Let's Make Unbelievers The Missionaries.....?

"If we persist with the current status quo, we are in effect asking the nonbeliever to do all the cross-cultural work in coming to church! Remember, we are the sent ones — not them. So we not only bring people to church (that will work for the 40 percent); we also take church to the people (to reach the other 60 percent and growing). We can’t front-load church into the equation of mission." (Alan Hirsch & David Ferguson. "On The Verge")

Culturally Distant From Church

"The related problem comes from the likelihood that around 60 percent of America’s population (much higher in Europe and Australia) is increasingly alienated from the prevailing forms of church. In missionary terms, it means they are culturally distant from us. As a sent and sending people (that is, missional people), it is our task to take the message to them and deliver it in ways meaningful to them. This means we need to reassess the situation in the light of best-practice missionary approaches. We need to ask the question, what is the gospel for this people group? What would sound like good news to them? This means we must attend first to the existential and religious issues people are facing, before we can communicate how the gospel addresses them. Think of it this way: don’t plant churches; plant the gospel, and the church will grow out of it. ."

(Alan Hirsch & David Ferguson. "On The Verge")

Institutional Church Can Flex Only So Far

"It’s worth noting again that the movemental paradigm we are suggesting in this book is inclusive of all forms of ecclesia, including ones that are more institutional in expression. Whereas, the institutional paradigm is by nature exclusive — it cannot make space in the paradigm for more-fluid and adaptive forms of ecclesia. In other words, the movemental paradigm is by nature a both/and form, while the institutional form maintains a stance of either/or." (Alan Hirsch & David Ferguson. "On The Verge")

Both And... Not Either Or....

"To overcome the fact that most contemporary churches focus on the same diminishing 40 percent of the population (and therefore compete against each other for the same slice), we must have more than just one arrow in our ecclesial quiver. The way to have a really good idea is to have many ideas, and the answer to the diversity of Western culture is diversity of church expression. One size will not fit all anymore. If our only answer to the strategic challenge we face is another tweak of the same institutional paradigm that got us here, then we must expect to be (and will be) sorely disappointed, and church attendance will continue its long-term trend of decline."
(Alan Hirsch & David Ferguson. "On The Verge")

Some Organization Is Needed... But Not Conformity

"Organization is a social arrangement allowing people to pursue collective goals, control the performance of the members of a group, and distinguish the group from other groups. Because of this, it shapes so much of what we do and how we think. We all know this and experience it every day of our lives, and certainly we need organization of some form or another to get anything done collectively. But organizations can, over time, develop into impersonal institutions that tend to impose conformity (that is, crush creativity), are change-resistant, and become controlling entities that resist the promptings of the Spirit and undermine the “people dynamic” of the gospel." (Alan Hirsch & David Ferguson. "On The Verge")

Christology ONLY SHOULD Move Change

"In essence, the church needs to constantly return to its Founder in order to chart its way forward. He has full defining rights on the way the church defines itself in the world. We are Jesus’ people, and we are designed to reflect his purposes, his teachings, and his lifestyle and to fulfill his intended design for the church. Perhaps a way of saying this is that ]esus retains full rights regarding the church’s core intellectual property. And so any attempt to imagine a new future needs to ensure it is fully representing what the Founder wants and intends in the first place. If this was to be said theologically, it means Christology lies at the heart of church renewal in any time and place we find ourselves."
(Alan Hirsch & David Ferguson. "On The Verge")

When Change Is Just Talk Hamstrung By Systems That Prevent It

"Veteran church consultant Bill Easum says it this way: “Following Jesus into the mission field is either impossible or extremely difficult for the vast majority of congregations in the Western world because of one thing: They have a systems story that will not allow them to take the first step out of the institution into the mission field, even though the mission field is just outside the door of the congregation."
(Alan Hirsch & David Ferguson. "On The Verge")

Change Your Story Change Your World

"Ivan Illich, the educator and philosopher, was once asked what he thought was the most radical way to change society. Was it through violent revolution or gradual reform? He gave a careful answer: neither. Rather he suggested that if one wanted to change society, one must tell an alternative story." (Alan Hirsch & David Ferguson. "On The Verge")

