Retired Canadian diplomat, Robert Fowler’s recent, personal recounting of his kidnapping by Islamic fundamentalists is especially timely given recent events in Mali & Libya. Shortly before Christmas 2008, Fowler, fellow Canadian diplomat, Louis Guay and their local driver are grabbed off the road in Niger and quickly trucked across the Sahara desert to a series of bleak camps in northern Mali. What follows can be described as 4 months of extreme camping. Fowler details their health problems, their attempts to fight off boredom and their attempts to communicate with a rotating group of guards. Their captors are portrayed as joyless, committed, with a narrow focus. The only authority they recognize is Allah speaking through the Qur’an. Non-believers, who wish to substitute any other authority, including democracy, for God’s, must be killed as blasphemers.
The book can be read on both a personal, “How would I have reacted if I’d been kidnapped” level and to gain insight to current jihadist terrorism.
Comment
A Season in Hell