Transcripts For ALJAZ Mo Me 20240713

C. D. N. T. V. By the 4th of may join us with special coverage as we look at the possible demo its of a media giant and the ramifications for press freedom in the philippines on aljazeera. And welcome again to rewind on elizabeth when we 1st lost aljazeera english more than 10 years ago goal was to seek out the sort of documentaries on the channel simply werent doing well here on rewind we revisit some of the best of them to find out how they came about. And how the stories moved on well today we rewind into 2006 and one of the earliest of those programs for more than 30 years mohamad and me was a legendary figure in africa a photo and video journalist who chronicled the momentous events of the 2nd half of the 20th century a turbulent time for the continent more in me was a series made by muhammad son salie in which he tells the story of his fathers career and camera picks the agency has father created a brave and highly respected figure in Africa Muhammad came to global prominence when his film and photos of the mine 984. 00 ethiopian famine shocked the world and led directly to the International Live aid phenomenon where today were returning to the final part of the series which tells the tragic story of mohammeds death and the legacy he left behind the 1st lets take a look at some of the stories he chronicled for newspapers and t. V. Stations across the world. Well as you can see muhammads korea took him to the heart of the action in africa but in a tragic twist it was finally to find himself on what in the at the center of a global story here is the final episode of law and me. My name is sally mommy son of renowned photojournalist muhammad or me dad was a regular commuter to addis ababa one reason was that he published the inflight magazine of Ethiopian Airlines we still do. Data business colleague brian todd lee checked in on november 23rd 1996 flight 809612 nairobi a saturday dad flew in 1st tightly in business. It was a last minute decision to take brian along he hated flying. Captain lola but it takes me aboard a flight simulator. Its programmed to reenact what happened to flight 8061 was anything unusual other than in any premonition you had about this right. Now it does my daughter for the day. I celebrated her birthday i tom and i came out for the flight with a Beautiful Day sun its guys claire. Started out very nice. When we took off when the plane took a. Off. Before it even leveled out. We heard b. I heard some noise coming from back and then i noticed 2 gentlemen running up the aisles towards the cockpit so they came into the cockpit take a moment on i mean there are 3 of them they took the fire extinguisher and they started beating the copilot crawled along. I said guys hold on whats going on here shut up the flight is hijacked ok no problem saw moment i mean come out twice the cabin to the passenger compartment Economy Class and talk to. To some of us to try to to to to assist him all to stand up against the hijackers but. Most people were i think a little too scared so i assume he is a very brave man and. One of the passengers knew was that the hijackers had demanded to be taken to australia ironically they picked australia out of the inflight magazine the dark himself published. Ok guys i told them. This flight is destined to nairobi we dont carry you know korea to australia lets land in nairobi really if you will and then we can go to australia either i told them its impossible. The hijackers refused to allow captain a budget to refuel at nairobi or mombasa. So you cant go to new possible buses and yeah and then last known bus and i was trying to fly along the coast right so that i dont want to be far from the. They are the line. Then he said why are you flying along the coast of australia is somewhere to this direction. And i took the ok i thought i had the heading. And now this message came you know if you told. You see this its a small fuel were running out of fuel guys so we just kept telling like this. She was circling the island at this i was looking at diana i decided out of anyone else right because the tweets are dead and. My now flight 8961 was circling above the camorra as i look. So i just kept running i told the guys were going to die theyre running out of fuel im real already lost one engine. They started talking with the guys and this time i took my makeup i told the passengers they descendant the man rev run. We have lost one engine due to troop starvation and were going to go down that engine very soon hed run out of fuel youve already lost one engine. And that he had no alternative but to crash on and off for the realise. This is ending differently is that we all thought that there would be a bush usually people feeling if you want to report the other sort of thing but you know thats when the panic set in the reality actually on the whole so yeah this could be the end one time i heard the door open yes i attended about i saw your father standing on a dime he was standing and talking to you i decided to study i dont write you a thing he does the people i could see by the justice just as he was making was that he was trying to get people to stand up. And help him. And stand up to again you know stand up to the streets but most people would. Think rather too to scare. You things because he was a he had been in this situation many tell us or hes been in many trying situations as we all know and i guess he stands up to these challenges a lot easier than most people would you know. Now that appearing as a descending right as Good Research and the time you have to go. True or false but i doubt i said guys this is finished now we are all dead people know that madrid my right hand side i dont know they did it here is the single adult on my list. Disengaged that he did from so in this country have him not control right then i disconnected the heart of planet