Change Is Almost Impossible For The Church

"Although all of us have heard about successful attempts to revitalize existing churches, we have to acknowledge that the overall track record is very poor. Few congregations ever achieve positive growth curves again once they’ve begun to decline. What’s more, church leaders report that their attempts to revitalize their churches don’t yield the desired results. A lot of energy (and money) is put into change programs, with all the usual communication exercises, consultations, workshops, and so on. Like fad dieting, it achieves short-term results but not long-term solutions.
In the beginning, things seem to change, but gradually the novelty and impetus tends to wear off, and the organization ends up settling back into something of its previous configuration. So instead of managing new organizations, leaders end up managing the unwanted side effects of their efforts. The reason for this is simple, though often overlooked: unless the paradigm at the heart of the culture is changed, there can be no lasting change. Change must come from deep inside the paradigm; anything less will simply be external and cosmetic."
(Alan Hirsch & David Ferguson. "On The Verge")

 

Fear... Real Fear

"Extreme fear and worry were the pervading themes of our Al Qaeda captivity: fear to the point of physical pain, fear that it would end suddenly with a sword, in a tent, on a video that would be seen by family and friends, and fear that it would go on and on and we would die of the heat, the food, the snakes, scorpions, or merely of broken wills and hearts."
(Robert Fowler. A Season In Hell: My 130 Days In The Sahara With All Qaeda)

These jihadist Soldiers Are Different.

"I have hung around soldiers a fair bit. At least in the West, the men seem to favour talk of women, sports, and cars (not necessarily in that order or, indeed, separately). My Al Qaeda abductors wouldn’t have understood a word of such conversations. We in the West seem to get a big kick out of the seventy-two virgins bit but my captors didn’t seem to care much about women. In fact, they were absolutely uninterested in anything other than praising the Lord while passing the ammunition in a fight that they deeply believed to be His fight. Never have I seen people less interested in material stuff. Most of them were under twenty-five, all under forty-eight. They neither expected nor wanted to grow old and considered me to be extravagantly time expired. They did not covet cool sneakers or sports paraphernalia; they did not ape the latest fashion, or seek to emulate the antics and ethics of rock or film stars, or even dream of nickel-plating their AKs. Similarly, I have never met a less horny group of young men. There was no skulking out of the desert for a little R&R or even for chaste reunions with family and friends. Admittedly, this would have been risky for them as I suspect that the Algerian intelligence apparatus watches such people very carefully. Normal familial attachments and pleasures of the flesh seemed to hold little attraction. The mujahideen seemed perfectly content to talk and chant about Allah and their servitude to Him … endlessly."

(Robert Fowler. A Season In Hell: My 130 Days In The Sahara With All Qaeda)

14 Million Radical Muslims?

"Many Muslims insist that no more than 1 percent of their number hold radical fundamentalist beliefs and profess a commitment to jihad. But 1 percent of 1.4 billion is still 14 million. Such number games are not quite meaningless, even if they don’t really get us beyond the stark premise that jihadism poses a real and seemingly growing threat to Western interests and values."
(Robert Fowler. A Season In Hell: My 130 Days In The Sahara With All Qaeda)

Softy Muslims Outside The Community

"Their most immediate operational priority remained the “near enemy”: the so-called apostate regimes of the secular, nominally Islamic states of North Africa and the Sahel region, declared takfir by these zealots. This meant that our captors rejected the credibility of the Muslim allegiance of all these governments, thereby, in the eyes of AQIM, setting them apart from the ummah and effectively excommunicating their members from Islam. As deemed non- believers, the political leaders, and the security forces that kept them in place, became, in the eyes of AQIM’s mujahideen, legitimate targets."
(Robert Fowler. A Season In Hell: My 130 Days In The Sahara With All Qaeda)

Who Cares About Development Work?

"They also hated all Western development efforts undertaken both by state actors and by NGOs and were particularly exercised by Christian missionary activities, either overt or what they termed “covert,” which of course often included development work. There is no doubt in my mind that they wanted to grab me first and foremost because I was a senior officer of the United Nations, while also wishing to demonstrate that their reach was long and their cause universal. By so doing they hoped to discourage UN and NGO activity throughout the Sahel region." (Robert Fowler. A Season In Hell: My 130 Days In The Sahara With All Qaeda)

It is Jihad.. Not just Banditry

Almost since 9/11, there has been a loud debate among securocrats over whether Al Qaeda and its franchises, like AQIM, are bandits, opportunists, thugs, psychopaths, and restless, underemployed youths flying a flag of Islamic convenience, or, conversely, deeply committed religious zealots engaging, Robin Hood—like, in banditry, kidnapping, and trafficking to finance the achievement of their Islamic vision. Many, probably most, have opted for some variation of the convenient first option, and many security services still seem to favour this interpretation, mostly, I suspect, because it makes these movements easy to belittle and should make them much easier to defeat. Whatever the reasoning, based on my own experience, I know it to be the wrong answer.

