I’ve been thinking a lot about James Foley over the last few days, in part because it’s hard to get away from debates in the international press about what his murder by ISIS terrorists (it’s been called ‘execution’ by some, but actually it’s murder) means for the civilised world.
There should have been more debate about what all of this has meant for James Foley himself, and for his family (he leaves parents and four siblings), but there hasn’t been – largely because over the last couple of years he was held captive and had disappeared from media focus, and also because his family wanted to stay out of the limelight. In this they are not unusual. There are – and have been – very many Americans and Europeans captured by terrorists in the Middle East and held for ransom, but their families have tended not to want their names released to the press. Whether this is on the advice of their governments or because of their own personal fears is not known.
Foley was captured in November two years ago by armed men who barged into the internet cafe where he was sitting, filing his last batch of photographs to the Global Post. He was never seen again until the YouTube video uploaded a few days ago showing him being murdered with a knife to his throat. The murder and the context in which it was filmed and broadcast are so barbaric that the mind shrinks from what happened. The Pope, sensitive to the fact that this murder was somehow different to all the others, and possibly also to remind the world that behind the news story is a highly personal tragedy, rang the Foley family. The news will move on, but they will not.
One salient point made in the ongoing press debate is that whereas, in the past, warmongers and leaders of warring factions left journalists unharmed because they needed them to get their messages and their points of view across to the rest of the world, now they don’t need them. Internet has given them their own perfect message board, which they can control at will. YouTube, especially, is useful – providing as it does a medium on which murder videos can be uploaded. Previously, terrorists and warmongers would capture hostages and then depend on journalists to broadcast footage of the hostage reading out a message and a plea for help, holding that day’s newspaper to verify the date of filming. But now the journalists are not needed for this, and so they themselves have become valuable hostages. Journalists are far more high profile than other workers and their capture and murder serves to illustrate the fundamental differences between the savages seeking to impose their rule and the values of the free west. The message inherent in the murder of journalists is “we do not share your values”.
There has been much discussion about whether ransoms should be paid for kidnapped hostages like James Foley. The USA and the UK are keeping to a policy of never paying ransom money. ISIS asked for $100 million for Foley and didn’t get it. It was clear that they wouldn’t get it, and so the big question is why they held on to him for so long before killing him in that brutal, showy manner. Another American hostage, who was shown briefly in the same video, has also been held for a long while. They know they will not get any money for him and so he is likely to be killed too.
The American and British policy is – looking at it purely pragmatically, as those directly involved are bound to feel completely differently – the sensible one. European governments have so far paid around $125 million for those of their citizens who have been kidnapped for ransom in the Middle East by terrorist groups and warmongering militias, which include ISIS. Yes, that saves the individuals involved, and the pressure to do so from the people back home is undoubtedly enormous. But it increases the crisis exponentially. By showing that you are willing to pay for the safe return of your citizens, you instantly create a market in which others are kidnapped for money. Beyond that, you are also giving ISIS, and other warmongers, valuable foreign currency that they will use to buy weapons, thereby strengthening their position. It is, of course, a nightmarish situation either way. Should it be the European approach of saving the individual in that instant, with no consideration of the wider problem created, or should it be the British/American approach of keeping your eye on the bigger picture, even though this means sacrificing the lives of individuals?
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