earth. And i had to start lying to myself and just he was struggling like this and more risk pushing and i was on and i was not trying to recover from that condition you know he was doing like this. And i was trying to recover people and the screaming and shouting calling up jesus. Running up and down the aisles people trying to put on their life jackets and not finding them the scales. We were about 21000 we witnessed god that angels right. So you were just basically gliding off to that point thats where the 21000 feet you were just gliding as all 21000 feet yes started to get hot in the plane the lights on the to flicker started to aspire and they got us on the dock. On those old is you know people were screaming and it was just so a lot of panic in that croft. Trying to be gentle in this time working side by that ok you have to hold on to politics and i was talking to my son as we came down and people could actually see whats on both sides of the plane that sort of went quiet this was like the last few moments cases theyre going to make it now you know make it. And i just kept looking. Out the window and i could see water is good. Good to start the other day. And then finally. I guess maybe 5 or 10 so. And before we hit the water i went out its just my eyes and held on to see to the front was waiting for the impact on the. Honeymoon couple from south africa taking photographs on the beach. But. People were struggling to get out of the seats and you know tugging onto others and you know all that was a bit scary because i was under water and of course yes to hold your breath all this time as the shock yeah but finally i did get out and when i got out i looked up since i saw the sky. And i said ok this must be the other side must have crossed over and then when i leveled out and looked at the ocean as all these both looked like tourists said ok it must still be our hunt so. The man and. The camorra is in the holidaymakers bring the passengers assure alive dead and half way between. Of dad there is no sign. Of 175. 00 passengers from 36. 00 countries 123. 00 perished including the hijackers but dad there were still no news only an ominous silence. I went to. Wilson airport nairobi with my friend Duncan Willetts we chartered an aircraft to fly us to mouli the capital of the corps where a makeshift morgue set up. So we drove to this meat factories right right near the ocean and we went inside and there was poured probably 80 to 100 bodies lying on the floor in rows and they were covered by sheets and we had to basically go through each one to find bribe and dad bribe tetley was on the flight as well we had to go through each one to find them so i dug and started at one end and i started at the other end and i thought i found that body and. I really didnt know what to what i found his body and i put the sheet back on and i walked outside and i brace basically broke down what were your thoughts on the floor we never actually talked about this when we were there we didnt really say much on the trip there did you think he would have made it there when we were flying over or you pretty convinced that he had well i must admit i was pretty convinced that he died you know we were true it would try to tell you maybe or of your you know we have a couple of drinks very little but i knew we had because theres no noise room and you know how do you survive we would have heard that was his job to tell the world over you know reportedly and sadly these birding that we both go. What did you feel you were close to the both of them very close to the both of them what did you feel a devastated absolutely devastated to be going such with. A completely nonsensical useless waste of time money when the thing that should never never have happened i mean Car Accidents happen you like it but it doesnt go as we all know that but the fact that some people survived and some people didnt 2 thirds died and thats what this is the average for the question the c. One unfortunately you know to bryan was in the column business business and everybody in business. You father didnt survive but the guy next to him to know whether he didnt know his seat belt fastened which is typical mohamad you know you dont either and he shot out a lot of them got killed because he cracked their head on them on the luggage thing. Had he been able to choose a way to go i think this would have been one of those not necessarily the hijack or a botched hijacking but the fact that it was the biggest story of the day he wasnt even covering it it was the biggest story of the day it has put him down in that it did it kept his status to legendary because of the way died that he just been you know an old man that passed away to sleep that drama wouldnt have been that the drama of his life wouldnt have been there and he had that drama right to the very end then you know i think that in some way that gives you some consolation for whatever its worth his life philosophy was that if i can do it anybody else can. We are in the most powerful profession in the world the stories are we do reach millions of people we can make a difference and if we use that power responsibly it can change the world and it can change africa which desperately desperately needs it. What you see in in my office and it is my office its not his office its my office but what you see in my office is a memory to somebody that i idolized but somebody that it cheve more than any other african journalist has achieved in history and i want to remember that whenever i feel that its too much that i can cope with this that i can handle a situation i just have to look around me at what he achieved and i have the strength to continue and i have his pictures around because i feel hes still watching over me to a certain extent i think ive spent the last years since hes died trying to prove to him that i know im not the disappointment that