Colleagues of the French journalists held in Iraq blogged an appeal to the kidnappers.
I note this not because their writing is so compelling, but because it intrigues me so to think about the pressure of writing such a piece. What do you say to terrorists who have all the cards? Should you be baselessly demanding and resolute? Or should you be obsequious?
I have certainly grappled with this in the abstract in my old job at Speedera. There, I routinely found myself negotiating in situations where my only leverage was an inspired sense of hubris that I did not need Customer X's business. By creating power where there was none, we were often able to achieve significant gains against industry Goliaths. Though we succeeded often, the downside for failure or miscalculation was simply the loss of a sale. In contrast, knowing I was directing a message to terrorists would, I think, add a potentially eviscerating layer of hesitation and pragmatism to my approach. Fail to know your audience in this case, and your words could be the impetus for the death of your colleagues.
That said, I think the authors in this case may have seized on the terrorists's one major vulnerability in the court of Muslim public opinion. Muslims across France have uniformly rejected this act of kidnapping. In harping on this fact, the appeal thus takes on some weight throughout the Muslim world, and the disparity of power is mitigated, if only academically, by questioning the ideological justification for the act.
Here is the English translation of what they published. How might you have written it differently?:
AN APPEAL to the ‘Islamic army of Iraq’, holding Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot.
The cause you are advocating can’t be defended by taking western journalists hostage and threatening their lives.
The two French colleagues you have been holding for the last ten days are men of duty. They both know and love the Arabic world. Despite risks, they both have made theirs the middle-east countries’ causes. They are guided only by their professional responsibilities: to witness truth by being on the ground and telling the stories of the people who live in the countries that they cover.
This is the importance of the mission they undertook, driven by the highest values of mankind, those which are making contemporary Europe look for a proper scrutiny of the Iraqi war, and a correct understanding of the present situation. Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, like their other colleagues, on the ground are not at war. They are trying to explain the situation by offering everybody every opportunity to speak up.
By preventing them from fulfilling their task, you are denying the Iraqi people from speaking their own voices to the rest of the world. History itself is being taken hostage.
What you are demanding them to pronounce in their own voices, a public pledge by the French population against the law prohibiting Hijab in public schools, has already happened in public debate within French society. Many times. And it will continue to happen. But as the demonstrators themselves said this Monday, they don’t want to have their opinions dictated at gunpoint.
The Arab and Muslim worlds, as one, intellectuals, political spiritual and religious leaders urge you to cease this obnoxious blackmail, which in fact is directly detrimental to the cause you hold so dear.
We, independent correspondents of the French press around the world, who are usually the closest to those crisis so hardly understood by a complex world in pursuit of truth and justice, ask you in the name of justice and truth, to free our colleagues and friends Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot.
