Entries Tagged 'kidnapping' ↓

Every society has its status symbols. In HezbollahLand, anyone associated with martyrdom is in like Flynn:

The mother [whose son was killed in a 1988 Hezbollah operation] explained that she now has a special status among the people who now show her more respect. She is also looked after by the party and is frequently invited to visit religious sites in Syria or Iran. She repeatedly says that “a female Hezbollah official” frequently takes her by the hand when she attends a function and lets her sit-in the front row. She added, “Do not believe that the mother of a martyr is unhappy. She may cry sometimes but she is happy.” The father then turns to me and says, “Do not forget that we gain a lot of support. The Martyr’s Institution covers all our medical, housing, and school expenses.”

Bribery, corruption, intimidation, preying on the weak and needy, exploiting the religious beliefs of simple people, feeding on their anxieties and fears—that is how “charitable” organizations like Hezbollah operate: they’re mini-totalitarian societies. You give what you have—your sons’ lives—to the cause. In return, the party takes care of you and your entire clan for life.

I first posted about BBC correspondent Alan Johnston in mid-March, when he was kidnapped in the streets of Gaza. I had expected his abduction to catch the attention of the MSM, since he was one of their own. Instead, except for many, prolonged protests held by Palestinian and British journalists, there has been a troubling silence. (You can follow all my posts about Johnston here. You can read a few posts about kidnapping as the terrorist tactic du jour here, here, and here.)
Until today. The group holding Johnston released a propaganda video:

He is wearing a red sweatshirt and reading out what appears to be Palestinian propaganda denouncing Israel and the Middle East policies of Britain and America. He appears calm and without any visible injuries.

His voice, familiar to many BBC listeners and viewers from his 16-year career with the corporation, is measured. He says he is “in Gaza”. …

During a three-minute speech, Mr Johnston accuses Britain and the US of causing suffering in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories, and for “occupying Muslim lands against the will of the people in those places”.

He starts to give a message to his family but is cut off. Subtitles then appear on the video, saying: “The BBC refused to take this message to his family”.

Naturally, the family is relieved to have this sign of life from Johnston, although no one can say when the video was shot. But this isn’t anything like relief for the family—it’s extended agony:

Norman Kember, 76, a British peace campaigner held hostage for more than four months in Baghdad in 2005, said the video was designed to cause “maximum stress” to Mr Johnston’s family and the Government.

He drew comparisons between the orange suit he was given to wear during videos and Mr Johnston’s red sweatshirt. He said: “I think the idea was to show the parallel to Guantanamo Bay and put the maximum stress on the Government and relatives.”

The British government is well aware of that:

The video was condemned by the Foreign Office for the distress it caused the family and Tony Blair used a press conference at the end of his African tour to call for the kidnappers to release Mr Johnston, who passed his 45th birthday in captivity.

Also calling for the release of Johnston is Ismail Haniyeh, the Palestinian “prime minister” of Chaos and In-fighting.

“We are renewing our demands of the men, the abductors of the British journalist, to protect him and not to harm his life and to immediately release the journalist,” Haniyeh said after Friday prayers in Gaza City.

“This is an action that does not serve Islam, does not serve the Palestinian cause, and does not serve those who have abducted him.”

Johnston’s kidnappers would surely disagree. It serves them just fine as a recruitment tool for the wretched, dispirited youth of Gaza, who have been failed by two successive generations of their “leaders” (and failed, too, by two successive generations of Israelis, who have been unable to collectively rise above the massive hatred and violence engendered by their reclaiming the Jews’ ancestral homeland). These young men were once ripe for the picking by Hamas. Now that Hamas has also failed them, they’re ripe for the picking of by Qaeda.

You can read all about it here in the NYT. Read it and weep.

This recent wave of abductions of Westerners in the region began with the June 2006 kidnapping by Palestinians of the Israel soldier Gilad Shalit. (At the time, I held Hamas responsible for an act of war; now we know it was this shady Army of Islam group that was responsible, and that they’re not under Hamas’s, or Fatah’s, control—which is part of the problem in Gaza) It was followed a month later by the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah—they’re not Palestinians, they’re Lebanese, and this happened in a different region: in the north of Israel. Second Lebanon War followed in August.

And now I feel like I belong on the Daily Show. Still with me? Good.

Anyway: The same Palestinian group (the al Qaeda-inspired Army of Islam) that snatched the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit last June snatched the BBC correspondent Alan Johnston this March.

In between, there was the abduction and release (after a forced conversion to Islam) of two Fox journalists in August 2006.

I think you get the picture: there’s chaos in Gaza—so much chaos that Hamas begins to look moderate compared to the al Qaeda-inspired nihilist thugs doing these freelance operations, from kidnapping to setting fire to Internet cafes. And the prospect of anyone on the Palestinian side following a “road map” to peace with the Israelis is brought into relief as the deeply cynical and totally ludicrous political theater it is. What negotiated agreements could hold up under chaos, and when no one group among the Palestinians has the monopoly on the use of force?

