The kidnapping of the British journalist Alan Johnston was an amazingly stupid crime. Those who seized the BBC reporter in fact targeted the only international news presence in Gaza whose scrupulously fair reporting had kept the wretched plight of the Palestinians before the rest of the world. The shame that the vast majority of Palestinians feel at this bovine blunder, so worthy of the worst errors of the ignorant Bush White House, has been matched by the anger of the world’s media. Last week in a unique move, the four leading global broadcasters — BBC, CNN, Sky News and Al Jazeera — came together to simultaneously broadcast a TV program about Johnston which included a demand for his immediate release. Journalists around the world have held vigils for Johnston, world leaders including the new UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, have protested his detention and this week an online petition was posted on the Internet which got 30,000 signatures in the first few hours.
There is no denying the anxiety felt by journalists everywhere for the safety of one of their most respected colleagues. Despite vague assurances from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that there are strong reasons to believe that Johnston is alive and well, the fact is that a month after his kidnapping, there seems no idea who is holding the man nor where. Indeed some in Britain are beginning to fear that Johnston is dead, slain in the early hours of the kidnap. It is certainly remarkable that this seizure has not followed the pattern of past crimes which have seen victims released within a few days. The concern of journalists everywhere is understandable. Increasingly both sides in conflicts everywhere are deliberately targeting the messengers, either because — often in the case of governments — they do not like the message or, in the case of terrorists, because in the profundity of their violent bigotry, they simply do not care. Journalists always make easy targets because in order to do their jobs properly, they regularly expose themselves to risk.
There is however something disturbing about the impressive ballyhoo raised over Johnston’s seizure. The world’s media is making a major fuss, simply because it can. There are thousands of other kidnap victims in Iraq, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Darfur, Colombia and in other places of bitter conflict. These unfortunates, however, do not have the powerful voice of the global media to shout their names individually in protest. Most often their callous and wicked detention is a mere footnote to the day’s news. They are indeed normally nameless statistics.
Johnston’s employers and colleagues are not of course trying to plead a special case for him. Like all decent people, they utterly deplore every pitiless and savage crime of kidnapping which condemns victims to an obscene living death and family and friends to a nightmare of uncertainty. Nevertheless, there is a sense that a wider canvas could perhaps be painted in the protests over Johnston’s seizure. This Briton’s plight should be used to highlight the horror facing so many others — as well as those who love them — who are not well known but who are entirely innocent victims.
