June 29, 2008

‘You don’t get posted as a foreign correspondent to the Middle East unless you are on the top of your career, so when I was posted to Gaza in April of 2004, for me as a journalist, it was a dream come true,’ says Alan Johnston.

But that dream turned out to be a veritable nightmare. Just two weeks before he was due to return home after putting in three years as a BBC correspondent in Gaza, Johnston was kidnapped on his way home by a group called the Army of Islam. He was released 114 days later. His ordeal has been documented in his book, Kidnapped and other dispatches.

Johnston is free, alive and free to express himself. A firm believer in freedom of the press, he now guards it with his life.

‘The free flow of information is the life blood of a democratic society, we must be vigilant about our freedom or else we will lose it,’ he says.

Remarkable, unassuming and charming, Johnston was on a visit to Toronto, Canada to thank a group of Canadian journalists led by Daniel Lak (BBC’s Islamabad correspondent in the 1990s) who had campaigned for his release.

It won’t hurt to emphasise that Johnston was the only foreign reporter who reported from Gaza while living there. No foreign journalist actually lived there, they all lived in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem like most westerners, and sent in their dispatches on what happened only after the event occurred as they were never around to witness it first hand.

However, for Johnston it was very important to say, ‘I saw it.’

‘The Gaza Strip is the most oppressive and violent piece of real estate in the world. It is a tiny claustrophic sliver of land and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict hangs in the air you breathe.

‘I was the only international correspondent who lived there and among the pain and intense grief, I came to know a people who are as hospitable as they are tenacious. They are gracious in their generosity to such a fault that despite having so little of everything they want to share all they have with you,’ he adds.

To put it in perspective, the Gaza strip is literally just that — a strip of land 40 km long and about six to seven km wide. On this land live 1.5 million people, cheek by jowl. It has the population of Manhattan but without the glitz and glamour. It is battered, poverty-stricken and overcrowded. It is short of money, short of space and most importantly it is short of hope. Almost every single building has the mark of pain, hurt and violence. Just as the violence is intense so are the people and the relationships they have.

‘My Gaza years were not only about war and politics. This strip became my home and the fondest memories I have are of having breakfast on the terrace of the al-Deira Hotel overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. It is from there that I reflected most on the life that happened between the headlines,’ Johnston reminisces.

It did not start this way for Johnston. Born in Lindi, Tanzania, Johnston was brought up in several countries in Africa before his parents settled in Scotland.

He studied English and politics at Dundee University and joined the BBC in 1991. In 1993 he became the correspondent in Central Asia and later in Afghanistan.
 

‘Among the pain and intense grief, I came to know a people who are as hospitable as they are tenacious. They are gracious in their generosity to such a fault that despite having so little of everything they want to share all they have with you.’
 

Before his posting in Gaza, he was dispatched to Central Asia where he reported on the emerging Islamic states of Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgystan and Tajikistan. These countries had just emerged as independent nations after getting lost in the Soviet Union for almost 70 years.

He has also lived in several cities across Afghanistan where he reported on the emerging Taliban and their occupation of the country.

‘However, nothing whatsoever prepared me for the ordeal I went through in Gaza. I was pretty seasoned by the time I went to Gaza as it is only after great contemplation that any news organisation chooses to send their people to places of conflict.

‘I had already reported on 29 kidnappings and was warned by the BBC security services to exercise extreme caution. I never followed the same routine, nor did I use the same route. I was as careful as I could possibly be living in a place that can explode very easily.

‘Little did I know that I would be the 30th kidnapping victim. It was like a kidnap craze. Disgruntled militia groups and angry clans were kidnapping foreigners for ransom; which made aid workers and journalists very concerned,’ he said.

March 12, 2007 and July 11, 2007 are two dates forever etched in his memory. Johnston knew at the outset that neither his country nor the BBC would negotiate with the kidnappers.

The United Kingdom will never give in to the demands of the Army of Islam to release any prisoners and neither will the BBC pay a ransom.

‘I really felt bad for putting my parents and my sister through this ordeal. And in my captivity I learnt again the oldest of lessons — that in life, all that really, really matters are the people you love.’

Ten kilograms lighter and 114 days later, Johnston was released in a back alley of the roughest neighbourhood of Gaza.

He was thrown from the backseat of a sedan, after the kidnappers had smashed his face.

He is back at the BBC working in the World Service and is still recovering from his ordeal. He is just so happy to be alive and free!