I don't know exactly when I saw Lawrence of Arabia for the first time.
I was probably only 8 or 9 years old, so it must have been in the late 60's.
I do remember that I was thunderstruck when I saw it. And I was determined that I was going to grow up to be the female Lawrence of Arabia.
I can't single out what intrigued me the most.
Was it the way he defied Fate? Was it the charisma he was born with?
Did I see David with the slingshot in Lawrence when he led the Arab tribes against the Evil Empire i.e. Great Britain rather than the Ottoman Empire? Did I fall in love with his uncompromising sense of justice? Or did I simply get intoxicated by Peter O'Toole's piercing blue eyes? Maybe I just happened to be one of those desert loving people.
I read a book about T. E. Lawrence in my mid-teen. I didn't like what I found out about him. So I stopped digging into the reality because I wanted my Lawrence to remain that Lawrence in the movie.
To me, Lawrence was an outstanding hero born with a mission and he had to remain that way in my heart. And so he has, till this day.
You may be wondering what it was that I found unpleasant in the book.
Honestly, I don't remember. My mind is really convenient. I usually just forget "unpleasant" things. Life is short and my brain can take only so much information. Why bother to remember anything unpleasant?
I spent my teenage days listening to hard rock and bragging about how I was going to be the female Lawrence someday in the near future. I was young.
I truly thought I was the chosen one to save the Arabs from the Caucasians' Christianity based imperialism. There is nothing I loathe more than those so called "good Christian" white people who think they own the world. I mean, the kind who used to colonize the third world. The kind who, until very recently, enslaved black people in South Africa, The kind who built the United Sates of America by slaughtering the Native Americans and enslaving and lynching blacks.
All in the name of Jesus Christ who supposedly preached "Human beings are all God's children, Love thy neighbors." To those white Christians, non-whites are not "human beings." So, I though I was going to be a warrior and lead a war, not literally but diplomatically, against this injustice that those white people have brought upon the world.
Just like Lawrence (in the movie), I wanted to change the world.
I wanted to become a diplomat or a politician so that I could help Jews and Arabs get what they wanted.
As a teenage girl, the solution I had was to involve the French and British governments, who made this mess in the Middle East to begin with, and make them pay the price. All in all, if it hadn't been for that damned Sykes-Picot Treaty, Mr. Rabbin [*1] would be still alive.
I thought the only logical solution to the Middle East problem was to let any Jews and Palestinians who are willing to live in France as their citizens. If those two governments who sowed the evil seed have the decency to reap the evil fruit, they would give the Jews and Palestinians better lives (at least economically) in Britain and France, Israel/Palestine would be less populated as a result, and thus the Jews and Arabs who chose to remain there would have a better chance to co-exist. Well, that was my theory.
So, to pursue my dream, I went to Cairo and enrolled myself in Cairo University and studied Islam and psychology, I know, I should have majored in political science or international relations, but there was no opening in those classes for a foreign student. I was in Egypt between 1979 and 1981.
I WAS in Cairo when Carter made Begin and Sadat shake hands on the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty [*2]. But that was not the incident that shaped my life after my teenage years.
I also experienced a part of the Islamic Revolution led by Khomeini while I was in Egypt. And THAT made me realize that the Caucasian/Christian world is not the only dirty world. Sadat's family was loaded with money while most of the Egyptian population was unbelievably poor. The royal families in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other oil-rich countries had money to burn while their brothers in Palestine were dying.
Muhammad was against hereditary ruling. He was for meritocracy. He preached that a ruler should be selected for his capability, not by his blood. His world was my sanctuary.
I was disillusioned by this modern-day Islam. My teenage dream was gone forever. Why should I be the one to save them? Why bother? Like Lawrence said (in the movie), "There maybe honour among thieves, but there's none in politicians." Let the kings and the rulers in the Islamic countries save their own people!
I came back to Japan early 1981. I saw Sadat being assassinated on TV [*3].
I didn't pursue my studies, Instead, I became an anchor-person on a TV news programme. Knowing Arabic helped in my career. Actually my being able to speak Arabic was the decisive point why the producer chose me when I auditioned. So it's safe to say that Lawrence made me what I am now.
Like Lawrence, I was fascinated by the desert and the Islamic world.
And like Lawrence, I was disillusioned by the real world.
I'm just a journalist now. I only report on how history is being made.
But sometimes, I can still feel a fraction of my naive teenage passion wanting to become the one who makes the history.
[*1] Yitzhak Rabin, Israeli prime minister, was assassinated on 4 November 1995 in Tel Aviv. [*2] Camp David accords, signed on March 1979. [*3] Egypt's President Anwar el-Sadat was assassinated on 6 October 1981 in Cairo.
Her profile
born 1961, broadcasting journalist. Superb English, French, Arabic as well as Japanese. Anchorperson of the morning news programme for TV Asahi, a Japanese television network, from 1989 to 1994. VJ/DJ of various rock shows for NHK, Japanese equivalent to BBC, from 1983 to 1989. Wrote four books on movies, three books on rock music. She has lived in Europe and USA since 1994.
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