Nominally, Reflections on Life, Politics and Captivity in Gaza was a fascinating talk given by Alan Johnston, winner of the BBC journalism prize, on his four months in confinement after being kidnapped by the Army of Islam in Gaza City in 2007. But although Johnston’s narrative promised to be insightful, it glazed over the mental aspects of his captivity with vague repeated phrases like “vast psychological trial”. It is understandably difficult to articulate what it’s like  to sit for 18 hours a day in a plastic chair, but Johnston trivialized his experience with misplaced humour: a strange smile occupied his face as he joked: “I did manage to get myself kidnapped, I’m afraid.”

 

 

 

After a roar of applause, Johnston explained the bare facts of his ordeal, carefully sidestepping charged judgement even of his kidnappers. His car was driven off  the road by a white van, after which he was threatened with a pistol, put in the car with a hood over his head, brought back to a flat and handcuffed. One of his kidnappers spoke to him, prophesising that Johnston would live to write a book (Kidnapped, 2007) and to marry (no wedding ring), but also implying that he would not be freed anytime soon: “It was the most remarkable conversation of my life, I guess.”

 

 

Fascinating snippets like this erupted through his self-effacement at points: the graffiti and flags in claustrophobic Gaza (which is the size and population of Manhattan without the skyscrapers); the way he imagined seeing himself on the floor, hooded and handcuffed, like in a film; that he heard his own death reported on the radio; that he was allowed sometimes to watch TV with his captors (mostly American wrestling), aware that underneath the television set were kept two grenades and an M16, and that against the wall was a rocket launcher. Sometimes Johnston portrayed almost domestic scenes. When questioned about possible Stockholm syndrome, he joked that the Army of Islam had more problems than he did with Hamas and the BBC, and that his kidnapper was also confined. Was Johnston’s humour a newfound optimism, a coping device, or a by-product of speaking about such a heavy subject with a crowd? Johnston had completely dissociated himself from his past: looking back, it did not even seem like his own life, he said.

Johnston was not concerned with being politically correct. Rather, he lacked any subjective evaluative capacity, frequently attempting to communalize the kidnapping – over and over again he said, “and you can imagine…” – and deemphasize himself: “I’m a middle class British bloke and there’s only so much I can understand about the other side.” But we cannot imagine, and he is not just a middle class British bloke. This was manifest even in his voice, which was quiet, hoarse and bemused as if he had emerged from confinement only a few weeks ago.

Does Johnston’s ultra-objectivity stem from being a journalist? His reluctance to be biased emerged in the standard journalistic spiel about “versions of history” and the willingness to understand the most radical viewpoints for the sake of reportage. When Johnston was first captured, he was asked his religion. Upon saying that he was Protestant Christian, he was asked if he was a “crusader Baptist like George Bush”. In that moment, Johnston said, he saw the world in their eyes, with “black and white vision”. Even this was not a criticism, but merely part of the filmic imagery pervasive in his talk, which revealed Johnston’s detachment. He referred to the Army of Islam as the “bad guys”, characterizing the kidnapping as “like a B-movie” and his conversations with kidnappers as like a second-rate script: “we know everything, Alan Johnston.”

Nor did the audience notice the superficiality with which Johnston treated what should by all means have been an examination of political climate from the inside. The stock questions were maddening as the audience followed suit in trivial analysis: why had Johnston continued to be a journalist after such an experience? Did Johnston face censorship? And even worse: whether or not Johnston had come out of the experience with anything positive, as though all experience must be categorized into ‘positive’ or ‘negative’.

Yes, Johnston’s talk was objectively interesting, but his talk was a piece of exegetic reporting rather than investigative journalism: a B-movie version, really. Johnston has not yet been freed, and nor had the audience: we are still stuck interpreting the events in Gaza with startling ambivalence. He was a fascinating specimen, a microcosm for the empty way in which both the public and the media treat the events of the Middle East.