I've always been told that a lamb in the islam gets killed in the most 'humane" way, so if they have to kill,"like a lamb" isn't that bad, I guess.

Funny

Do you think that is funny, Dens?

I feel terrified for mister Johnston or anybody in his case (identification with the victim). I even feel terrified for his abductors (call it identification with the aggressor).
I know, a government should protect its citizens. This is a moral case.
By personal experience I have no confidence in any authority.

@Jan: your second sentence is called "Stockholm Syndrome".
@ Arnon: either I'm losing grey matter by the hour or the issues you describe are completely indecipherable. The one thing I do understand is that poor Johnston is begging for his life and his own government tis going to sacrifice him. Reason being most likely, 'but we can't negotiate with terrorists because that will put us on a slippery slope.' @British Government: that is absolute bullshit. Sure you can negotiatie with terrorists. Your job is to make sure these things never happen and fighting wars has put you and your citizens in this predicament. End all the wars, and you'll end all the terrors. In the meantime: get people like Jonhston out of there alive, whatever it takes.

Jan Thys

What kind of personal experience exactly?

@Arnon: I was wondering, have you recently written essays/analyses of the current state of affairs in the middle-east? I'm very interested to know what your take is on what's going on, what's your opinion/position on who are the current or potential future victims and why. And what should we individuals in the west be doing or not be doing?

@Arnon
Parents, teachers and other adults in authority. If we assume the basic personality and confidence is formed before the age of seven, my basic mistrust is understood.
To much to recall my childhood here. In a nutshell: I am familiar with a kind of Stalinist interrogations, physical and emotional torture and fake and real executions till so called near dead experiences. A (doubtful) sense of humour was a life saver.

Tess

Tess, if you are interested in my take on this please red my series of articles on Lebanon I wrote for NRC Handelsblad, the last one will be published this Friday. (Johannes is probably wiling to help you with the missing parts of the series.)
My position whatever the meaning of ‘position’ might be cannot be summarized in a few words here. And speaking about victims, I don’t think it’s very helpful to distinguish between victims and agitators in the Middle East, the eagerness with which too many people describe themselves and their tribe as victims is fairly problematic. I believe this problem does not only exist in the Middle East, but it seems to me that it is there more urgent than elsewhere.

@Tess
I have a certain knowledge of psychology by necessity, but thank you anyway.

@Arnon, thank you, I'll contact Johannes. The thing I'm worried about is that 20 years from now I'll be looking back and saying 'why on earth did I turn a blind-eye, because now in retrospect it is so blatantly clear x and/or x were the true victims. And I did nothing about it.' (except post comments on blogs ;)) Surely, I'm being naieve. But naievity is often used as a lame excuse for ignorance.

Tess

Human beings are entitled to be ignorant, selfish and indifferent. To anticipate on the guilt you might feel in twenty years is a waste of time, you better make a child ASAP.

I agree with the british government. People tend to overvalue life. This poor Johnston has fallen into enemy hands. He probably knew that he went on a dangerous mission when he left home. Let it be, the same thing the Beatles advised the English Nation decades ago. The only power the terrorists have is our care for this poor soul. Write him off and their whole mission is pointless.

It is a pity for him and his family. But so many people die each day. 6500 people die each day of AIDS, but almost no-one cares. Stalin was right: One death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic.

Sander

Your point is worth to be taken seriously. Yes, many people die from Aids every day, many people day from malaria every day, and some people care. Actually a lot of money, also government money is being used to fighting Aids.
So the fact that many people die of many different causes is not reason enough, is no reason at all, to shut up about a kidnapped journalist.
The case in my opinion is clear: a government should do everything it can to get kidnapped soldiers, journalists and even tourists safely back. And this doesn’t mean that they should forget about Aids or malaria prevention.
I would not want to serve in an army that couldn’t care less about kidnapped soldiers. If I’m kidnapped I expect you, among others, and the Dutch government, since I’m still holder of a Dutch passport, to do everything to free me.
And I don’t expect you to comment: “Well, so many people die of Aids, who cares about one kidnapped journalist/author?”
Yes, sure, the fact that I pay attention to Johnston might be related my ability to identify with him, but nevertheless you haven’t given any convincing arguments why the behavior of the British government is morally right.
A government should protect its citizens, and I know that giving in to demands might cause more future kidnappings -- it’s a very delicate question. But telling me that because so many people die of Aids every day I should shut up about Johnston or that the British government is doing just fine, is a non sequitur to me.

Arnon

In case you didn't know: I'd die fighting for you.

I should have left out the remark about AIDS. It was only there to put all the media attention for this single possible death into perspective.

