I was awoken in the middle of the night here in Gaziantep, Southern Turkey, and listened to the speech made by the American President Barak Obama from the Oval Office about the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, where he said he will “make BP pay”.
I have been away from the UK for a number of weeks now, and have not had access to any British news media, only Turkish, which I do not understand as I do not speak the language, and the Arab based news channel, Al Jazeera. It had been the first time I had listened to Al Jazeera, as I had presupposed that the news would be biased toward the Middle East affairs but found it not to be the case.
Now, listening to the Al Jazeera news I followed the unfolding story of the oil spill in the Mexican Gulf, and heard how the massive oil company BP had lost an oil drilling rig due to an explosion, the loss of life, and how the well deep below the surface was leaking oil, threatening the coast and wildlife of the USA.
I also followed the work to stop the flow of oil. Attempts to cap or seal the well that failed, the attempts to stop the oil reaching the coast polluting and killing wildlife, and I only heard on the news of Al Jazeera one name, one company, that of BP, working on the project.
But during the weeks I have also heard how BP has been attacked, especially from the USA, for not employing better engineering techniques, not installing better safety measures for incidents such as the one unfolding.
I do not wish to take sides as BP is no longer British, it changed its’ name from British Petroleum to BP some ten years ago, and is a multi national company, it is said to be 40% owned by the USA.
It came as a surprise to listen to Obama in his speech saying that at the beginning he had appointed an American official to oversee or manage the oil spill, that he had organised the booms to soak-up the oil before it reached the beaches, that he had organised scientists and engineers to cap the damaged well, that he had arranged for those suffering through lack of work to be compensated financially, that he the American Federal Government had done this and done that.
There was no mention of BP and the work they had done, which is contrary to what was being said on Al Jazeera, they mentioned nothing about the American Federal Government in the first few days.
I have heard BP referred to many times by the American politicians as British Petroleum, as if attacking the British countries.
We must listen to the language people talk, how we are influenced by one speech, one persons opinion, a governments wish to influence its’ population, how one nation can be set against another, how one set of people can be set against another.
In his speech Obama accused solely BP of being at total fault, yet there were four other companies involved on the rig, and later in his speech he admitted that one of his own government agencies was corrupt and failed to oversee the laws.
Obama in his speech said it was the America Government agencies that was doing all the work, inferring BP was doing nothing.
NLP is all about language and communication, how we influence ourselves and others and visa versa.
In the last few weeks being in Turkey, I have listened to many people talking about the Gazza situation and seen and heard the protests happening in the main meeting place in Istanbul, Taksim Square, and wondered was I been given all the facts from both sides of the fence, or was I only being fed, as the rest of the protesters, only what we were supposed to hear to meet a certain end.
I have a plea to you, please look at all the facts from all sides before making a choice.
Even then, are we being misled?