...from "The Galley", the pupil newspaper of Dollar Academy.
Dark Passages and Difficult Places
Our recent visit from Alan Johnston at the 6th Form dinner left the attendees inspired and grateful for the safety of our community here at Dollar Academy. At the beginning of his talk Mr Johnston described his chaotic childhood: before moving to Dollar, he lived in five different countries and attended eight different schools. With two O grades he often was told he “wouldn’t get a job with the council” but after his days at Dollar Academy he went on to study at Dundee University and believed that “Dollar saved the day”. While talking to us at the 6th Form Dinner, Mr Johnston commented that it was incredible to be standing in Dollar after living through his horrific ordeal of being held a hostage by the Army of Islam for four months last year.
In 2007, after nearly three years of living in Gaza as a journalist and just 16 days before he was due to come back to Britain, Alan Johnston was ambushed in an alley way and was put into the back seat of a car with a mask over his head. He said “it was like the movies” but soon realised that they were heading to the worst part of the city. Johnston had been living in Gaza in order to tell the story of day-to-day life in this contested territory back to the BBC. He had tried to stay anonymous and not attract too much attention by changing his car a lot, staying out of trouble and moving house randomly.
After what felt like a lifetime in the back seat of the car he was hauled out and moved into a room. The door unlocked and a tall man with a long white robe entered with an obscured face. He had come to see “what he had caught”; a splinter group of Al Qaeda had captured him. The man told Johnston that in his future he would go free, get married and write a book about this ordeal; it seemed he had a long plan for Johnston’s life which was encouraging. But, soon after, Johnston was taken out of the room and into the night with a pistol to his hooded head. After another car ride he was moved to a bright room with a large stick in it. The fact that Johnston had lived in Gaza for the best part of three years made no difference to his captors.
After the first month, Johnston believed he was going to be incarcerated long term. He was sure he wouldn’t survive and started to lose track of time. Then one day one of the terrorists came in and gave him a radio. He tuned into the BBC station and it was announced that terrorists had killed Alan Johnston. That night Mr Johnston was on edge: every time he heard footsteps near his cell he was nervous and worried for his death, but “dawn came and life went on”.
Alan Johnston was in captivity for three months after this event, and at one point the terrorists put him on TV in a suicide bomb jacket. Fear engulfed him and Johnston said, patently, it was the “lowest point of my life”. In the last few days of his captivity Johnston said there was “immense pressure” on the terrorist group, and it was like living in a machine gun nest.
One night he was in his cell when he heard a profusion of noise in the corridor. He was frightened for his death and didn’t see why they would let him live. He was taken out of his cell and thrown into the back seat of a car but little did he know he was about to be freed with the help of Hamas. In the car there was a tense atmosphere as the “car could be filled with bullets at any moment”. Halting in an alley way, he was pulled out the car by a dozen gun men heavily armed. They took him by the arm and led him into a garden with a man standing in the middle of it. Johnston recognised this man to be Fayed who he worked with at the BBC for years. Alan Johnston was overwhelmed with emotion: he was finally safe and free.
Attracted to war torn countries because of their tremendously interesting societies, Alan Johnston, having been on the front line with soldiers, believes that “war is man at his lowest state” and war is a waste - a waste of human potential.
Johnston’s experience in Gaza made life simple. It made him realise that we should endure, forgive and love again and that we have more to give when it really matters. Johnston felt lucky that he was in Gaza and not in Iraq and was only incarcerated for four months. The BBC was very supportive and never gave up. He said it was “the worst place in my life” but the demonstrations around the world were incredibly moving.
When Johnston returned he had undoubtedly changed. He didn’t feel like racing off to another war torn country. Before, he always had some sort of plan for his next assignment but now he was happy to just be in one place. His talk was truly moving and inspirational to the 6th Form pupils: it showed us that we can pull through anything as long as we remember what is important in life.
Hannah Gilbert Form VI
