Brian Keenan - Irish author who survived five years of hostage hell
My guest today has, without any exaggeration, been to hell and back: Brian Keenan was kidnapped in Beirut in 1986 by the militant group Islamic Jihad and held hostage in the most appalling conditions for almost five years. Mr Keenan, who comes from Belfast, won a great deal of respect and admiration for the way he documented his terrible experiences in his book "An Evil Cradling". When he was in Prague last weekend promoting the Czech version of the book, I spoke to Brian Keenan in the dining room of his hotel. He began by outlining what had happened to him.
"I was held hostage for almost five years, mostly in small, very, very dark rooms with no light, wearing a blindfold, so it was a long time in Lebanon and not seeing much."
How aware of the dangers were you when you went there?
"Well, I was well aware that there was a very, very bad situation. I was aware also that Americans had been taken hostage. But my own view was: I come from Belfast, it's had thirty years of war, I grew up in it, I knew most of it, but...what would anybody in Lebanon want with an Irishman?"
I would crack up in about a week, or sooner, if I was chained to a wall and blindfolded and so on - what did you do to stay sane there?
"First of all, I'm not so sure I stayed sane. I'm quite sure that on several occasions I was clinically insane. It's a different kind of reality that you exist in; it's a very heightened reality. It's very, very unreal, it's very strange, it's very weird. For me to deal with that was...I remember saying to myself 'well, if I'm going to go insane here, let's go for it'. In a way, becoming less afraid of what was happening to you, and trying to take possession of it by going beyond the madness."
Was there any light at the end of the tunnel? Was there any hint that you would ever be released, or did you have any clue as to what would happen in the future?
"No, unlike most prisoners there was no slip of paper or card outside the wall, with a release date. And we were never told anything. We were never given any news, what news we heard we picked up from French language broadcasts in Lebanon, maybe filtering under the cell door. We knew nothing, or were never told.
"Sometimes the guards would say 'maybe you go home soon'. But I think they didn't know any more...this thing was being operated by intelligence sources beyond Lebanon."
How much of that four and a half years were you alone?
"It was very hard to count time. I'm sure that for the first nine months I was in a small cell, six foot by four foot, with no light, and fed once a day: the food was slid under the door. That was the longest period of isolation."
Many of our listeners will know that you had a co-hostage, John McCarthy from England. Obviously you shared this extremely intense and unusual experience - are you and he in contact much these days, which is - what? - thirteen years after he got out?
"Yeah, I would see John, maybe twice, three times a year. I frequently have to visit London to see publishers, as I write books now. And I'd give him a ring, we'd go for a beer or lunch, or I'd go and visit him at his home. Equally he might on occasions come over to Dublin.
"So I've quite a lot of contact with John, and with Terry Anderson, who was the last American to be released. It's one of those things: you're the founder member of one of the most exclusive clubs in the world, but nobody else wants to join you [laughs]."
Recently three Czech journalists were kidnapped in Iraq - when you hear on the radio, say, about kidnappings, do you follow them more closely than another person might?
"No, I don't, although any time this situation happens - which seems to be quite frequent now because of the situation in Iraq - I would get journalists and press phoning me up to talk about it.
"I'm not a specialist on hostage taking. I may have some kind of knowledge about survival, but that's appropriate only to me. And I'm not a specialist in Middle East history. No more is Donald Rumsfeld, who must take the responsibility for some of these people disappearing.
"My worries more are...you have to make a connection with the people who hold you, some way. Now sometimes that connection needs to be that you've go to oppose what they're doing to you.
"The Arab mind likes power, it likes people who are unafraid, it's about face. And in situations like that if you allow people to humiliate you they're going to take and abuse that humiliation."
"Yes, I think it's a case of...people assume that when you've disappeared, for such a long time, when you were a name or an image on the TV screen, but people have no fleshy correspondence with you, and then suddenly you appear out of the dark, and you become real...
"People want to come and talk to you, they want to touch you. I can remember a very weird and strange experience, and this is only one of many, where a woman in the west of Ireland, where I went to live, wanted me to touch her broken arm.
"That scared me and I said 'no, no, I can't do that'. And people assume you have this kind of...secret knowledge, or maybe power or something, and they want to share...
"Or else there's a great kind of sympathy for you. Because, after all, who in their lives has not experienced loss, loss of a loved one, or a dead relative or someone dying, maybe a child dying, of cancer or something?
"And maybe they see in someone who comes back from the dark a kind of sign, a signal, or a witness, that no matter how awful something can be, we can overcome."
In Ireland and in Britain, everyone I'm sure recognises you - is it refreshing for you to travel abroad and be unknown? Like, say, here in Prague?
"It's very refreshing. I have to say this, it's my second time in Prague and it won't be my last. There's a great grace about being able to walk down the street and enjoy it for what it is, without the sense of knowing or thinking somebody's going to walk past and say 'that's your man, the hostage'.
"So it's a very valuable place for me and a very valuable experience, to be not known, although I did notice yesterday at the book-fair when I was reading from the book, I was surprised at the number of Czech people - who wouldn't speak any English - coming up, and they would want me to sign the book and photographs. And I thought 'oh no, it's happening again'."
When did you first come to Prague?
"I came for my wife's birthday, last Christmas, which was my first visit, although many people had told me 'it's a really, really beautiful city, you should go'.
"And we both fell in love with it. This is the second time round. It's different; it's much warmer than it was now...you see the city differently. And I will come back. I think my publishers here in Prague are trying to organise something for next year. So I'm really looking forward to it."
