c. 2007 Religion News Service

TORONTO _ Just 17 days after the 9/11 attacks, British journalist Yvonne Ridley was captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan while covering the war on terror for the Sunday Express. She spent 10 days in captivity, and was released after promising her captors that she would read the Quran. Now 48, Ridley surprised a lot of people when she converted to Islam in 2003.

Since then, she has been an outspoken critic of Israel, President George W. Bush, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the war on terror. She has also run for political office as a candidate of the leftist RESPECT Party.

She is now a regular on the Islam Channel in Britain and has worked for CNN, ITN and Al-Jazeera, among others. She was in Canada recently for three fundraising dinners, amid calls from B’nai Brith that her talks be monitored for possible violations of hate laws.

Q: How much did you know about Islam prior to your ordeal?

A: Very little. What I knew you could probably write on the back of a postage stamp, and it was incorrect. I was amazed when I started looking into Islam. Part of it was to fulfill a promise when I was captured. But the other part of it was, as a journalist covering the Middle East and Asia, it was shocking that I knew so little about a faith which was clearly a way of life.

Q: What do you see as the greatest misconception about Islam?

A: Treatment of women. It’s difficult to generalize but I’ve discovered that (in Islam), they are not quiet, suppressed, subjugated creatures. They’re very bright, on the whole, intelligent, articulate, and very badly misrepresented in the media.

Q: What is your definition of radical Islam?

A: You know, it’s very difficult to know exactly where to come from. I remember writing to Tony Blair last year saying, “Can you tell me what your definition of an extremist is, so that when you talk about extremism, I know from where you’re coming?” He never responded. This is the problem, because nobody’s really quite sure from which point you’re coming. It’s a very difficult thing to define.

Q: But someone who openly calls for violence, would you describe that person as un-Islamic or a radical?

A: Again, you’ve got to look at the context, and this is the trouble with the media. I have been asked to discuss jihad on a news program and I refused because I said a) you need a scholar; b) you need two to three hours to sit down and go through the whole thing; and c) you’re not going to get that in 30 seconds on TV.

When you say violence, what about talking about the violence of the Bush administration’s policies in the Middle East? Where do you begin and end? When you talk about violence, from which point are you coming?

Q: One of the accusations against you in that you are a textbook case of Stockholm Syndrome (in which a captive empathizes with the captor).

A: That comes from people who cannot accept that a Western woman has rejected what they see as Western values to embrace Islam. Because they can’t understand it, they fear it. And because they fear it, they have to attack it. The easiest thing they can come up with is Stockholm Syndrome.

To suffer from Stockholm Syndrome, you have to bond with your captors. You have to have an empathy with them. During my 10 days (of captivity), I did not bond with my captors. I spat at them. I swore at them. I threw things at them. I was aggressive. I was rude (and) obnoxious. I was the prisoner from hell.

Q: As a journalist, did you ever struggle with reconciling your objectivity with embracing the philosophy of your captors?

A: I didn’t embrace the philosophy of my captors. My captors were the Taliban, and (they) have a very specific type of doctrine. And I didn’t embrace that. I embraced Islam. I embraced what I consider to be pure Islam and, like many converts, went into it without the cultural baggage that a lot of Muslims have.

Q: When you read the Quran for the first time, did you have any kind of epiphany or was it a gradual embrace?

A: No, it was a gradual thing. It slowly turned from an academic exercise into a spiritual journey. As I started reading the Quran, I started reading the supporting literature and cross-referencing and then going back to the Bible. I took it on as an academic exercise and I went back and read the Bible again.

Q: Did you see any parallels?

A: Yes. Virtually all the prophets in the Quran are in the Bible. The prophets _ Moses, Jesus, Joseph _ they all prostrated before God and prayed … like a Muslim. I discovered that the first scriptures in the New Testament weren’t written until at least 70 years after the emergence of Jesus. I began to realize the Bible, while being a great compendium of factually based stories, was not accurate. And there are many, many versions of the Bible. There is only one Quran.

Q: Do you think violence in the name of religion is ever justified?

A: Again, you have to look at past histories. Violence certainly does work,in the case of the end of apartheid in South Africa. The IRA bombed their way to the negotiating table. The (Zionist) Irgun activists who bombed the King David Hotel (in 1946) and murdered all those British soldiers, their actions were a defining moment in the British army’s desire to get the hell out of Jerusalem. Historically, violence has worked.

Q: Do you think it still can?

A: Well, George Bush seems to think it can, and that’s very sad. The Israeli army thinks that it can. You know, violence is not something that is the exclusive preserve of individuals who don’t have the benefit of big armies and governments behind them.

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