I MIGHT agree with the Arabic Booker Prize for Literature and I might not, and I might agree with its being awarded to Abdo Khal and I might not, none of that is really important. What is important is that a Saudi novelist has won an international prize. I ask, however: What has been the impact of that news in Saudi Arabia? Where has the Saudi media, extending as it does from the Arabian Sea to the Gulf, been in all this? Personally I'm ashamed of our media, for if the winner had been Egyptian or Lebanese or of any other nationality at all their countries would never have heard the end of it. Every country when one of its people earns an award sees it as a source of great national pride, and before you know it their press and media drown you in a deluge of interviews and reviews and discussions on the prize and the prize-winner who is made into a national champion and whose name traverses the boundaries of his country. We haven't done that with Abdo Khal. All that's happened is the odd piece of news and a few shamefaced comments here and there, as if Abdo Khal was from another country. Judging by the press reaction, he could have been from Mozambique for all we knew. Abdo Khal is a human being of flesh, blood and bone, I can swear to that, and it's my conviction that if every successful Saudi were given the requisite honor, praise and media attention at home and abroad, they would constitute the greatest ambassadors for their country, its best representatives, and its best means of informing others that Saudi society is not so closed as they are led to believe, and not just oil and money piling up on the pavement, and not a breeding ground for extremism. The Saudi media has failed to put across the truth of its society and the success of its people, some of whom have left its shores for more appreciative, more affectionate horizons. I hereby pay tribute to Abdo Khal, and anyone that manages to achieve success in the midst of the longest and greatest human neglect on Earth.
