At a coffee shop just outside the Hotel Acropol in downtown Khartoum.
At The Center Of The World’s Attention
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Whoever controls the media, controls the mind. ~ Jim Morrison
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The world is a complex place, and the influence of the media…is a remarkable amplifier
of emotions and of illusions. ~ Tariq Ramadan
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The project I was working on had a rented house in Khartoum but I moved to a hotel because friends of mine from the US were coming for a visit and would be staying there during their visit. The hotel was filling up more and more every day. Reporters and photographers were arriving from every major television network in North America and Europe from ABC to the BBC to CNN. Because of both famine and war in Ethiopia, the refugee crisis had become a widely reported global news story.
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It was the mid-1980s and we were at the center of this crisis. What I remember most about that time was that I could literally and physically feel something different. It was a powerful and palpable energy; aa pulsing – like a heartbeat encompassing us and everything around us. I don’t know whether anyone else felt it or not but, for me, it was very real. I believe it was a gift that came from all of the caring global attention that was being focused on us because of the media coverage. While this attention didn’t physically nourish people, it did provide an energizing and sustaining kind of power.
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As a result of that experience, I have developed a very deep and visceral understanding of the power of focus and attention, how it feels, and how it feeds situations. As a result, I do my best to be mindful of how and where I place my focus and attention. Except, that is, when I forget and stray into stories where I am nourishing, for example, global conflicts, autocratic leadership or covid fears. In fact, I am not interested in nourishing and energizing global conflicts, autocratic leadership or covid fears. Rather, I am interested in focusing on and sending nourishing energy to the individual beings – human and otherwise – who unavoidably or unwillingly find themselves caught up in those kinds of scenarios.
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Mostly and most of the time, I focus on energizing situations of hope, love, humility, and possibility. I am only one person, I know, but I want to be clear – at least within myself – about to whom I am sending energy and what I want to enable in the world as a result.
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This is a story about the enormous impact global media has and how it can be both positive or negative, true or false. In this case, the impact was positive and the story was true.
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As one individual who happened to be present when the media were there, I actually experienced being part of this global news story for a moment. On the surface, not much would have been different for me if the media had not come. I continued my work either way. However, rather than hearing about war and famine in Ethiopia and its devastating impact on the lives of hundreds of thousands of people – refugees, I was living inside the palpable heartbeat of the story. I experienced receiving the world’s positive attention as a result. Whether subtle or obvious, conscious or not, I imagine many others were nourished by the energy of the world’s focus and attention in this case as well.
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..I am standing on the small balcony of my room looking at the crowded street
in front of the Acropol Hotel. The Sahara Hotel was just next door.
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Photos of and by Barbara
Scans of 35mm slides
Khartoum, The Sudan, 1985.