Armed with AK-47s, a gang in a pick-up truck waylaid his SUV. In a moment, Fowler – along with his Canadian assistant Louis Guay, and his local driver – had been kidnapped by Al Qaeda thugs. What followed was 130 grueling days of bruising driving that alternated with periods of bare existence spent camping in the Sahara. Robert Fowler related this terrifying experience with outward ease on Sunday, during a conversation with the editor of NOW Magazine held at the Drake Hotel.
Fowler’s account of being repeatedly filmed in a tent for propaganda videos and being asked to speak about Stockholm syndrome was initially a little incongruous with the hipster milieu of the Drake. However, Fowler made clear his captors’ abhorrence of the liberties espoused by Western society, and the telling of his tale in a bastion of that same liberalism added resonance to his words.
Fowler recounted with horror that his lead captor told him that his perfect dream was to don a martyr’s vest and enter a meeting of the UN Human Rights Commission while they were discussing gender equality (Al Qaeda has targeted the United Nations aggressively, destroying its headquarters in Iraq and Algeria). Even as such an account demonstrates the seemingly impassable violence of radicalized Islam, Fowler said how “ashamed” he was when – trotted out to join his captors for “TV nights” (collective viewings of propaganda DVDs thanks to a laptop placed on a vehicle hood)– he saw images of Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib onscreen.
Juxtaposed with his own situation, these brutalities committed by Western powers revealed that his captors had treated him relatively well, and indeed led credence to their belief that they had the moral high ground. Fowler added that the recent video of U.S. soldiers defiling Afghan corpses would surely become a fixture of these mujahedeen pump-up sessions.
One of the most striking aspects of Fowler’s story is the odd predicament of a seasoned geopolitical analyst (and former Deputy Minister of National Defence) becoming himself the center of the situation. Completely powerless, both he and Guay continued to run through every possible scenario. Fowler credited his time as an Ottawa bureaucrat for influencing his and Guay’s ability to set routines and rules for themselves that made their captivity tolerable (such as 5 a.m. walks, and not allowing each other to share any pessimism after lunch).
Ultimately, Fowler, Guay and their driver were released, though the circumstances of this remain deeply mysterious and even disquieting, as it testifies to hidden diplomatic maneuverings. In response to questions from the audience, Fowler recognized the possibility that clandestine prisoner exchanges, increased foreign aid funding, and the paying of a ransom could have played a factor in his freedom.
However, now completely retired from government, Fowler remarked that he had decided not to press too deeply into the circumstances of his freedom. While he remains largely in the dark regarding who and what caused his release, Fowler said that his memories will often turn at random moments in the day to the blinding light of the desert.
