly, let me mention the specific case of Costa Rica. In a democratic society par excellence, we have to struggle daily against restrictive legislation and court rulings which threaten to muzzle voices that speak out and journalistic work.

This is only one of the concepts that we began to elucidate in matters of practical work. Beyond this, however, we were able to participate in newspaper work in daily life and there we encountered the greatest treasure. The value of life and death, the importance of remembering those who lost their lives fighting for the universal ideal: peace. Peace, the reason for war and the soul of life.

In the peaceful walks on the beach of Netanya, the rich dialogue with the people of Metulla, the conversation with the cab driver in Kfar Saba, the conversations with government officials, with journalists, photographers ... in short in every corner of Israel we remembered the most important thing, something that we so often forget in our daily work: that behind every news item there are people with names, with family, friends, dreams and hopes.

We received an important lesson on this in Israel. We knew through the mentions in the press of the soldiers fallen in battle, and we lived at firsthand the grief of the families and their struggle to obtain a peaceful withdrawal from southern Lebanon.

We made the acquaintance of a group of young Palestinians who are receiving training in Israel. We shared with them and learned their version of the facts. We also visited representatives of the Palestinian Authority, and we came to the conclusion that in one way or another, with their differences, the two peoples desire to live in peace.

We made the acquaintance, far perhaps from the idea that so many people may have through the information that they receive, of peaceful loving people.

There were hundreds of other things. We learned about the strategic importance of the Golan Heights and the roots of Israeli culture. We were able to comprehend the challenge weighing on the shoulders of Prime Minister Ehud Barak, the challenge of stimulating the peace process with the Palestinian Authority and overcoming the opposition to this process by certain sectors of Israeli society and by extremist groups.

Between the Holocaust Museum and the conversations with people in the street, we found the answer to the conduct of a people that on no account will allow itself to be treated again as it was during that dark and lamentable stage of human history. A people that daily fights for what it has.

Further, during this stay in Israel, we were also able to learn about the reality of our Latin American countries, of Spain and Angola. There were many tears when we removed the blindfold, but above all an undertaking to carry out our task well in our world. Yesterday we promised that "on our return home we would talk of peace." Thus together, 33 newswriters of the world, we joined hands in Israel, in an unprecedented opportunity to stop inferring and surmising and at last to know reality, without a blindfold.