Man Who Moved the World , livre ebook

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131 pages

English

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Mohamed Amin was the most famous photo journalist in the world, making the news as often as he covered it. His coverage of the 1984 Ethiopian famine proved so compelling that it inspired a collective global conscience and became the catalyst for the greatest-ever act of giving-the "We Are the World" campaign. Unquestionably, it also saved the lives of millions of men, women and children.In a career spanning more than 30 years, Mo covered every major event in Africa and beyond, braving torture, surviving bombs and bullets to emerge as the most decorated news cameraman of all time. But his frenetic life was cut tragically short when, in November, 1996, hijackers took over an Ethiopian airliner forcing it to ditch in the Indian Ocean killing 123 passengers and crew. Mo died on his feet still negotiating with the terrorists.

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Lettres et linguistique

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Publié par	Master Publishing
Date de parution	20 décembre 2013
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9789966052032
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0373€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Table of Contents
Foreword
Preface
The Final Flight
The Early Years
Torture In Paradise
Nobody Beats Me On My Patch
Murder, Mayhem, and Massacre
Downfall of a Dictator
Three’s Company
Closest Thing to Hell on Earth
Within a Whisker of Death
The Old Testament with Rocket Launchers
Variations of an Enigma
The Legend Lives On (Postscript)
Photo Section
Acknowledgements
About the Authors
About the Publisher
Dedication
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO Mohamed Amin, an extraordinary man who led an extraordinary life, and Brian Tetley without whom, quite literally, it would not have been written.
Author’s Note
IN 1988, BRIAN TETLEY WROTE the story of Mo as a frontline cameraman. Painstakingly researched and compiled through interviews and tapes, it remains the most comprehensive record of the photographer’s career. While doing research in Nairobi, I was given access to many of Mo’s private papers and discovered tapes he made with Brian, which confirm the principal events and incidents of his remarkable life. Where appropriate, I have called upon Brian’s notes, recordings, and text, adding information from my own research. Brian was a gifted writer and my close friend. I respectfully acknowledge the debt this book owes to him.
I was Mo’s friend and colleague for more than 20 years. We met in Nairobi. Yet when he asked me to ghost write his autobiography 18 months before he was killed, I was surprised. I did not know him intimately although we had worked together on many projects. I had also travelled with Mo many times.
I suspect we were able to work together successfully was because I was never fully in his employ but we enjoyed mutual respect and trust. Out of this came the offer to write his autobiography. It was the first time he had let anyone into the inner sanctum of his life. Initial discussion had all the elements of a boxing match, the two of us sparring around looking for openings trying to gain the upper hand. As work progressed we learned that only complete candour would make the project succeed, and from such promising beginnings, a fruitful partnership developed.
From the outset Mo was never less than frank.
“I want this to be warts and all,” he said.
“Some people will be shocked at what I have to say but I’m going to tell it all.”
In photographic parlance, this would be complete exposure.
Sadly the warts and all factor was never achieved. We had recorded facts and anecdotes about public aspects of his life but more personal details were to come. It was virtually impossible to pin down the globe-trotting free spirit, who was always on the move.
We planned a week away from everyone. We were to go to Seychelles, a place sufficiently remote for Mo to stop for seven days and complete the task, though he did have an office there. We were due to make the trip two weeks after Flight ET 961 crashed. As a result what was to be an autobiography has become a biography.
However Mo’s thoughts and comments up to the last few weeks of his life are in this book.
Foreword
MO WAS THE GREAT SURVIVOR, apparently indestructible, a character so much larger than life that even though he plied his trade in the world’s killing grounds, even though he could be damaged, he would never be destroyed.
I remember being so desperately scared driving along the sinister dirt roads of the Luwero triangle in Uganda’s dark days, waiting for the MiGs to attack on the roof of the old Ghion Hotel in Makele, and getting ready to go out again to the ruined streets of Mogadishu with their packs of teenage murderers. On all these occasions, and many others, I drew strength from Mo.
I always felt that if I could stay close enough to him, I would be OK. Thinking about it now, that was probably the most dangerous place to be. He was no media cowboy, no thrill seeker; each risk was carefully calculated, but he was brave and committed. And his genius was in being there when it happened.
I expected to grow old with Mo, to catch up with him every couple of months, and watch him grow richer and crankier. I would even see him slow down a bit, but always with some new project or some old feud to drive forward with his amazing energy.
