Freedom is ‘the oxygen of our lives’: ex-hostage

Photo by Vince Fedoroff

On the night before he was rescued from captivity by special forces in the American military, James Loney sat with one of his Iraqi captors and gave him a massage.

“We have to try something different,” Loney urged an audience on Thursday night, speaking to approximately 150 people at the Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre.

An active member of the Christian Peacemaker Teams, Loney was held in captivity in Iraq from November 2005 until March 2006, sparking international headlines and worldwide controversy.

One of his fellow hostages, American Tom Fox, was murdered during their captivity.

Though Loney admits to having felt deep anger and resentment toward his captors, he now seems to have a quiet acceptance.

Dressed in a simple flannel shirt, light jeans and hiking boots, Loney doesn’t look like the radical activist he is. With a neat haircut and a gentle, thoughtful voice, he spoke about the humanity of his captors and the need for love, forgiveness and healing in the world.

One captor, who Loney nicknamed “Junior”, had his parents, sister, fiancée and best friend killed in a single day by an American bomb in
Fallujah.

Filled with rage, Junior was planning to become a suicide bomber.

“Seeing this beautiful man, just consumed by all encompassing rage…this man who was ready to turn his body into a lethal weapon, just so that he could find justice,” said Loney, shaking his head. “I just wanted to reach him.”

At one point, communicating with the simple Arabic he had picked up during his captivity, Loney spoke with Junior about his plans.

Junior expressed a wish to join his family and fiancée in heaven, then spat on the ground and stamped his foot, indicating he wanted the American soldiers to burn in hell.

However, Loney also witnessed Junior playing with a young boy and giving him shoulder rides. When asked what he would be doing if there wasn’t a war, Junior replied that he would be “helping Father in the market.”

“Here was a simple man. His goal in life? Get married, have a job. I wanted to say to this man, I wanted to tell him, ‘God gave you life,’ “ Loney said.

At one point, he tried to reach Junior, telling him he would be a “good father” and that he still had hope. Then he found another way to reach him-massages.

“I think he was a sniper; he had all this tension in his arms,” said Loney, describing a late night when they sat together.

Loney massaged his forearms while Junior complained about his life.

“He said, ‘I have no mother, no father, no job, no girlfriend…the clutch is going on my car…’ – he had the captor blues,” said Loney.

But beneath his joke was a deep compassion for this hurting man, who Loney has not seen since. That was the last conversation he ever had with Junior.

After their release, the captives were asked if they would be willing to testify in court against their kidnappers.

While Loney said it was an “incredibly hard decision”, they ultimately decided not to participate, and even issued a statement of forgiveness.

“We weren’t interested in punishment or vengeance; we just wanted the suffering to end,” said Loney.

He spoke for about 45 minutes, then spent some time answering questions.

Mark Connell, a local teacher who organized his friend’s visit to Whitehorse, observed that the seating was in “classic Catholic style; no one wants to sit at the front.”

One audience member asked Loney if he’s ever reconciled the paradox of being a pacifist peacekeeper who owes his freedom to military might.

“I don’t have any sound byte answers,” said Loney.

“I owe my life to highly-trained professional soldiers in the United States military.”

He said the people fighting in Iraq obviously want to serve their country, and are acting from “a noble impulse.” He said he discovered a newfound respect for their service, and he feels great gratitude.

However, he said he is “even more convinced” that pacifism and non-violent resistance is the best route to take.

“We have a case of one gun overpowering another gun,” he said. “The problem is the gun!

“Love is more powerful,” Loney said, acknowledging that when a test of faith comes, none of us know what we’ll do.

“As a Christian, we’re taught to accept suffering. That’s hard. That’s scary,” he said.

The main thrust of Loney’s speech was an exploration of the idea of freedom, which Loney called “our most precious gift” and “the very oxygen of our lives.”

He shared the observation that during his captivity, he had moments of freedom and ones of despair. He hypothesized that quite often, the chains and handcuffs are in our mind.

He shared a story about Fox, who one night reached out to one of their captors.

One of the men, who they’d nicknamed “Uncle”, had a sprained ankle. Without saying a word, Fox got down on his knees and put his hands around the ankle, closing his eyes and concentrating fully.

“ ‘What is he doing?’ they asked us.

“ ‘He’s saying a prayer to Allah,’ we told them, and they nodded. They seemed very confused by the whole thing,” Loney said.

That night, when the captors were putting them to bed, they forgot to lock Loney’s handcuffs.

“I think it was interesting. They’d never forgotten before. I don’t know why they forgot, but maybe it had something to do with this: How do you lock somebody who who just prayed for your sprained ankle?” said Loney.

He told the audience he believes his kidnappers were just as captive as he was, and shared the observation that every single one of them at one point had expressed their desire to be free of the situation.

“They’re holding the gun, but they’re just as much a prisoner as I am,” said Loney.

He expressed hope that humanity is “on the edge of a new paradigm” and even spoke in support of U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Though many situations seem hopeless to Loney, he said we need to continue to struggle.

“We’re in trouble, for sure, but we have available to us an awareness…a consciousness that could really shift things,” Loney said.

He likened violence to an escalator that carried us in one direction, and encouraged people to step off the escalator and struggle to find a new way.

“We’ve got to make it happen,” he said.