![]() ![]() It was, on the one hand, an affirmation of the faith he already cherished as a Christian. It was so much more than a survival tactic. He was never a religious person to start with and had no reason to genuinely believe or be truthful to captors who would not hesitate to kill him.įor McGown it was fundamentally different, and counterintuitive. Yet for Gustafsson, this response was perfectly intuitive. It was understandably all sham and expediency. He had no sincere faith, no conviction or any sincere commitment to Islam. The latter embraced Islam exclusively as a survival tactic. The intuitive response was that of Gustafsson. However, for the purpose of grasping a seemingly counterintuitive spiritual response to his captors and their faith, it is useful to consider his spiritual development independently. One must concede these are not mutually exclusive aspects of his experience. McGown does not quite treat his psychological journey in Mali as one that is distinct from his spiritual journey. Ultimately, he rehabilitated himself and emerged a man who conquered his lower self. It demanded deep introspection and reflections on the meaning of life and the nature of existence. It was a moral choice between imploding into lifelong bitterness and cynicism or embracing his reality and transcending it with a view to achieving transformation and personal growth. But captivity compelled him to make a very conscious moral choice that had little to do with the innate drive for physical self-preservation. McGown had struggled with anxiety and depression in London, well before his rendezvous with Al Qaeda. The chapter “Oasis of the Mind” offers deeply profound reflections, and some context and valuable insight into his “self-imposed rehab” in the desert. And then there was anxiety, panic, depression, loneliness, boredom and a host of conditions that tested his mettle beyond mere physical resilience. In the early period of captivity, McGown was confronted with the very real fear of death at the hands of his captors. This, above all else, is the abiding moral of McGown’s story. This enabled him to achieve a typical personal life goal, namely to emerge from his ordeal a better person. However, his survival ultimately speaks to his mental and spiritual growth. He was deeply affected by Al Qaeda’s slaughter of goats and camels, the lone presence of a giant tortoise in the middle of nowhere, tales of snakes, geckos and frogs and the migration of swallows. Six Years With Al Qaeda: The Stephen McGown StoryĪnd of course, there is McGown’s love of and extraordinary relationship with animals. If you’re rejigging your budgets, and it comes to choosing between frothy milk and Daily Maverick, we hope you might reconsider that cappuccino. Our country is going to be considerably worse off if we don’t have a strong, sustainable news media. We can't survive on hope and our own determination. A little less than a week’s worth of cappuccinos. At R200, you get it back in Uber Eats and ride vouchers every month, but that’s just a suggestion. After all, how much you value our work is subjective (and frankly, every amount helps). We don’t dictate how much we’d like our readers to contribute. BUT maybe R200 of that R1,050 could go to the journalism that’s fighting for the country? ![]() Don’t get us wrong, we’re almost exclusively fuelled by coffee. Think of us in terms of your daily cappuccino from your favourite coffee shop. What it comes down to is whether or not you value Daily Maverick. More specifically, we'd like those who can afford to pay to start paying. We'd like our readers to start paying for Daily Maverick ![]()
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