Similarly, some anti—terrorism “experts” express doubt that the jihadi warriors of AQIM are “really Al Qaeda.” The question strikes me as startlingly moot: if they think like Al Qaeda, are motivated by and want to achieve the same things as Al Qaeda, behave like Al Qaeda, fight, kill, and die like Al Qaeda, and say they are Al Qaeda, then, quite simply, they are."

(Robert Fowler. A Season In Hell: My 130 Days In The Sahara With All Qaeda)

Good Christians Chickens With Our Heads Down.

"Gordon McKenzie, in his creative book on organizations, Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool’s Guide to Surviving with Grace, describes a story from his childhood where he and his cousin learned to “mesmerize” chickens on his uncle’s farm. They did so by capturing a chicken and holding its beak down to a white line of chalk until it became spellbound. The chickens would remain frozen in this position until the boy’s uncle would come along and give them a kick in the backside to wake them up from their hypnotic stupor. McKenzie tells the story because he notes that organizations, like the white line of chalk in his story, can have a mesmerizing effect on people in their orbit. They create a culture of conformity that requires docility and dull obedience from their members. This stifles appropriate dissent and puts a lid on imagination and innovation. Unfortunately, churches can also tend to have the same effect on their leaders as well as on community members. Something in our traditions, theology, or inherited methodology tends to keep our collective noses down on the line. We rarely break free to do something genuinely imaginative, something adventurous, or something that challenges the status quo. Like it or not, we behave like a group of mesmerized chickens. And, like them, every now and again we need God to give us a proverbial kick in the backside to break our inertia and get us moving again." (Alan Hirsch & David Ferguson. "On The Verge")

Lets Reject Progress Shall We...

"He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery." (HAROLD WILSON)

"You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus." (MARK TWAIN)

Know it All Leadership...

"Michael Fullan, the Canadian guru on leadership and change, has observed that the two greatest failures of leaders are “indecisiveness in times of urgent need for action and dead certainty that they are right in times of complexity.". (Alan Hirsch & David Ferguson. "On The Verge")

Jesus Empowered Ordinary People, Not Religious Elite.

"The church Jesus designed is a movement and not a religious institution. If this isn’t the case, then there’s no way to understand why Jesus reserves his harshest criticisms not for the so-called sinners but rather for the religious people of his day. It also explains why he chose and empowered ordinary people and not the religious elite to take the gospel to the world. This isn’t to say God doesn’t like order or that there’s no structure to movements; it is to say the original church structure is very unlike the kind of structures that emerged with the Christendom form of church." (Alan Hirsch & David Ferguson. "On The Verge")

Some Flexibility From "The Church" Is In Order.

"We insist that a genuinely apostolic paradigm of the church is by nature inclusive of all forms in service of its mission, whereas the more institutional paradigm is by nature exclusive, demanding high conformity." (Alan Hirsch & David Ferguson. "On The Verge")

Church as we have Appeals to only 40% Of Population. 60% Will never come here EVER

