Free the hostages, it's a good thing.

July 4th – BBC reporter Alan Johnston was released from a rebel clan of the Gaza strip in Palestine. After 114 days being held hostage by the “terrorist” faction, I was very pleasantly surprised by his release. My pessimistic nature pushed me to believe that he would not only be never released but was also probably dead. Johnston was not made an example of. With the help of the HAMAS political party, his release was secured with his person quite intact although with a few emotional scars. The BBC news service is now milking the man for all he is worth with stories of “Johnston describes relief”, “Family never lost hope”, “release reactions in quotes”… I understand that people do need these stories because this was a very personal crisis; a civilian was made hostage in a conflict that does not concern his nation. I simply hope that Mr. Johnston will be able to make a deeper meaning emerge from his ordeal.

In 168 BC a Greek (Achaean) man called Polybius was taken, along with 999 others, as a hostage to the Roman Empire. This was a condition to the roman conquest of the Achaean League in Greece, following the rebellion of the latter. In Ancient times, taking hostages guaranteed that if a conquered province rebelled once again, the captured civilians would be slaughtered; a logical and cunning form of terrorism for sure. During his 17 years of captivity, Polybius adopted and studied Roman culture and history. He subsequently wrote a comprehensive history of the Roman civilisation, keeping in mind he was Greek and a prisoner. Today, it is not only one of the rarely conserved histories from Antiquity but it is also one of the first histories of an event, viewed by the enemy or defeated side of a conflict.

Another notable account of an event by an “enemy” is Amin Maalouf’s “The Crusades Through Arab Eyes” in 1986. Such accounts can seldom be corroborated through lack of comparative works but they provide an indispensable bias in the description of an event.

My point is that Alan Johnston’s unfortunate detention and fortunate release may provide us with a new point of view on the Israel-Palestine conflict that has been raging since 1948. Mr. Johnston has spent time with the enemy and when he writes his account of the events he lived through, we will have a novel perception from the other side. A hopefully subjective account yet free of propaganda, ultranationalism and prejudice, as can be the case with official Israeli or Palestinian accounts.

Welcome home Mr. Johnston.

(Pictured: Ancient Greece with the Achaeans at the top of the Peloponnesian peninsula - Alan Johnston's release)

End.