Oman media fraternity continued to pay tributes to their late colleague and a well-known journalist, Abdullah bin Saeed al Shueili, who passed away in an accident over last weekend.
Al Shueili was a programme presenter on the Sultanate of Oman Television and held several leadership positions in the media field, the most recent of which was the Director General of the General Directorate of Radio and Television in the Dhofar Governorate.
The deceased was also famous for presenting the 'Economic Vision' programme on the Sultanate of Oman Television, and presented many television programmes for more than 20 years. He was appointed head of the visual division at the former General Authority for Radio and Television.
Abdullah bin Salim al Shueili, Editor-in-Chief of Oman Observer Daily remembered him as an enterprising and very loyal friend and a colleague. "Abdullah had been a very humble, smiling, and laughing person who was keen on serving his guests by himself. He would insist on serving his friends irrespective of the times he met with us in his office. And would not accept that anyone else did that, despite the fact that most of the people in that meeting were either younger or of lower rank than him. With his departure, we lost a solid friend and a colleague who traced Oman's growth path through his programmes on TV and radio, and with his latest programme 'Economic Vision'," he said.
Badr bin Khamis al Dhafri, Head of Proof-reading and translation section and an interpreter said Abdullah was an eloquent and humble person who shined in both art and administration alike. "Abdullah was distinguished by his beautiful rhetorical language, which always appeared in the reports he wrote on major national occasions. We used to wait for his eloquent report with poignant metaphorical images, which was equivalent in its quality and wording to the reports of Fawzi Bushra or the reports of Abbas Nasser on the channel. At the same time, he was a classic, old-fashioned management man. He liked to follow-up on everything by himself, put the building blocks in the right place in his administrative system, and loved to use pen and paper to take notes and to write stories and articles despite the development of computer technologies," he said.
The values of humanity and journalism that Abdullah left with his Omani peers and followers will remain unchanged and the void that created by his exit will stay unbridged. His report, which was broadcast four years ago on the death of late His Majesty Sultan Qaboos, entitled 'Sultan Qaboos, may God rest his soul: He was a nation' still lingers in our memories, as he said in his introduction, “The Omanis burst into tears, their eyes turned pale with grief, and their eyelids sunk with overwhelming loss. And the land was dry, almost dates, when they bid farewell to their late father, Sultan Qaboos bin Said, may God have mercy on him”, which people who listened to him that day still remember.
Madreen al Makhtoumi, Deputy Editor-in-Chief, Al Roya said: "When we mourn and bid farewell to our colleague Abdullah al Shueili, it means that we have lost an honest national voice, who continued to struggle throughout his professional life, which he devoted to the media, in order to provide the best for Oman. Some of our colleagues who had close association with him told me that it was heartbreaking news that Abdullah al Shueili himself became the news, after many years of creativity in reading news bulletins."
"Oman's media fraternity remembered one of the influential reports by the late Abdullah al Shueili about the war in Gaza, as he summarised the essence of the Palestinian issue in his television report, “Do you not see?!” When he described the martyrs of Gaza as "giving life to death and the Palestinian blood flowing in the body of the cause to keep it alive for the Arab and human conscience," she added.
Mubarak al Araimi from Oman Journalists Association said his association with Abdullah al Shueili has been for more than 29 years. "We cherished every meeting that we had, whether casual or official. He had been a best friend whose memories will last forever and ever because some faces are not forgotten that easily," Araimi said.
Abdullah al Rubaiey, Presenter and Newsreader at Oman TV and Radio stated that memories of Abdullah are mostly of a dedicated, perfectionist who gave his more than hundred per cent to the profession that he loved the most. "His experiences with him are also associated with his travels, junkets, foreign visits and being part of convoys of high level visits to foreign countries together," he said.
"Abdullah was a great mentor who inspired many of the journalists of our time. He was very focused, sought perfection or at least excellence in everything that he did. He never let any of the nuances of his stories go unnoticed but always tried to give more than asked for. I still remember an incident some twenty years ago when we went to Beijing for a multinational conference. We had to jump out from the conference to rush to the hotel where we stayed and send the visual story to the desk for which he (Abdullah) took initiative and we managed to hail a cab to get back to our hotel in time so as not to miss the evening bulletin. So many memories with my ex-colleague and I have learnt a lot from him, his style, diction and modulation when reading news are some of the traits that I'm indebted to him for. Ultimately, he taught us to be humble and be like a star that shines on the surface of the water while it is thin," he added.
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