"It is our opinion, and that of the Future Travelers group, that the prevailing, contemporary church-growth approach to church will have significant cultural appeal — marketability, if you will — to about 40 percent of the American population. (This is informed opinion, anecdotal in nature because to date there is no hard research on this.) This is not attendance; we know that attendance in these forms of churches is far less than that. This means that the prevailing models of evangelistic churches could likely max out at around 40 percent of the population, perhaps 50 percent at the very best.4 However we cut it, it leaves us with two major problems. Strategic Problem The first one is a strategic problem. Most of our churches believe and act as if modeling on (and perfecting) the successful contemporary church approach will resolve their problems of mission. But even if they could all become successful megachurches, the vast majority of churches cannot and should not. The financial capital, managerial infrastructure, leadership ability, communication strategies, and amount of artistic talent are huge in megachurches — all making for a model that is not very reproducible. So we have a vexing situation where probably 90 percent or more of evangelical churches in America (and other Western contexts) are aiming at becoming a model that not only is improbable for the vast majority but also (even if they could crack the codes) effectively would still just be competing with other churches for the same 40 percent.5 This should concern us very deeply. Anyone with a sense of strategy should be immediately alert at this point. Why? Because all our missional eggs are in one ecclesiological basket! We have no diversity of options — most of our current practices are simply variations of the same model. This is not to say it’s wrong or not used by God, and so on. Please don’t hear us wrong here. Clearly, God uses the contemporary church. It is simply to say it is not sufficient to the increasingly missional challenge now set before us. It was psychologist Abraham Maslow who noted that when the only tool you have is a hammer, everything begins to look like a nail. The tool itself begins to define us and determine our approaches. However, if we are going to rise to the situation we face, we are going to need more tools. More disturbing, perhaps, is that this dearth of options demonstrates a serious poverty of imagination in the way we think about the church and mission and indicates why we desperately need to innovate.....
As Jesus’ sent people, we have to ask ourselves, what about the possible 60 percent of people who for various reasons report significant alienation from precisely the contemporary church-growth model(s) we rely so heavily on? What will church be for these people? What is good news going to sound like for them? And how are they going to access the gospel of Jesus in ways that are culturally meaningful for them? The reality is, if we expect more variations of the prevailing practices to reach into increasingly de-churched and unchurched populations, we are fooling ourselves. We’re avoiding the missionary call of the church to take Christ’s message to the people and nations....

This is exactly the issue we face. We are all competing in the red waters of the 40 percent while the 60 percent remains largely untouched."
(Alan Hirsch & David Ferguson. "On The Verge")

You Have Church Wired In.......

".... every member contains within them a church,..".
(Alan Hirsch & David Ferguson. "On The Verge")

Neil Cole says we are apples... Each  Christian has all the DNA in us to birth more churches and a Jesus community.

Only God Can Revive A Church. Only God Can Make A Movement.

Really, who will live missionally unless THEY chose to do so. No church can Avon lush this unless they have it flooding their spiritual heart to emerge into their life and community harvest field. No amount of human lecturing, preaching, or planning can replace this seminal fact. Is the desire really there in the heart of our people? They don't act because they don't want to.

<block quote>"....we don’t want to give the impression that reigniting apostolic movements can be simply a work of human endeavor. It must be, and is, a work of the Spirit of God. Certainly, we must do our part, but in the end the church exists by the grace, presence, and power of God himself, and to him we must constantly turn if we are going to be the kind of people he wants us to be. Forgive us if we ever give you the impression to the contrary." <block quote>
(Alan Hirsch & David Ferguson. "On The Verge")

We had too many people supporting our missional movement with prayer and finances, but not with their 24/7, everyday lives

"We understood and were putting into practice the apostolic mission of reproductive church planting, but we were not mobilizing all of God’s people into every sphere of life. We had too many people supporting our missional movement with prayer and finances, but not with their 24/7, everyday lives. We had become skilled at reproducing macro (sites and churches), and now we needed to become equally proficient in reproducing micro (mobilizing every person for mission in their context)" .
(Alan Hirsch & David Ferguson. "On The Verge")

Don’t Intersect With The Spiritual Scripting of Congregational Church.?

Love the phrase... "Spiritual Scripting"

"More recently, a new expression of missional church has captured the attention of those of us who are tracking the missional movement. It is the rise of missional communities. This development signals the arrival of a new life form in the taxonomy of church life. The emergence of missional communities is part of the Spirit’s response to deploying the church in an increasingly postcongregational era. Translated into English, that means the church is figuring out a way to be present in populations that are not susceptible to becoming church people (people who align their spiritual journeys with the goals and rhythms of organized congregational church). Yet these people are spiritually inquisitive and open to relationship with Jesus and with other believers. It is just that their lifestyle or their employment or their personal interests don’t intersect with the spiritual scripting of congregational church." (Reggie McNeal forward to -Alan Hirsch & David Ferguson. "On The Verge")

What Does Missional Mean/Look Like?

"While there are some nuances and various dialects of missional being spoken, widespread agreement exists around a core expression of what it means to be missional. The missional church engages the community with the intent of being a blessing. It looks for ways to connect with the world beyond the walls of church real estate and programming. For many congregations, this external focus finds expression through service, not more “services.” The congregation becomes the church not just in the community but for the community. Cross—domain collaboration with other sectors of the city enables the church to begin to address some of the challenging issues that threaten the welfare of the city. Typically, existing congregations are entering the missional movement across this threshold."  (Reggie McNeal in forward to-  Alan Hirsch & David Ferguson. "On The Verge")

Why Hang Out With Others?

