Former Canadian hostages
speak at Concordia

Robert Fowler and Mohamed Fahmy recount their experiences

By Byron Toben

September 28, 2016

On Monday last, retired Concordia professor Homa Hoodfar was finally released from a notorious Iranian prison where she had been held for 4 months on the vague assertion of “promoting Feminism”.

By co-incidence, on the immediately preceding weekend, two other famous Canadian hostages spoke at Concordia. They were diplomat Robert Fowler and journalist Mohamed Fahmy. I had bought a “Free Homa” button at these and am relieved to no longer need to wear it.

Robert Fowler – Image: Creative Commons

Robert Fowler was the keynote speaker at a conference on Assaulting Cultural Heritage: ISIS’s Fight To Destroy Diversity In Iraq and Syria. The event was sponsored by MIGS (Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies).

There are few Canadian diplomats as accomplished as Ambassador Fowler: the longest serving Ambassador to the UN, foreign policy advisor to three Canadian Prime Ministers, deputy minister of National Defence, Ambassador to Italy and the UN food agencies in Rome among many other posts.

In July 2008, he was appointed by the UN as Special envoy to Niger where in December he and others were kidnapped by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and held hostage deep in the Sahara desert for nearly five months. This is recounted in his 2011 book, A Season in Hell: My 130 Days in the Sahara with Al Qaeda.

Ambassador Fowler summed up the mindset of his strict captors as true believers that their brand of Islam justified fear and slaying not only infidel “stone worshippers” and Hindu “ fire worshippers” and Christians, but other sects of Islam (one source claims 72 other denominations – I can find only 4).

I was reminded of John F. Kennedy’s favourite book by Eric Hoffer, The True Believer (1951), documenting the harm caused by intolerant mass movements who see no shades of grey.
Fowler recalled that one guard, fed up with the dry waterless surroundings offered his Kalashnikov to Fowler with the plea to kill him so that he could enter paradise now. This sort of brainwashing goes beyond even “Manchurian Candidate” territory.

Fowler concluded that the most significant difference between his captors and us is the sense of Time. They truly believe that someday they will establish a worldwide caliphate and as warriors of Allah’s purposes, any temporary setbacks are meaningless. This resonated with a quote I once saw from a Taliban source to the effect that “You may have the watches, but we have the time”.

Ambassador Fowler summed up the mind set of his strict captors as true believers that their brand of Islam justified fear and slaying…

Conclusion? You can’t negotiate with these guys. I was reminded of a Samuel Beckett refrain “Hopeless. Nothing to be done”. Well, something can be done – but requires the greater activism of the other 72 (or 4) Muslim sects.

Professor Frank Chalk, head of MIGs, in a fine introduction to the speaker, remembered how, during his own days as a Fulbright professor in Nigeria during an anti-western riot, the local students protected him.

Mohamed Fahmy – Image: Creative Commons

Mohamed Fahmy was a keynote speaker at Concordia’s Homecoming Week. His topic was Media in the Age of Terror: How the War on Terror Became a War on Journalism.

An accomplished journalist with stints for CNN, BBC and Al Jazeera-English, he covered the 2003 Iraq war for the Los Angeles Times. He also reported on the 2010 Arab Spring. In September 2013, this Cairo-born Canadian accepted a post as the Al Jazeera-English Bureau chief based in Egypt.

A few months later, on December 29, he and two other Al Jazeera-English reporters were arrested by Egyptian authorities and six months later found guilty of fabricating news to portray Egypt as being in a civil war and sentenced to seven years in a maximum security prison called Tora. International pressure by journalist associations and others led to a re-trial without bail by an Appeals court on January 1, 2015.

He highlighted the increase over the last decade of journalists killed, imprisoned or otherwise held as pawns by governments or other actors.

A month later, he renounced his Egyptian citizenship to hopefully benefit from a presidential order allowing foreign prisoners to be deported and his Australian colleague was sent back home. Bail was granted for Fahmy during a six-month retrial, which resulted in a three-year sentence. Finally, he was pardoned by President al-Sisisi on September 23, 2015.

Since then, he has formed a non-profit Fahmy Foundation to aid journalists and other political prisoners of conscience on trumped-up charges. He has travelled over North America and other far-flung places to recount his experience.

What endeared him to me was his not reading from boring notes, but his conversational delivery while pacing around the stage. Of course, a clear voice, mastery of the material and, yes, humour in adversity always help.

He highlighted the increase over the last decade of journalists killed, imprisoned or otherwise held as pawns by governments or other actors. In his case, the campaign to release him was indebted to his activist wife, Marwa Omara. He noted how other governments were more outspoken about injustices against their hostage citizens, such as Australia and, in the case of Ms Hoodfar, Ireland. (She is a triple citizen.)

In particular, he urges Canada to adopt a law or guideline as to what Governments must do to keep spouses and families advised as to developments.

Feature image: Aapo Haapanen via StockPholio.net

Byron Toben is the immediate past president of the Montreal Press Club