It was not to be. His life ended dramatically as the focus of world attention. Mo was at the centre of a huge international news story—one, for a change, he had not sought out. He was wheeling and dealing with the hijackers of that plane right up to the last minute. It was all over in a second. He is now fixed in my memory, in his prime, as one of the most extraordinary and vivid men I have ever met.
Maybe it is better than all that vigour, drive and force of life dribbling away in old age. But I miss him and he has left a big hole in all our lives.
Mo was probably the most famous cameraman in the world—an amazing achievement for somebody born into a poor Asian family in colonial Africa, who had to teach himself how to take pictures, and who operated throughout his life thousands of miles from his peers and from those who used his material.
Not many cameramen are well-known and very few become famous. Hardly any come from great agencies like Reuters on whom everybody else depends, whose journalists are so admired within our industry, but who are normally unknown to the audiences they serve.
There was nothing anonymous about Mo. He became a legend and worked hard at it not just because he was as much, if not more, of an egotist than the rest of us in this business, but also because he knew how helpful it was to be famous. He had been unknown, an outsider, and a supplicant for a long time. Maybe that was what drove him so hard.
Mo was a good cameraman, gifted, with a stills photographer’s eye for the telling close-up. In the worst situations—when it was very dangerous, or when some huge tragedy threatened to drown emotion, feeling, and judgment—he was one of the very best.
In the highlands of Ethiopia in 1984, during the great famine, he worked with ruthless compassion—emotionally engaged, but professionally detached. We did not speak much. I do not know what we could have said to each other that could have been adequate. We gathered pictures and information and each did his best to tell stories to hundreds of millions of people, rather than waste the intensity of our feelings on each other.
He was a strange man. He looked and sounded tough. A bit of a swagger, and lots of bravura. Brisk, brusque, sometimes downright rude. But he had a wonderful sense of humour, and boyish mischief. He was such fun to be with, especially when the going got rough.
There was a deep vein of compassion in him. When Mo got involved, he did not just lend his name, he gave the full force of his personality. Things got fixed. Things got done.
It was not just the big projects, though. Since he died, I have received dozens of letters from people who felt he was special because they were somehow special to him. Ordinary people he took time and trouble to help even though his life was so busy, filled with projects, that his working day often began at four in the morning and end at 11pm.
He was not a saint. It was not easy working for him, even if he drove others only half as hard as he drove himself. Having him work for you was probably even worse. Independent, intractable, a bureaucrat’s nightmare, he was the antithesis of a corporate man.
But he was a star. He achieved what no other cameraman has; not just in the handful of video cassettes that once saved more than a million lives, but in what he was, his life, and what he made of it. Talent, determination, warmth, and humanity—he packed several lives into one. I am lucky to have known him and so glad he was my friend.
Michael Buerk
Preface
This year, Camerapix, the company my father founded celebrates its 50th anniversary. It has been a journey similar to the history of post-independence Africa. We have been a part of all the triumphs and tragedies, successs and the failures. My father’s story is the story of Africa—rising up against the odds and taking its rightful position among the best in the world. We could think of no better way to commemorate our anniversary than with the republishing of Mohamed Amin’s biographies as e-books to symbolise the technologica advancement that continues to uplift our continent.
A good story is timeless, no matter what media platform it is told on. Mo Amin’s story will live through ages and these e-books will hopefully give millions more the opportunity to experience his life and hopefully be inspired by it.
Salim Amin CEO, Camerapix 10th December 2013.
Chapter One
The Final Flight
If you and I go together, and we get to the other side, you write the words and I’ll take the pictures!
Mohamed Amin to Brian Tetley (November 1996)
THERE WAS NO PRESSING NEED for Mohamed Amin to visit Ethiopia on Friday, 22nd November 1996. He had business to sort out, but it could have been left to a later date. However Mo was a man of the moment, and as he paced in his Nairobi office he decided with characteristic spontaneity to go that very day.
For him the run to Addis Ababa was little more than routine commuting. He had flown the route countless times with Ethiopian Airlines. Mo’s media company produced the in-flight magazine Selamta for the airline. He would normally be accompanied by his business partner Rukhsana Haq, but commitments in Tanzania and elsewhere prevented her from making the trip. She also had family visiting from England, and was anxious to see as much of them as possible during their brief stay in Kenya. This was a journey she could not make.
Irked by this turn of events, Mo made other plans and called across the room to his long-time friend and senior editor Brian Tetley.
“Pack your bag, we’re on the next flight to Addis.”
Despite being a reluctant flier, Tetley jumped at the chance for a change of scenery. He had worked for Mo for many years and this sudden decision came as no surprise.
Within hour