The importance of Community.

"Science tells us that our depth perception comes through our binocular vision." (Michael Been in forward to Alan Hirsch & David Ferguson. "On The Verge")

When Muslims Sound Like Evangelical Christians

This Muslim missionary kidnapper for Al Qaeda sounds so much like what the average Christian fundamentalist or evangelical would preach and say to people during evangelism..... Wow... Might make us stop and think....

"Omar told us with great reverence and detail what would occur leading up to the Day of Judgment and then on that day itself, of Gabriel’s questioning, on Allah’s behalf, of each part and each organ of the body—none of which, of course, could speak anything but the absolute truth—to determine the individual’s worthiness for admission to paradise. He described the tortures of hell in as meticulous and vivid detail, and again and again he urged us to consider our options very carefully. The Day of Iudgment was indeed nigh in his view, and he wanted us to be fully aware of how relevant this ought to be to two weak and elderly unbelievers held by Al Qaeda in the Sahara. If we died without having submitted to Allah, the horrors of hell would be immediate and extreme. To that end he detailed the Five Pillars of Islam and regularly explained the simple act that would make us their Muslim brothers." (Robert Fowler. A Season In Hell: My 130 Days In The Sahara With All Qaeda)

Which Way To Go Once You Leave.

Is there a cost for those around you for escaping?

"Then there was the issue of where to head, and the only plan I could come up with was to go south hundreds and hundreds of kilometres across the Sahara desert. Even if I could find a well- travelled track and a passing vehicle were to pick me up, there was a good possibility that anyone transiting those regions would simply hand me back to AQIM or turn out to be worse abductors. As for retribution for any escape attempt, I had to consider the likelihood that it would be Visited upon both me and Louis, whether or not he were to join me in the attempt, and likely to be worse for him in the extremely unlikely event that I succeeded."

(Robert Fowler. A Season In Hell: My 130 Days In The Sahara With All Qaeda)

The Potential Cost Of Escape.....

Does escaping the institutional church have repercussions?

"Our escape plotting centred on the fundamental issue of establishing our location. Unless we knew where to head and that getting there was feasible, any attempt would be futile and quite possibly fatal. Would we be able to get a reasonable start before we were missed, given 24/7 guards? And, of course, the cost—benefit calculation had to measure the prospect of a successful attempt against the certainty of reprisals which would follow a failed attempt.
We knew we were about a thousand kilometres into the Sahara, north of Gao and at a somewhat greater distance northeast of Tombouctou. I figured that if I could slip away into a moonless night, I could probably walk twenty kilometres before dawn, carrying—if Louis agreed—our communal four-litre plastic jug of water. That would leave only 980 kilometres to go. I knew I would not last long once the sun came up and, unless I left during one of the relatively rare sandstorms, which itself would probably do me in, a child could follow my tracks across the desert. They would accomplish that in a few minutes in one of their trucks. "
(Robert Fowler. A Season In Hell: My 130 Days In The Sahara With All Qaeda)

Insight From Time Spent With Al Qaeda

"But for somebody who has spent most of his professional life analyzing geostrategic challenges, it was also fascinating to be living, talking, and sleeping with Al Qaeda. At one point I said to Louis that if only we knew this nightmare would end well, from a professional point of View this very intimate opportunity to examine militant Islamic fundamentalism—arguably the greatest current threat to international stability—would be a unique and informative experience. I think it was at that point that I decided if I got out in one piece, I would write this book."
(Robert Fowler. A Season In Hell: My 130 Days In The Sahara With All Qaeda)

Some Talk To Allah, Others To God, Still Others to Family

"..... it would be time for the evening portion of our walk, if, that is, Omar One had not shown up for a reading from the Qur’an, or Omar Two did not loom above us to assess our readiness to become his brothers in faith.

Those sessions, or our walk, would eventually be interrupted by their evening prayers. After some discussion Louis and I decided, almost from our arrival at Camp Canada, that we would show respect for their so deeply cherished religion by standing— during the daylight prayers—while they assembled in a single line facing east fifty metres away from us. That practice was fiercely resented by those few who believed it to be cravenly designed to curry their favour but admired by most, who took it to be a freely offered sign of respect. In fact, I found the chanting, rhythmic, soft voice of the imam rather soothing, and those became welcome contemplative moments during which I developed a ritual of my own.

