Another Canadian Hostage

Why Canadians, why not Australians, or Germans? Isn't it always German and Australian youth who are portrayed as curious about the world around them, adventurous, always heaving off on bold new forks in the road? When was it that Canadians began experimenting with the joys and the travails of venturing in bold pursuit of new places in various geographies of the world?

The allure of placing oneself in dangerous situations appears to have become an irresistible attraction to young Canadians. As well as older ones.

The Taliban dispatched a woman convinced that they would never harm her for she had herself become Muslim, and defended their right to protect their country from the incursion of foreign troops. Beverly Giesbrecht, also known as Khadija Abdul Qahaar, kidnapped on the Pakistan/Afghanistan border, also videoed and finally murdered.

A few years earlier it was three women in Afghanistan who advanced the cause of women and children and whom the Taliban pumped bullets at, despite that their white SUV bore the markings of the International Rescue Committee. One woman acknowledged as an authority on education for women and girls in zones of conflict, the other committed to assist disabled Afghan children.

And now a 26-year-old Canadian man taken hostage by Mujahideen in central Afghanistan. A video released by his captors show him being interviewed. He is trying to convince his captors that he is not, as they claim, an intelligence spy, but simply a tourist with an interest "in history and historic sites, old buildings, shrines...I am an auditor from Canada and I came as a tourist", he tells them.

What makes young people feel they are somehow immune from danger when they present themselves in what are clearly dangerous world hot-spots, like active war zones? Are they that naive, or do they harbour a secret death wish? One that the local psychopaths are only too eager to fulfill for them.