My main point is that kidnapping only works because it is taken seriously. Once a government declares or shows that it will not negotiate about hostages it will generally be immune for political abductions. The family and friends of Johnston should be free to do whatever they want, but the government should stay out. And so the possible death of this unfortunate journalist will be horrific but at the same time it will save a lot of others. These terrorists will find another way to annoy us to death, the kidnappings will most likely be over.

I could also argue that the kidnapping of Johnston is indirectly to blame on journalists in general. Try to identify yourself with the kidnappers. What target should one choose? The main goal is to get as much attention for your case as inhumanely possible. Taking a respected reporter is a safe bet that all the other journalists will put this case day after day on the frontpages of the newspapers. If they would limit their reports to a small announcement the day of the kidnapping and hopefully a bigger message on the day of the release, the terrorists would choose other targets, if any.

So I do not ask you to shut up about Johnston because other people die of other causes. I do so to protect your colleagues.

Sander

I’m not sure if the murder of Mr. Johnston is going to save other journalists. I would like to remind you that the Italian government managed to free Daniele Mastrogiacomo, an Italian journalist who was kidnapped in Afghanistan.
And I disagree with your notion that silence is going to protect my colleagues.
But more important I don’t think that media have made a lot of fuzz about Mr. Johnston, quite the opposite. And I’m not an activist, I’m interested why the British government and the BBC, Johnston works for the BBC, chose to be laid-back about the case. If some of my readers, like you did, are willing to think about it I’m happy.

You have to defend yourselve as what you are attacked.If someone is attacked as a jew, he has to defend himselve as a jew because this is what he´s attacked of.So if the british government is attacked by the kidnapping of a journalist, it has to defend itself. There´s never ever a choice of being silent. Why?Well, if you are intelligent and you´ve got brain, you should use it and make your point clear.And if you are in a position in which you are responsible for other people, you have to take care of them, and you have to do so if needed.That´s why the british government has to take care for the kidnapped journalist.There´s only one case in which they are allowed to give him up:when they´ve tried everything to rescue him and find out that if they give in to the terrorists one thousand people in england would die (for example).But only if the possibility of a case like this is more probable than getting that man out of there.
Arnon is right, you don´t have any arguments your opinion is based on.So I´m waiting for your arguments.And I mean real arguments. Without them your opinion is not convincing and therefore it is -in this case-meaningless.
I never ever wanted to post a comment in this blog, but I was so outraged I had to react.

Adding to Arnon's statement on the Italian Govt: as did the Dutch Govt negotiate with Chechnians for Arjen Erkel 's release, as do Govt.'s in general fight for the release of their (even criminal) citizens when in jail. @Sander: stating that such and so many people are dying of AIDS ( or for that matter thousands of people in Darfur are being slaughtered ietc etc) s completely beside the point.
The horrific thing here is that Johnston's situation is not front page news, but Paris Hilton crying in jail for drunk driving is. The British Govt must and should do something abut Johnston, the US Govt should completely ignore Hilton and not the other way around.

Addition, sorry - "...when in jail in foreign conutries and not been given fair trial"

Arnon, Manon and Tess

I agree that my suggestion is highly immoral. A government should always look after its citizens. A government should never deliberately put their people in great danger or let them kill other human beings. Except in times of war. Then suddenly very immoral acts become the deeds of heroes.

The abduction of Johnston and the associated demands can be considered as an act of war. Sometimes in a war one needs to lose a battle in order to win a war. In this case not negotiating with the abductors might mean losing a battle, but it takes one of their main weapons, extortion, away. Less weapons for the terrorists means a bigger chance to win the war.
I do agree that the British government and the BBC should try other things besides negotiating. They could try to free Johnston by military means, for example. And retaliate without mercy if unsuccessful. It seems unlikely to me that they would plan and execute these options in the public eye, so hopefully the relative silence of the BBC is a sign of great involvement.

The results of the kidnappings of Arjan Erkel and Daniele Mastrogiacomo were very positive for the abductors. Five "high-value" Taliban prisoners were freed and in total three million dollars changed hands. Although I have no prove that it did inspire the Palestinians, at least it didn't scare them off. The two Afghani colleagues of mr. Mastrogiacomo were much less fortunate and brutally killed.

Fortunately there doesn't seem to be a lot of evidence that the number of political abductions of journalists is rising. Most of them are simply shot because they are reporting. 1000 in ten years.
http://www.cpj.org/deadly/index.html

I do hope Alan Johnston will leave Gaza alive. I do hope even more that the efforts of the terrorists will be utterly unfruitful. I do hope that no other man will have to endure what Johnston and his family is going through. The strange thing is that I do understand some of the motives of the terrorists, but I despise their methods immensely. I do hope there is a solution for the Israeli/Palestinian situation. I do hope Paris Hilton disappears from my tv screen.

Manon, I am happy you chose to participate. Please continue to do so.