Several weeks ago, Carnegie Mellon university- Doha campus has hosted Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a town hall meeting. Al -Jazeera broadcasted it as a part of a regular program that usually broadcasts from Washington. Hilary Clinton is a petite woman with handsome features. She walked in elegantly and sat on a seat next to al-Jazeera presenter. The atrium was filled with students from the different universities in Education city and students from Qatar Academy in their cute uniforms. Besides students, there were several key figures from Qatar Foundation, as well as deans and faculty members. It was a big gathering and TV gave it an aura of importance.

It is no secret that American foreign policy has lost most of its supporters around the world during W. Bush era. For the people in the Arabian Gulf, the States has shifted in their minds from being the protector and peace maker to the aggressor and colonizer. Then Obama comes along, and hopes start reviving!

Clinton began by thanking the audience and stating that her visit was in order to have a conversation with EC students. She emphasized the importance of education in transcending boundaries and acknowledged the Emir’s and Sheikha Moza’a focus on education to build up a civilized country. She added that such collaboration based on education is one of the most successful collaborations between Qatar and the States.  

The presenter alternated between asking Hilary and taking questions from the audience, begging at some point for questions in Arabic rather than English and for females to participate. He got what he wanted but not together; he got females asking in English and males asking in Arabic. A Qatari female student made a funny moment after she forced herself to form her question in Arabic just to please the persistent presenter. After she has asked her question in Arabic, she asked the presenter if he needed her to translate it into English for Hilary!

Sitting through the whole meeting, observing, looking at each speaker and his or her body language and listening to the tone and assertiveness of Hilary, presenter, and participants from the audience, I came back with my own reading of the event.

There are several maxims that need to exist in a conversation to make it a coherent one, two of which are being relative and being informative. So when a question is asked, the response should be related to the topic in question and should provide enough information to satisfy the need for an answer. However, when a question is asked over and over again despite being answered the first time, this implies that there is a hidden meaning or a message that interviewer is working on forcing into the conversation, or in worst cases manipulating the conversation and the audience. At the same time, when an answer does not fully relate to the question, again there must be an implied meaning or a hidden agenda from the interviewee’s part!

The presenter asked Hilary at least three questions about Palestine and Gaza, whether about the occupation and settlements or Gaza youth. Also, when a reiterated question on Palestine came from one of the students, the presenter dwelled on it and more added to it. Hilary’s answers to all of the questions about the Palestinian issue were identical in content. She emphasized that they are against violence and want peace for both sides!! Now the presenter’s message was very clear to me. He had the secretary of the States in Doha, he could’ve asked her anything, but all he did is focus on Palestine, making it the main issue, the core that all questions had to revolve around. Why didn’t he at least and to make it more relevant to the setting ask her about the Qatari/American relationship?

Hilary, on the other hand, seemed to have her own agenda as well. Her “message” that was revealed through her repetitive and unrelated answers was about Iran and its nuclear weapon. The wordings she used when talking about Iran weren’t as fierce and violent as it used to be when Iran was referred to as “the source as of all evil”- which marks the change in the political rhetoric of the States towards the Middle East, still the message was basically the same. She expressed how “disappointed” they are from Iran’s attempts in developing its nuclear weapon and blamed Iran in the break down of communication between both countries. Now the audience, especially Easterners sensed danger and thus asked several questions pushing her to answer two main questions: is the States planning a military offence against Iran? And if so would they disregard “and it wouldn’t be the first time” the international community and the UN? Her answer was No but emphasized that the States will defend itself and its people if attacked!!

Now how did Hilary’s answers resonate with the audience? The audience was made up of people from different parts of the world, coming from different socio-political and historical backgrounds and with different morals and beliefs and truths, and inevitably their reactions differed. Talking to some of my American colleagues later that day, I’ve noticed how drastically different their views were. Some captured her message on Iran, and others felt proud of how composed and straightforward she was in delivering her message of “love and piece” that she came to promote! Arab students articulated my own feelings, revealing how skeptical and untrusting we still are of the American foreign policy. None of the Arabs I talked to were happy with her answers and thought that nothing has changed. It also seemed to me that there is a certain template for answering questions about their foreign policy, still the tone of the answers changed to resemble the tone of the new president.