I am often hauled up for my rather blunt and direct approach but as a tabloid journalist I believe the best way of getting a message through to people is by keeping things simple.
That way there’s no room for misunderstanding or innuendo.
Although there are occasions I do come unstuck as I discovered during a recent visit to Istanbul when my volunteer translator came to an abrupt halt mid sentence.
It wasn’t that he was lost for words – he understood quite clearly what I said, but just couldn’t quite deliver my graphic response to a question about the US Presidential elections because the Turkish translation was simply too vulgar.
In response to being asked who I would vote for between Barak Obama and John McCain, I replied that it would cause me enormous difficulty because they were two cheeks of the same ass!
Yes it was rather coarse and I know my colourful, if not vulgar, turn of phrase does upset some peoples’ sensibilities but you get the picture, don’t you?
There’s very little to choose between Obama and McCain when it comes to foreign policy and, as if to reinforce that, their sidekicks rather proved the point when they clashed on TV.
But as McCain’s Mini-Me, Sarah Palin, and Barack Obama’s Wannabe, Joe Biden, took to the stage in the US vice-presidential TV challenge, I was more concerned about what they did not say than what they did.
And by the time they finished they reinforced my belief that there really is little to separate the Democrats from the Republicans in terms of the Middle East.
As they both challenged each other the competition got quite hot when it came to just who is Israel’s best friend. Like two pimps fighting over a prize ho, they gushed at who was the biggest and best supporter of the Zionist state.
Not that Dumb and Dumber used the Z word – in fact Biden and Palin never used the P word either. Yes folks, it appears their spin doctors have told them that the word Palestine or Palestinians no longer exists in the vocabulary of the 2008 election campaign.
Anyone with little or no knowledge of Middle East politics would have been mystified by the mention of Hamas when Biden taunted Palin over the US President’s decision to push on with ‘the elections’ which delivered a ‘Hamas victory’.
No wonder a survey on some western TV viewers revealed they had absolutely no idea where Palestinians came from … some even volunteered Pakistan or Afghanistan!
By ignoring the P-word and constantly referring to the I-word what are these candidates hoping to achieve? Do they really think by erasing Palestine from our vocabulary that Palestinians will cease to exist?
Is this a joint Republican-Democratic initiative to wipe Palestine off the face of the map and consign millions of people to history?
As I said before, voting in the US Presidential elections is like trying to choose between two cheeks of the same derriere!
The outcome? Exactly the same as you’ve got now – an A** sitting in The White House. The main question being: “Will the next one be as big as the last?”
* British-born, award-winning journalist Yvonne Ridley is well known in the Muslim world for her outspoken views and defence of Islam. She endeared herself to the Muslim community in Britain when she reverted to Islam 30 months after making international headlines when she was captured by the Taliban on an undercover assignment in Afghanistan. She was a senior reporter of the Sunday Express at the time, having spent nearly 10 years in Fleet Street working for several prestige titles including The Sunday Times, The Observer, Daily Mirror and Independent on Sunday. Her official website is: www.yvonneridley.org
