The brutality of man against man is the one thing that sets us apart from the rest of the animal world. The insane cruelty that can grip, and devour a person beyond reason makes man the most dangerous thing to walk this beautiful planet.
It was into the hands of such men that Brian Keenan, an Irish teacher, found himself when on his way to work at the English University of Beirut.
What was to follow for Brian, would have made a lesser man insane, I am sure that if it were me who had been taken I would have been dead by now.
Brian Keenan was raised in an Ireland full of troubles, sectarian values were abound and he was himself troubled by the futility of the young people dying for a cause they understood little about, indoctrinated by narrow-minded parents and peers. The fighting and bombings made Brian uncomfortable in his own country, he made the decision to leave Ireland and see a bit of the world. Talk about “Out of the frying pan and into the fire!”, the Lebanon should have been the last place on his mind. However, he had a teaching post lined up and that part of the world interested him immensely so with one last trip around his home town (During which he met no one he knew to share his last hours at home), he set off for a new adventure.
When he arrived at his destination, he was advised to take accommodation within the campus, but this would prove to be too confining for a man of Brian’s curiosity, so he opted instead to share a house, some ten or fifteen minutes walk away from his place of work.
One morning, as he left for the short walk to the university, a car screeched to a halt just in front of him. He was bundled into the back and pushed down, a machine gun trained on his head, and taken to a building somewhere in the city. He was interrogated and asked if he was English, “No, I am Irish” he said “You like Thatcher?” the interrogators asked, “No, I hate Thatcher!” he laughed, “I’m a bloody Irish man!”.
Irish, English, American, French, it mattered not, these people were religious zealots with little capacity for lucid or rational thought, if you were foreign you were fair game for the hostage takers, a tool for their never ending fight against western influence’s and interference both politically and culturally. Brian was later to reflect on the absurdity of his captors hero worship of the American anti-hero types like “Rambo”, a character that many of them emulated both in the way they dressed and in the array of weapons they carried about their person.
This book is written with little sense of self pity on Brian Keenan's part, indeed he touches upon moments of complete horror with honesty and an understanding of how his captors viewed him in relation to themselves. He was, quite simply, an infidel and unclean, he was never allowed to look upon any of them and wore a blindfold whenever they were present.
He was determined that he would show no fear to them, despite the fact that he was, understandably, scared witless for much of the time. His captors would try and engage him in conversation, asking about his love life or family. He came to realise early on in his ordeal that many of them were fixated with sex in much the same way as an adolescent would be. They would also become almost sexually aroused when talking about the guns and weaponry they possessed and about battles they had witnessed or been part of. Brian had witnessed, just before his internment, a group of young Lebanese who, on hearing a gun battle start close by, jumped into a car and race towards the scene whilst in an obvious state of arousal.
Brian estimates that he was moved from hell-hole to hell-hole around seventeen times during his captivity , and the way they moved him was the most frightening thing. Usually he would be chained by the wrists and ankles, put into a large sack and unceremoniously dumped into the boot of a vehicle. Two journeys were particularly gruelling and full of horror. On these occasions he was wrapped in tape, mummy-like, and then pushed into a coffin sized box welded to the underside of a truck, both times he was accompanied by his cell mate John Mcarthy, on one of these occasions a guard lay with them, both these journeys nearly killed him and he was close to madness by the time they pulled him out.
John Mcarthy was Brian's saviour, his calming nature worked as a foil against Brian’s fiery temper, many times during their years of captivity these two men would be the healing balm for one another, they both recieved many beatings.
The one big thing that both these men had in their favour was humour! Although I was both shocked and saddened when I read this book, I also laughed my socks off. There are many references to Brian and John’s warped sense of humour rescuing them from the depths of depression, and later, when they are put in a cell with three American prisoners, it is their humour that binds together five men and gives them the strength to continue.
Oh I cannot begin to coherently tell you how this book has affected me, as it is I have waffled on for too long. Get a copy now, read it and then think twice before moaning about how sucky your life is, marvel at the endurance of a fiery Irishman (is there any other kind?), but above all thank your lucky stars that you live in a wonderful country like this.
Evaluate this review
How helpful would this review be to someone making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
This product has not yet been reviewed. 