Also: remember that there have been no Western journalists in Gaza since Johnston was abducted. The Palestinian journalists operating there must be under tremendous pressure and risk in this deeply uncertain political climate. Freedom of the press is the last thing that al Qaeda-type thinking tolerates. These journalists are very brave people, but we cannot know the extent of what is happening.

Keep your eye on this situation. It’s very dangerous indeed.

And spare a thought not just for Alan Johnston but also for the American hostages being held in Iran.

Even in our supersaturated plugged-in-24/7 media universe, where most stories whiz by at Feiler Faster speed, sometimes a very simple narrative can grab hold of the masses and transfix them.

Case in point: In Portugal, a little girl is abducted from her bed in the villa where her Scottish family is vacationing. She vanishes without a trace. Two weeks later, with still no word of the four-year-old’s fate, all of Britain is in thrall to this suspense story,

The FA Cup crowd fell silent as haunting images of missing Madeleine McCann were broadcast on a big screen.

Dozens of pictures of the little blonde girl, who turned four a week ago, were shown to 90,000 football fans. …

Her pretty face filled the screens at either end of the pitch - each one the size of 600 domestic TV sets - and dominated the ground.

The short two-minute video, set to the soundtrack of the Simple Minds hit Don’t You Forget About Me, was shown at both half time and before the game.

It received a round of applause from fans of the two teams which both have close ties with Portugal, where the toddler was abducted while on holiday in the seaside village of Praia da Luz.

Chelsea captain John Terry and team-mate Paulo Ferreira have recorded appeals as has Manchester United star Cristiano Ronaldo. [whoa! --ed.]

Um, can we talk? Don’t worry. This is not going to be a “whatever happened to that British stiff upper lip?” tirade.

For 15 days, the wide eyes and waiflike features of a child of 4 have stared out at Britons from television screens and newspaper front pages, T-shirts and posters with a simple message: find me.

That message has been relayed across Britain — on television and in cyberspace — by sports stars, celebrities and politicians, including the prime minister-designate, Gordon Brown. The outpouring has been likened, hyperbolically, to the national grief that erupted over the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. [e.a.] …

In Britain, the upwelling of grief has stirred debate about the country’s recourse to cloying sentimentality in the face of loss that has melted the characteristic stiff upper lip.

And I’m not going to lecture you about how trivial this one abducted child is compared to the other abducted people in the news that we could be concerned about—such as BBC correspondent Alan Johnston,

who turned forty-five in captivity in Gaza this past week;

or the three American soldiers seized by al Qaeda in Iraq:

Spc. Alex R. Jimenez, 25, of Lawrence, Mass.

Pfc. Joseph J. Anzack Jr., 20, of Torrance, Calif.

Pvt. Byron W. Fouty, 19, of Waterford, Mich.

or Ingrid Betancourt,

a former Colombian presidential candidate who is being held hostage by FARC rebels and is, according to a report from a fellow hostage who escaped, chained by the neck to other prisoners, sometimes up to 24 hours a day, to prevent her attempting to escape, which apparently she is given to trying again and again.

or the seizure and jailing by Iranian authorities of the American scholar Haleh Esfandiari in the notorious Evin prison.
Nope, this is not a guilt trip about the geopolitical messages we should be listening to (although we should be listening to them, of course).

This is just a reminder of the extraordinary, magical, mystical power of stories to capture our imagination in a way that nothing else can—that is, to capture our imagination and attention in a way that influences us. That makes us stop and think. That stays with us ( or “sticks,” in Malcolm Gladwell’s parlance). That makes us change our mind, or our behavior.

I mention five abduction stories above. All of them cry out for our attention. All of them are heartbreaking and tragic. All of the victims cry out for our sympathy or our pity. One of them is different, however. Only that one cries out immediately for our empathy.

Most of us will never run for office in ultra-violent Colombia. Most of us will never serve in Iraq. Most of us will never report from war-torn Gaza. Most of us will never have to toe a precarious line between being a free American scholar and a devoted Persian daughter who goes home to totalitarian Iran twice a year to visit her 93-year-old mother.
But which of us cannot put himself or herself in the shoes of Madeleine McCann’s parents and which of us does not remember being a helpless child?

Surely there’s a lesson here for all marketers (of anything, whether product or idea). The lesson is this: nothing beats a great story (in which category I include heartbreaking, sad, horrifying, etc.). We will give you our momentary attention pretty readily if you make enough noise (for example: if you say something totally outrageous, like what Jimmy Carter said about Tony Blair the other day, we’ll notice). But if you want to get through to us, give us a story we can relate to at gut level.

Give us a story that no amount of cynicism or jadedness or ironic detachment can protect us from and we are your slaves.