Between Press Street and the Street of Oblivion
Forgetfulness has not yet arrived; it has not broken down doors or breached closed barriers. Memory still retains the faces and names of those she lived alongside.
Her words echoed in my ears when I contacted a colleague who had accompanied us on our journalistic journey in Kuwait: Fadiah Al-Zoubi. She said, “I have reached the age of eighty-one, and this may be the last meeting that brings us together.”
At this age, forgetfulness pursues her, just as it pursued her colleague Mubarak Al-Shalan in his stories about Professor Jihad Al-Khazen, editor-in-chief of Al-Hayat newspaper, who remains in Beirut, resisting the time that overtook him, without being able to reveal even a single story.
She drifted into thoughts of the family photograph that dominates her home, an image that evokes in her both nostalgia and hope. It recalls the moment her father, dressed in an elegant suit and speaking with a resonant French accent, arrived. His eloquence had impressed Sheikh Fahad Al-Salim Al-Sabah when he saw him in his Syrian hometown of Talkalakh, while passing through on his way to Latakia. The Sheikh brought him to Kuwait in 1953 as an engineer in the Public Works Department. His eldest daughter, Fadiah, joined him in 1954, completing her studies there and graduating from the Teachers’ College. She later taught Arabic after enrolling in university and transitioning into the worlds of journalism and writing.
She moved between several publications—Al-Ra’i Al-Am, Al-Watan, Al-Qabas, Asharq Al-Awsat, and Al-Roya—before settling alone in her apartment in Salmiya, as if echoing the early days when she lived with her family in Al-Mirqab during the 1950s.
She tried to weave for me an image I had not been close to, saying, “When you reach the age of 81 years and 7 months, you will forget your own name.” Yet Fadiah presented a different, more reassuring picture, as if the key to memory still lay in her hands, through which she looks out onto the windows of her life in Journalism Street, a place that has never allowed her to rest from its ink.
Continuing to ask about those who stepped away from the spotlight and distanced themselves from the burdens of the profession draws you into nostalgia for those with whom you shared life’s journey. In this way, you draw closer to moments of return to professional experiences and the impact they left on your own soul.
I turned my gaze toward two colleagues with whom I spent extended years of my life: Dr. Ahmad Taqashah and Rafala Kharayati, former editors-in-chief of Al-Qabas, the latter now residing in London, along with others who left their mark and imprint on the history of Kuwaiti journalism, much like those who preceded them. Colleagues and friends scattered across the globe, some of whom have passed away, while others have been separated by distances that widened the gap between us. Yet a student never forgets the teachers from whom he learned.
