Telling the Truth


by Yvonne Ridley
Middle East Monitor
2010-01-02


Telling the truth can be a complicated business. This was one of the first lessons I learned at a very tender age. Still unable to grasp the importance of the school timetable in my first week, I rolled up for class 20 minutes late having been diverted by a rather splendid game of marbles. Four black jack chews and a sherbet dip were at stake. By the time I walked in the teacher was so fraught that lying seemed to be the best option. Five minutes later I was before the headmistress because my colourful story about helping a blind man find his way home after his old, crippled guide dog had dropped dead outside the playground gates was – surprisingly ‑ not believed.

At the end of the day when my mother came to collect me she was hauled in to the head's office where I was forced to recount my rather elaborate story before being made to apologise to the grown-ups and promise always to tell the truth. Just as we were about to leave she reminded my mother that the school day actually finished at 3.30pm and noted that she had arrived five minutes after the bell. My mother was really annoyed; angry with me for telling lies and irritated by the head's observation on the importance of time-keeping.

On seeing me the next day the headmistress asked me what my mother had to say about the previous day’s events. "Oh," I responded brimming with determination to only tell the truth, "she thinks you are an interfering, old busybody."

That evening when the school bell sounded both my mum and I were back in the head’s office. To my utter amazement my mother lied and when we got home that night I was punished for telling the truth! I was four years old and I realised there and then that telling the truth can sometimes be painful.

Why am I recounting this childhood story for you? I am in Egypt now, following the Free Gaza Movement of 1400 peace activists who gathered in Cairo from more than 40 different countries. Their week-long efforts to get to Gaza to give humanitarian aid and messages of goodwill and solidarity to the Palestinians have been thwarted with the utmost vigour and enthusiasm by the Egyptian Government.

This prompted me to write a series of articles exposing the shameful behaviour of the Egyptian Government. I described the Cairo Government as “Obama's rent boyâ€