Stephen McGown was en route from London to South Africa, on a
once-in-a-lifetime trip by motorbike, returning home to
Johannesburg. He had reached Timbuktu, in Mali, when he was
captured, along with a Dutch and a Swedish national, by Al Qaeda
Islamist militants. Steve was taken because he held a British
passport. He was subsequently held hostage at various camps in the
Sahara Desert in the north-west of Africa for nearly six years
before eventually being released. Life as Steve had known it
changed in that instant that he was taken at gunpoint. He had
nothing to bargain with, and everything to lose. For the next six
years, he reluctantly engaged in what he came to call the greatest
chess game of his life. Thousands of kilometres to the south, in
Johannesburg, the shock of Stephen's capture struck the McGown
family and his wife, Cath, with whom he had, until recently, been
living in London. They immediately began efforts to secure Steve's
release, through diplomatic channels and in every other way they
felt might have a chance of seeing Stephen freed. But as the months
of captivity became years, Steve was compelled to go to
extraordinary lengths to survive. Making it back home alive became
his sole aim. To accomplish this, he realised that he would have to
do everything he could to raise his status in the eyes of his
captors. To this end, he taught himself Arabic and French, and also
converted to Islam, accepting a new name, Lot. To this day, Steve
retains the unenviable record of being the longest-held, surviving
prisoner of Al Qaeda. While he was undoubtedly always Al Qaeda's
captive, through the long years he spent in intimate proximity to
his captors, Steve got to see the Islamist militants as few other
Westerners have ever seen them. Six Years a Hostage is not only a
remarkable story of mental strength, physical endurance and the
resilience of the human spirit, but also, significantly, a unique
and nuanced perspective on one of the world's most feared terrorist
groups. Steve did not merely survive his terrible ordeal; he
emerged from the desert a changed - stronger, more positive - human
being. This is Stephen McGown's remarkable story, as told to Tudor
Caradoc-Davies, a freelance writer, editor and author based in Cape
Town, South Africa. After seven years spent working for glossy
magazines such as Men's Health, GQ, Best Life and Women's Health,
he now contributes to a range of publications. He also writes for
the (South African) Sunday Times, and Red Bulletin.
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