Thursday August 21, 2014
American freelance reporter James Foley in Aleppo, November 2012 Photo: AFP/Getty Images
Within hours of his apparent execution being broadcast on the internet, the mother of Jim Foley, the kidnapped American photographer, paid tribute to her son via a Facebook page, which had initially been set up to campaign for his freedom. Brief and to the point, Diane Foley’s statement said her boy “gave his life trying to expose the world to the suffering of the Syrian people” and that she had “never been prouder” of him.
It is touching, from-the-heart stuff, yet for those who might take comfort in seeing how someone can find eloquence at such a time of suffering, bear in mind that not every family can rise to the occasion.
A few years ago, I interviewed Phil Bigley, the brother of Ken Bigley, who was abducted and later beheaded by al-Qaeda while working in Iraq in 2004. Phil told me that the moment the family back in England realised the true gravity of Ken’s predicament was when a Merseyside police liaison officer suggested that they prepare a statement in the event of his death. Best do it now, the officer gently explained, because “if things turn out badly”, they might not be in a fit state to write anything. As Phil put it: “Drafting that statement made us really come to terms with the fact he might die.”
To my mind, it’s small details like this that ram home the true horror of atrocities like Jim Foley’s beheading, and do so at least as clearly as the jihadist snuff videos themselves. They prove the adage that the target of a kidnapping is not just the hostage themselves, but their families, friends and countrymen back home – who can do nothing but watch (or indeed not watch) as their loved one is killed.
To many, though, the killing also raises the question of why journalists like Mr Foley persist in going to places like Syria, where such fates are an occupational hazard. After all, it was not the first time that he had given his family cause to be desperately worried. In 2011 he spent six weeks in jail in Libya after being captured by Colonel Gaddafi’s forces while covering the civil war. Asked last year if her son had reservations about going to Syria, Diane Foley said softly: “Not enough.”
Those who might question his decision also point out that, in the internet age, the wars in Syria and Iraq are practically broadcast live anyway via footage placed by activists and combatants alike on social media. Why, therefore, is there any need for Westerners to be doing the same, especially when they stand out like sore thumbs? Would it not be safer simply to use local Arab stringers and freelancers, among whom there is no shortage of fluent English speakers?
Having put my own family through six weeks of hell when I was kidnapped in Somalia a few years ago, I can appreciate the arguments of the stay-at-home brigade (who, I suspect, include some of my own relatives). For being abducted is not like other war-zone experiences. Suffer a beating or a bullet wound, as I once did in Iraq, and as long as it isn’t too serious, you can be laughing and joking about it a few days later, sounding like the swashbuckling war correspondent you always hoped you’d become. Kidnaps, however, with their prolonged stress, force your family to play at being heroes too. When I languished in a cave in Somalia, my main fear was not just for my own safety, but that one or other of my parents might suffer a heart attack.
None the less, having had plenty of time to reflect on this during my stint as a cave dweller, I can cite a number of reasons why Western journalists will still seek to put themselves in harm’s way.
One is a simple sense of historical perspective. Despite the grim novelty of Mr Foley’s death being broadcast on the internet, journalists have been busily getting themselves killed, imprisoned, kidnapped and generally mistreated since the profession began . We should not become risk averse now.
Another is that, despite the temptation to rely on local stringers because they might be at less risk (which isn’t always the case), most editors feel, and are right to feel, that there is still no substitute for despatching their own staff, with their own flair for house style, their own eye for detail, and their own understanding of how best to relate the unfolding drama to their newspaper’s readers. It is, to put it bluntly, the best way of doing the story justice, and the tragedies in Syria and Iraq richly deserve that we do so.
Being a foreign correspondent in the post 9/11 world can be a very dangerous job. The word “sahafa” is one that every Western journalist in the Arab-speaking world learns pretty quickly. It means “Press” – and used to offer some modicum of protection in dangerous situations. Less so now. I have lost count of the number of colleagues who have been kidnapped in the past 10 years, many of them suffering ordeals that make my own adventure in Somalia look like a holiday.
This is not only because certain Islamist groups are more brutal than the guerrilla outfits of bygone conflicts. It is also because such groups can now communicate independently via the internet, which means they no longer rely on foreign press crews to get out their messages. In the old days, there used to be a certain symbiosis between journalists and guerrilla groups: as the only people who could broadcast their grievances to the wider world, we had a value, which also afforded a degree of protection. Today, by contrast, when groups like Isil and al-Shabaab have their own media wings and Twitter feeds, no journalist who falls into their hands can expect much traction by offering to “tell their side of the story”.
Instead, Western reporters who cover the likes of Syria these days have to do so with no expectation of special treatment, other than being specifically targeted for kidnapping and worse.
That men and women like Jim Foley choose to take such risks shows that, whatever else is said about journalism these days, some of its best traditions are still going strong. But it cannot hide the fact that we now operate in a world where the sword is most definitely mightier than the pen.
Jim chose to stay among those who had no choice
'I had made the gruelling journey by car, but Jim Foley, ever resourceful, arrived by Chinook helicopter.
The destination was Sirte, the Libyan city where, in October 2011, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and his troops were making a last stand. Foley had caught a lift with a group of medics who were flying to a local field hospital, and from then on that’s how I knew him – as the man always more deeply embedded with the people we were reporting on, always further forward on the front line, always wanting to get closer to what was happening.
We were part of the same tribe: a group of freelancer journalists who, with borrowed flak jackets and a few dollars in our pockets, were driven to Libya by our love of reporting. For a while Jim, myself and two other freelance friends lived on the edge of Sirte, in a home that had been turned into the headquarters of a Libyan rebel group, the self-named “Victory Brigade”.
They were enthusiastic young Libyans, many barely of university age, and Jim quickly got to know them best. By day, he’d travel to the front line with the fighters, or catch them up by hitching a lift on a passing tank. At night he glimpsed their softer side, playing games of pool on the beaten up table in the garden, and sleeping on the floor in the living room. He saw some of the natural innocence of their youth, innocence that they hid so well as soldiers on the battlefield.
Those had been more optimistic times in the Middle East. While the Libyan war in 2011 was horrifying, there was also a feeling that soon life for its people would improve. When the uprising moved to Syria shortly after, Jim moved with it, making covert trips from Turkey to witness the bombardment of civilian homes, towns and villages by President Bashar al-Assad’s air force.
His ability to put people at ease, and his natural curiosity meant he went further into the country, and stayed longer, than most journalists would dare in capturing a war that nobody would win. Extremism soon filled the vacuum created by that absence of victory. With the creation of Isil, the disaffected and the psychopathic, some from Britain, saw an opportunity to belong.
Three of my friends from that early freelance tribe have since disappeared at the hands of Isil militants. Jim knew the risks, and yet he still had the talent and courage to produce rare and vivid accounts of life – and death – in the war zone. He could have left, he could have caught a plane home, but he preferred to remain among those who did not have that option.'