he thought i was was the gist was that. Was. I have this recurring nightmare of him not having died in that plane crash and walking into this office and screaming at me and saying or the have you done to my office where all my things get out of my chair and get. Out from behind my desk and what are you doing here i do have i mean its not a nightmare that hes still alive thats not the nightmare i bought but its the repercussions and me sitting there trying to justify what ive done over the last decade to. Immortalized his memory to a certain degree and to continue his legacy and to continue his company. I think there would be an inner peace i would call at a certain point in my life where i would feel that i have nothing left to prove to them i think. Perhaps. A string of awards perhaps some recognition for what ive done would. Allow me to sit back and say dad. I hope youre happy about. The final episode of mo and me well as we know a lot has happened in africa since 2006 and although most no longer with us has sound so lame has carried on the camera picks today and hes here with us now to talk about keeping faith with his fathers mission and the role of generalism and todays africa it is great to have it with us here today wonderful to be here elizabeth thank you thank you i believe that your series more than made it was actually the 1st that was broadcast on aljazeera it was the opening series or documentary series that was done and it kind of you know it when i was pitching it to to the original team that started all jazeera i felt that it ticked all the boxes that aljazeera was stand you know stood for wanted to portray itself as which was stories. On the sols. Stories that dealt with parts of the world that many bar the board cost is rarely looked at it was a story of a muslim who wasnt a terrorist you say in the film that you have this recurring nightmare that youre never going to live up to the mens work of your father how do you feel about that now i still have the same night where i look i realize ive come to terms with his life his life was was truly unique in an african context in the global context and you know the body of work spent time looking at the body of his work its just phenomenal you over 3000000 images that he clicked in 40 odd years how do you think africa has changed in the 2 decades since his passing both bad and good what i think i think it has changed its changed a lot. In some ways its changed more in the last 2 decades that it did in the last 50 years before that there is been the technology has been a huge leap things like mobile money and. And and all these apps and wonderful innovations that have come out of the quantum of leadership has been a massive problem in kenya alone in 2007 in 2017 we had you know of this massive election problem when 2007 we have postelection violence in south africa weve got a whole change of guard with people getting fed up with corruption so some things havent got worse how dangerous is it still to film in many parts of the continent you know when he was operating one of the things that he taught me was how to get in and out of war situations and for him no matter how gung ho or passionate he was no story was ever worth dying for one of his favorite sayings to me which ill never forget is not. Is he said im not afraid of the bullet with my name on it but i dont want to be killed by the one that says to whom it may concern going into a war zone he said the 1st thing i look for is the exit its not how to get it its how to get out because theres no point of nobody sees your pictures theres no point going to these places and putting your life on the line but in the end unfortunately he did die. Not by not from a bullet it was a to whom it may concern kind of a situation it was a case of his luck running out but not just his luck with a lot of other people and it was it was a freak accident it was a it was. A hijacking that was not necessarily was unnecessary it was a bunch of amateurs if there is such a thing as amateur i jack ers these were a bunch of amateurs nobody to this day ever been able to explain how they got on that plane they were escaped convicts how they got passports how they managed to make it onto that flight and he tried to live very and to convince them yeah he was not got we spent most of his life negotiating with our maniacs i mean that was what he did for a living and so he you know he tried he did everything remember this was pretty 911 had been post 911 i think you know 100 people would have stood up and jumped on top of these guys and tried to take the plane back and tragic end but an absolutely extraordinary life we thank you very much something for coming in and talking to us about about him thats what an absolute pleasure thank you very much thank you on that set from us but do join us again next time and check out the rewind page at c. N. N. Dot com for more films from the series on is the problem thanks for joining us see you again soon. Macare brainier people back to life from sars updates on the best of aljazeera documentaries in libya i was the job of the plus and the like and the other student rewind continues with the shake to rock my neighborhood i was like screaming get us to close we want leave. My ultimate goal would be to do something very big for the palestinian and your creation rewind on aljazeera. May on aljazeera has covered 19 infects millions and triggers a Global Economic crisis will bring you the latest developments from around the world. Aljazeera world selection of the best Network Documentaries includes the story of unsung egyptian composer and musician ali its my despite the coronavirus pandemic presses ahead with a president ial elections by still the Emmy Award Winning phone lines is back investigating the United States and its role in the world and in the u. S. 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