Nazeerh passionate about her job, country
Kuwaiti woman sensitive to human sufferings
Evolution
— Editor
Al Awadi is one of the old generation’s of young people dedicated to their job and genuinely in love with their country. In her family of three youngsters she was the most quiet, and because of her affectionate nature and eagerness to please her parents she was the darling of her father and mother.
Both parents were very keen in inculcating in their children the time honored traditions of their culture based on love and respect for their country, spurring them to excel in whatever they put their mind to do. Indeed, her early family training spurred Nazeerh to become proficient in her chosen career in the media later on.
When her schooling began she was diligent; throughout her school days she always had high grades; her preference of subject was the English language, her dislike was gymnastics, which she was trying to avoid with any excuse she could make for not attending.
Her passion for the media began during her school days when she became involved in school radio broadcasting. At graduation from high school she majored in psychology at the Kuwait University, and then started her working career in government schools dealing with student’s psychological problems.
Offered to take charge of the radio program “Ma’ Al Talaba” (with students) at the Kuwait Radio Station, she eagerly accepted; that was the beginning of her involvement in the media in general verging on TV and Radio programs, she also contributed to the Magazine “Al Risala” with interviews of personalities .
Nazeerh’s study of psychology made her more keenly aware of the power of the human mind and its deeper portent in evolution, spurring humanity to activate potentials leading to its meta-bio- logical development in assuming its unique responsibility in the holistic creative process.
Deeper knowledge of psychology also made her more aware of human feelings and emotions and how to deal with people of many walks of life; hence it became useful in her career in the media, particularly during the Iraqi invasion of her country, during which terrorized by what was happening during the first phase of that cataclysmic event in the history of her country, she joined the thousands of refugees leaving the country. Saying goodbye to her family in those moments was the most painful decision she ever made in her life, but she felt she had to go.
Traveling by bus with a group of other Kuwaitis all bearing false identity the first stop of their journey was in Baghdad; from hence they flew to Aman, Jordan, where one of their companions became critically ill and had to undergo urgent surgery to save his life. Reassuming their journey they finally landed in Manama, Bahrain.
Shortly after her arrival Nazeerh collaborated with the Kuwaiti Embassy joining other media people in a variety of programs aimed at keeping her conational from despairing, while spreading the hope in the return to the homeland. Her involvement in the media also helped her overcome her own feeling of bewilderment and anxiety she felt from the moment she left home, and couldn’t help worrying about her own people bearing hardship and their uncertainty of survival.
The pain of suspense intensified from the moment Kuwait was declared a restricted military zone and the only source of information on what going on inside the country were reports smuggled out by the resistance in documented evidence of atrocities committed by the invaders on civilians.
Finally the intensive diplomatic activity of the Kuwaiti government in exile moved the world in taking action to free Kuwait, after every resolutions passed by the United Nations’ Security Council were defiantly ignore by the Iraqi regime.
When the war of liberation was implemented, Nazeerh rejoiced at the thought her land would soon be set free, at the same time she couldn’t stop worrying about her people, praying to God no harm would come to them during the ground attack.
Liberation
The moment she heard Kuwait was free she was ecstatic and wished she was back home with her people celebrating that joyous moment; like her compatriots she was eager to return home immediately, but no one was allowed to enter the country in the wake of the liberation army, except groups of experts to assess the damages and write their reports .
Groups of engineers were also sent in to start the cleaning up and bringing the country back to life after the total destruction of the ground-structure of Kuwait’s economy including vital commodities. Long before the war began the Kuwaiti government had made provision for a long train of vehicles carrying water and all sort of vital supplies into the country follow on the wake of the liberation army to relieve the population and starting the rebuilding process. Finally when water and electricity were reinstalled and people were allowed to return home, Nazeerh was among the first entering the country.
At the moment of her arrival she was appalled by the destruction she witnessed all around her. She was yet more shocked when she beheld the inferno at the oil field, where hundreds of flames were reaching the sky among toxic clouds of fumes, creating heavy strata of particles hanging between earth and sky that turned day into night. The emotion and anger she experienced in that moment stood no comparison to what she previously felt when watching the same macabre scene on TV.
That spectacle made her more determined to do anything she could in helping children in particular overcoming the trauma many were suffering from. Indeed the effect of that event in the history of her country on the Kuwaiti population has been long lasting; though physically the land returned to normal, the emotional trauma is a spectrum hanging heavily on the younger population in particular .
Since that dark day,(the second of August 1990), the sudden shock caused by the Iraqi invasion strongly affected the Kuwaiti society, for it could never be the same again. Those who suffered the most may appear normal, but under stress they quickly betray their true state of mind.
Hostages
Not one single Kuwaiti family was spared of the ordeal in one form or other .Those families whose members suffered martyrdom at the hand of the Iraqi Mukhabarat, or met their fate in some Iraqi prisons when taken hostages to Iraq are still suffering from the consequences.
During the last phase of the war when the Iraqi regime realized it was losing, it ordered the wholesale kidnapping of men, women and children indiscriminately from the street and mosques of town and taken to Iraq. In the aftermath of the liberation most of them were released by the Iraqi resistance in the south of Iraq and by the World Red Cross, but many still remained hidden in some Iraqi prisons.
Nazeerh joined in the effort to set them free through a media campaign that lasted till their fate was revealed in 2003, with the grim discovery of mass graves near Baghdad, where the remains of many Kuwaiti POWs were indentified through their DNA. That macabre discovery finally ended the agony of suspense their families had been going through but its effect remains
For many years Nazeerh has been working in the media producing successful radio programs; recently taken by a nostalgia for the past, she had been interviewing old-timers, encouraging them to speak of how life used to be in Kuwait before the great changes triggered by the oil revenues that transformed the country and the heart of her people.
Life was frugal and tough back then, but the people were more contented with the little they had, a genuine feeling of mutual consideration welded their community, hypocrisies were unheard of. Human life had a meaning that is lost in the glamour and affectation of the modern Kuwaiti society
Back then the family was the school in which youngsters were taught respect and other social values; they were also trained from a tender age to assume family responsibilities.
Such a hard training prepared them for life, it inculcated in them a strong feeling of social responsibility and opened their mind to look at life in perspective ,so by the time they reached puberty they had the mentality and stamina of young adults. Nazeerh did not live through that period, but her parents did and strove to guide their children on those same principles they themselves had been trained to respect.
The heart and soul of a country is its people; the old Kuwaitis had a genuine love for their country; for they built it and protected it with their blood, their sweat and tears. Nazeerh is very conscious of this principle; in her own words she defines “Love of one’s country not in empty words but in responsible action, in respect for timing, in doing one’s best and in honest dealing’’ .Living-by this principle she is trying to spread it around through the media in her radio programs.