Kidnapping as an intimate and weapon of mass destruction

There were two successive trios, although the first was set in prison. Islamic State. At the beginning of September 2013, kidnapped Syria Marc Marginedas, special representative of El Periódico de Catalunya from the Prensa Ibérica group. twelve days later, photographer freelancing Ricardo Garcia Vilanova and Javier Espinosa, newspaper reporter World, who traveled together. The three of them are very experienced in conflict and are very careful when it comes to conflict. risky decisions. They were released after six unbearable months. Two years later, three journalists were kidnapped by Al Qaeda near Aleppo, again in Syria. freelance work, working for different media and traveling with: Antonio Pampliega, Ángel Sastre and José Manuel López. They spent a year in bitter captivity.

Same way journalism colleges The cost of facing the horror and pain of others is not taught (and losing your ability to sympathize with others’ pain renders you incapable of properly reporting it), is something that is not taught to those who dream of being. war correspondents how to physically and mentally recover from a abduction. The six journalists were released after painstaking negotiations with intermediaries, with the utmost discretion, until the Spanish government convinced the kidnappers to financially release them.

‘Bargain with the devil’

The book is highly recommended. javier espinoza wrote with his partner Monica Garcia Prieto ‘Syria, the land of broken souls and especially what he describes in the last chapter (Negotiation with the Devil), so that the abduction is known and his abductors agree to negotiate: “From the very day he disappeared, my life has been swallowed up by fears and uncertainties,” he adds. I refused: Doing so would weaken me and my own children, because I would need an example of normalcy to avoid being forever stigmatized by the abduction of my children. Their fathers. And if they had anything, they were tools to get through something like that. I chose to reverse the situation. my best journalism research, the best news imaginableIt’s an excuse to interview anyone who has minimal or maximum contact with the universe of the abductees, the world’s most obscure act and best kept secret.”

Confronted with countries like the United States and the United Kingdom that refuse to negotiate with terrorists (there will be no results unless there is State justification), countries like Spain (also risk dismay to tell) and the mechanism of a freak like the Islamic State. funds that can end up feeding, the political and moral dilemma is to make the least bad decision and save certain assets. Putting a face, a biography is the best way to help the citizen put himself in another’s shoes. Something journalists don’t always do well.

kidnapping a propaganda weapon Islamic State and related organizations, with similar effects fragmentation bomb: not only spreads fear among journalists (and among companies that prefer not to take risks and often choose to use ‘freelancers’ with less expense and no commitment in the event of an accident, death or kidnapping), overshadowed by their evil deeds and the calamities of war, but at the same time great economic benefits. Not to mention its capacity to recruit atrocities among the fools and captives of the Messianic and Manichaean world, therefore British hostages subjecting them to false judgments and executed in front of the cameras technically flawless staging and content immorally to the delight of its most loyal supporters.

Outside of the informative map

The result of this terror strategy is that Syria has long since disappeared. informative mapThis is a background rumor that unlinked episodes rarely come in. The dynamics that news coverage usually adopts (no longer Ukraineit seems to feed off (albeit weakening) the aesthetics of the society of the spectacle, the irrational and unexplained consumption of events; but anesthetize. In the end they inoculate two related viruses: everything is getting worse, incomprehensible and there is nothing I can do. Like I said it’s hard to find Ignacio RamonetIt means wanting to know what world we are in and what the consequences of our actions, policies and omissions are.

No man is an island. But we are afraid. Without newspapers, without good press, without reporters to put us at risk for us, to help us put ourselves in the other’s shoes, we are lost. Our life will become less valuable, less worth living.

“Great oblivion prevails. Your voice is hoarse, because those who come to you have full hands. What are they looking for in these letters? They celebrate your lines only when you want to be heard as a living being, as someone who has returned home, as someone who can take you to another beginning”. Rafael Cadenas, ‘The Whole Work’.