How the international media handled the hostage crisis in Egypt: what the 'locals' are really worth to the world, and to ourselves

A 10-day ordeal has ended happily, with the rescue of 19 people kidnapped in the South-West of Egypt who were kept and shuttled around the Sahara desert - reportedly from Egypt to Sudan to Libya to Chad - and rescued by Egyptian troops.

One thing bothers me in the coverage of the story. In many media sources, the 8 Egyptians kidnapped are barely mentioned, as if unworthy of mentioning (they are, after all, just local guides and drivers, who gives a shit!)

Here’s a good example:


It bothers me when the local guides, translators, drivers, etc who get harmed because of their work for foreigners and do not receive the most basic respect or acknowledgement or, worse, are left to drown - or die - by their former employers (do I hear someone say Iraqi translators?)

I remember when French journalist Florence Aubenas was kidnapped in Iraq a couple of years ago. The French media always referred to her along with her Iraqi guide, Hussein Hanoun, who was also kidnapped. Giant photos of both were postered on the Paris City Hall (photo below; source) and even wall stencils.

I thought this was incredibly respectful on the part of both the French media and people; the man was working for Aubenas and, as such, he was embraced by the French media community and population as a colleague.

Is it a French quirk, to care about other people’s hostages? Was it just because the lead figure was French?

I checked various media sources, starting with the French.

Le Figaro talks about the “19 otages”. Same for Libération. Le Monde : "19 otages européens et égyptiens". LCI talks about “19 personnes, dont 11 touristes”. Le Journal du Dimanche cites the "11 touristes occidentaux et leurs huit accompagnateurs égyptiens". Ditto for the Nouvel Observateur. Even Belgian (walloon) press goes for a “19 otages” title.

Hats off for the French media. Bravo, et merci a la presse française!

How about the US ?

CNN : “the 11 European tourists and their Egyptian guides”. Fox News does a little better and actually mentions how many Egyptians were abducted as well. CBS news goes nationality neutral - “19 hostages”, as does the NYTimes.

Even German press (which could’ve, very understandably, dissed all non-German hostages since it had 5 kidnapped nationals) was more respectful than BBCNews, with the Frankfurter Allgemeine’s “elf europäischen Touristen und ihrer acht ägyptischen Begleite”. Die Zeit does even better and talks about “Die 19-köpfige Reisegruppe, darunter auch 5 Deutsche".

It somehow looks that British press is the most discriminatory of all. The Guardian tells of the “10-day ordeal of five Germans, five Italians and Romanian”. HUH? In another article, it mentions the “eleven European tourists taken hostage”. The Independent goes for “a group of tourists and their guides… The group, which includes five Germans, five Italians and one Romanian, disappeared…”.

Obviously, various countries view local victims very differently! And it seems that Britain falls behind the rest of the world in this regard.

In a case-by-case basis it all goes down to the choice of the journalist, obviously. Yet generally there’s an attitude that countries can project, about whether they themselves believe that their nationals are worthwhile or worthless.

Egypt consistently fails at that. We have no respect whatsoever for ourselves or for our people. And not just the guides and the drivers. I mean, we had an ambassador kidnapped and murdered in Iraq. An Ambassador, the man who is the country abroad. No one cared.

Actually, I'm curious -- what did OUR press write? That might be a good indicator...

Al Ahram, the government newspaper par excellence, titled "World praise for Egypt's ability to successfully end the ordeal of the foreign tourists". Al Gomhuriya, in all its glory, mentions the "foreigners and egyptians abducted" and then goes raving about the "11 tourists" who made it home, etc etc.

I banged my head on the table. Ha! THIS is where it comes from: they don't care about us because we don't care about ourselves!

(the editorial salvages things a bit, with Osama Saraya referring to "the egyptians and tourists kidnapped".)

Opposition newspaper Al-Masri al-youm refers to "the liberation of Tourists and Egyptians" but is kind enough to give us a photo of one of the Egyptian hostages (the only one i've seen, actually) reunited with his son, on the front page.

At least someone in this country gave a shit about its locals.

Why are we so worthless to ourselves, I wonder?