Embracing Islam got McGown through ordeal
Home sweet home for SA man after nearly six years in captivity
On November 25 2011, Stephen McGown was six weeks into a solo motorbike trip through Africa. He had met fellow bikers Sjaak Rijke from the Netherlands and Johan Gustafsson from Sweden, and they planned to see the ancient manuscripts in Timbuktu. Instead, they were kidnapped.
McGown made his first public appearance on Thursday after being held hostage in northern Mali for almost six years. Flanked by his father, wife and sister — his mother died in May — McGown told reporters in Johannesburg that the day of his capture by members of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb was “a blur”.
“Some guys came in, one holding a pistol,” McGown said. The three men were dragged out of their hostel at gunpoint.
“There was a German gentleman with us, I saw him leaning backwards and falling on the ground, I saw the Kalashnikov turning to the ground and I heard three bangs and I said to the guys next to me: ‘I think they’ve killed him.’ ”
Shackles and sandstorms
McGown and his fellow prisoners were taken to a camp in the Sahara.
The first three months were “very unstable”, he said.
“The emir of the camp said they were not going to harm us, but we feared for our lives. On one of our first days they brought in a goat and slaughtered it and I thought it might be me next. I thought I’d be the first to go because of my British ties.”
In the meantime Rijke’s wife alerted the authorities and McGown’s parents were contacted. His father, Malcolm, called McGown’s wife, Catherine, in the UK, where she was staying with McGown’s sister and brotherin-law, Leigh-Anne and Gregg Quixley.
Leigh-Anne remembers the call vividly. “Cath and I were just having a normal conversation when the phone rang. I picked it up and it was my dad to say that Stephen had been captured. It was awful, outrageous, horrific, surreal . . . I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.”
In the beginning the prisoners were handcuffed and shackled at night. “Sometimes they would forget about us in the morning and we’d be there until 10 o’clock, chained up like sardines under one blanket. And we were blindfolded.”
Eventually things changed and their conditions became “pretty comfortable”, said McGown, although the weather was extreme. “The winter winds are freezing and in summer you get thunderstorms, you spend the night wet, chilly, sand everywhere. And then you have sandstorms, awesome to see but it would be nice if you could climb into a car or a house instead of sitting in it.”
They were moved from camp to camp in the northern Sahara, building huts from grass and twigs and digging wells. “I could basically build a city,” said McGown.
“I tried to remain positive, get involved in building things, learning about different animals . . . I saw the swallows migrate back and forth six times across the Sahara. I got joy from things like that. You try and find routine . . . I exercised, I tried to make conversation with the mujahideen, to get along with them. I didn’t want to come out an angry person.”
He had to learn French and Arabic to communicate with his captors, but it was his conversion to Islam that had the most impact. Bullying, threats and name-calling stopped instantly, he said.
“In the Koran you have to look after your prisoners — we had food, we had clothes — but once converted things changed dramatically. The guys would wash our clothes, bring us meat . . . for about two years we were still uncertain whether we were safe, but we were treated well . . . Whatever came into the camp was shared out equally . . . except we did not get Kalashnikovs.”
Entering Islam
Rijke was freed in 2015 and Gustafsson in June. “There were the three of us,” said McGown. “Johan, Sjaak and myself. Sjaak was taken from us, and then it was Johan and me, and then Johan was taken from me, and then it was me.”
His release was facilitated by Gift of the Givers. Mohamed Yehir Diko, a Malian resident in South Africa, acted as negotiator up to the point where final arrangements were handed to the Malian and South African governments.
After being approached by Malcolm in 2014, Imtiaz Sooliman, head of Gift of the Givers, made a media announcement that he was looking for a person of Malian origin who knew the tribes and the region and would be willing to find and speak to the captors.
“Within two hours, Yehir walked into the office, said Sooliman. “Since then he has been to Mali nine times.”
Yehir said he took the task on because he was outraged by the kidnapping of a tourist. “Mali is a peaceful country,” he said. “And in Islam we respect our guests.”
McGown said he was not in any way forced to convert. “I entered Islam entirely of my own accord. I see many good things in Islam, also many things which don’t make sense to me. I have learnt everything in Arabic so I probably have big gaps in my knowledge. I will continue reading up and finding out more about it.”
His sister said McGown seemed to be “much more at peace with himself” than he used to be. “Seeing him and listening to his stories, I can see how there’s been good in this,” she said.
Leigh-Anne was pregnant when McGown was captured and he met his niece and nephew for the first time this week.
But these joyful reunions are mixed with grief. “I can’t see much good in not being able to see my mother,” McGown said, “but in all other things, I try to see the positive.”