by Brian Tetley
He was chosen from a shortlist of three. The others were the late Charles Douglas-Home, editor of The Times of London, and Mo’s contemporary, the late UPITN cameraman George De’ath.
Both, I am sure, would have agreed he was a worthy winner. Lady Lothian, the chairperson of the Advisory Council, told guests at the award ceremony in London’s Arts Club in December 1986, that the aim of the award, which carries no financial reward, was: ‘To annually pay tribute to the individual or group working for press, television, radio, or literature, who has best used modern means of communication courageously to convey the truth in the public interest.’
Presenting the award, the head of the international Salvation Army, General Eva Burrows, described it as the antithesis of ‘chequebook journalism’ that highlighted two strong human qualities, courage and honesty, ‘qualities seen in Mohamed Amin, who is honoured this evening. But I would add a third quality, which is a key to the powerful visual presentation which so stirred the world—the quality of compassion.’ She described the outcome as a ‘landmark in human history’.
Expressing gratitude to him for ‘this heightened awareness’, General Burrows said the media had the power and the responsibility to feed the young with those things which the Bible listed as ‘whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report’.
Receiving the award, Mohamed Amin said that he was proud to join the list of ‘brave and distinguished people’ who had won the 12 previous awards. It gave him special pleasure, he said, that he, a Muslim, had been chosen by a Christian organisation.
‘In a world where religious difference is so often the pretext for violence, I find this heartwarming.’
Of his Ethiopian film reports, he said the dignity and patience of the victims had reminded him of some of his favourite words from the Holy Qur’an.
Surely God is with the patient.
And say not of those slain in God’s way,
‘They are dead’; rather, they are living
But you are not aware.
Two things had become evident to him as a result of the world’s reaction to his reports. ‘One—ordinary people do respond when they know the truth. ‘Second—not enough is done, or the wrong solutions are applied, when people do know the truth.’
He concluded, ‘As a commuter between the underprivileged and privileged worlds, I want to say that the western media have to face the fact that they too live in a global village.
‘John Donne said four centuries ago:
No man is an island entire of itself
Every man is a piece of the continent.
Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind;
and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
it tolls for thee.
‘It does, indeed.’
A former editor of the Observer and vice chairman of the Award’s Advisory Council, Iain Lindsay-Smith, in his reflection, said the responsibility for deciding what was of good report was quite awesome. In Midsummer Night’s Dream, Puck had said he would ‘put a girdle round the earth in forty minutes’.
‘And now, of course, we do. The communications girdle round the earth, laced laser-tight by satellite and land station, is an instantaneous conductor.’
Yet, just as the victim of war was truth, so the first victim of instant, high-tech communication was meaningful perception.
‘What makes people become players in the way that the films of Mohamed Amin made the world play a role in the fundraising for famine?
‘For what we see here is one of the great hopeful movements of the 20th century. Perhaps even an historic turning point.’
He closed with the thought: ‘As to the valour of Mohamed Amin’s telling, as Milton wrote:
‘“I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race where the immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat.”
‘The dust and heat, in this case, about famine in Africa.’
Three months after this ceremony, in March 1987, when this biography was completed, I went with Mohamed Amin once more to Pakistan. This time, he was gathering film on the limited war being fought between India and Pakistan in the highest frontline in the history of warfare, along the snow-clad peaks, ice cliffs and cornices of the Pamir Knot, where the four greatest mountain ranges in the world merge in a tangle of lofty spires and plunging ravines.
He whirled around these, filming from the open doors of Pakistan Army helicopters. Stunned by the sheer savagery of the scenery, I tumbled out of the Puma helicopter at the army base at Gore, around 16,000 feet along the Baltoro Glacier, and refused to go higher.
But Mo swept into a high-altitude Alouette, doors removed, and was about to take off to circle the lower flanks of 28,250-foot-high K2, the world’s second highest mountain, when he was ordered back to the Puma. It could not wait and had to return to Skardu.
His frustration as he climbed into the helicopter was enormous, almost surly. He looked just like a cat who had taken its first lick of stolen cream before being caught in the act.
He found some compensation in the days that followed, making supersonic bombing runs in the Pakistan Air Force’s F-16 jets, when he pulled the full nine Gs these aircraft impose. After two such runs, the group captain told one questioning subordinate pilot, ‘Don’t worry about him. He’s a fighter pilot.’
And finally, he did get to 25,000 feet on the slopes of K2—in June 1987.
But all this must surely be for the second half of a remarkable life.
Acknowledgements
I’m indebted to Al Ventner, John Platter, and Ronald Robson for a large part of this book.
And to Michael Wooldridge, Brendan Farrow, Peter Marshall, David Martin, Peter Seidlitz, Tim Arlott, Tom Hudson, Al Wells, Abdul Rahman Ramadhan, Michael Roe, Bob Cheek, Peter Searle, Roy Lipscombe, Brian Quinn, Sean Hawkins, Henry Reuter, Mohamed Shaffi, Saidi Suleiman Salim, Jerry Shah, Harriet Bisley, and Patrick Orr for their anecdotes, recollections, and impressions.
And, of course, to Mo.
About the Author
Born in Birmingham, England, in 1934, before becoming a Kenyan citizen, Brian Tetley was an internationally known writer on wildlife, environmental, and sociological subjects, who worked for many years in Britain’s Fleet Street and in Independent Television Networks. He was a popular columnist on Kenya’s Nation newspaper during the late 1960s and worked as a special consultant with the United Nations. He had been associated—as friend and colleague—with Mohamed Amin since 1969 and was Senior Editor at Camerapix. Books he wrote include: Cradle of Mankind, Journey through Kenya, The Beauty of Kenya, Karachi, Journey through Nepal, and Defenders of Pakistan. He died alongside Mohamed Amin in a plane crash in 1996.
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