I have, since an early age, found religion faintly ridiculous. I do not write this to cause offence to anybody and hope I have not done so. Indeed, I respect the evident fact that many wise people and some close friends profoundly disagree with me on this rather fundamental point, beginning with Louis. So, while these jihadi fundamentalists prayed to their god and Louis spoke to his, I talked to my family. (Robert Fowler. A Season In Hell: My 130 Days In The Sahara With All Qaeda)

No "What Ifs" Or Cranky Talk After Noon

Might be good hostage advice, and an excellent life habit......
"First rule—no what ifs or if onlys. We agreed, first tacitly and subsequently explicitly, that it would be perilous, counterproductive, and downright self-indulgent to wallow in any musings about what had brought us to this pretty pass. Thus we neVer—not once—discussed whether or not I should have accepted this assignment from the UN Secretary-General; whether Louis should have agreed to sign on as my assistant; if we really had to make the trip from which we were abducted or whether we ought to have remained by the pool at the hotel in Niamey that Sunday afternoon; or, indeed, to play the blame game of wondering if we would be in this pickle if only the other guy had....
Second rule—no discussing bad stuff after midday. Very soon we realized that if we shared our worst worries and fears late into the night, we would not be able to sleep with such thoughts chasing each other toward what my brother, Bruce, calls “the hour of the wolf”: that period just before dawn when even at the best of times everything looks bleak. Thus, in a ridiculously effective act of self-delusion, we decreed that those dark thoughts could be aired and dissected in the morning, and they regularly were, but not after lunch."
(Robert Fowler. A Season In Hell: My 130 Days In The Sahara With All Qaeda)

Never Ignore You Flies...

"We usually began before sunrise and as the rim of the sun appeared above the horizon the flies would begin to gather and I would estimate their numbers on Louis’ jacket. Often I counted more than a hundred and, of course, they covered his pants and turban as well. I knew I was also covered with flies but focusing on Louis helped me to ignore mine." "We would strive at all costs to maintain healthy bodies in the extremely hostile environment in which we found ourselves, with the hope and expectation that physical health would help preserve mental health and maintain morale, which we took to be our greatest challenge." (Robert Fowler. A Season In Hell: My 130 Days In The Sahara With All Qaeda)

Physical Training Of Value As A Hostage.

"We would strive at all costs to maintain healthy bodies in the extremely hostile environment in which we found ourselves, with the hope and expectation that physical health would help preserve mental health and maintain morale, which we took to be our greatest challenge." (Robert Fowler. A Season In Hell: My 130 Days In The Sahara With All Qaeda)

At Least Not Alone!

Good illustration for fellowship, or community......some might use it to bash us about institutional church attendance too. ;-)

"We understood from the outset that our greatest strength was each other. So far, we had remained together. We had been able to help, comfort, support, assist, cajole, challenge, shame, sustain, and encourage one another. We had not been close friends before this nightmare nor had we worked together for very long on this UN mission, but we understood that we were fortunate to be in this mess together. We were also well aware that alone the chance of coming through unscathed would be considerably diminished for each of us." (Robert Fowler. A Season In Hell: My 130 Days In The Sahara With All Qaeda)

Better The Devil You Know?

"Escaping from AQIM into the clutches of any of these shadowy groups would not necessarily have changed our circumstances for the better." (Robert Fowler. A Season In Hell: My 130 Days In The Sahara With All Qaeda)

Human Trafficking in Sahara Desert

"Then there are the people movers- the African equivalents of the Asian snakeheads—who for a substantial fee escort desperate people from West Africa who brave the perilous Sahara and the Mediterranean crossing to attempt illegal immigration to Europe. Their hope is to find employment in those lands of plenty so they can send money home to their all too often starving families. Many of these people had been awaiting their moment to get across the Mediterranean when they were caught up in the piteous suffering, turmoil, and upheaval currently besetting Libya. And finally, there are the ordinary smugglers who have worked these regions for millennia."
(Robert Fowler. A Season In Hell: My 130 Days In The Sahara With All Qaeda)

Canada's North Like The Sahara?

".... rather similar in its unforgiving austerity, dramatic weather, and stark emptiness to the Barren Lands of northern Canada. Nor is there an effective police or military presence anywhere in this bleak region. Mali’s ill- equipped, underfunded, and poorly trained army ventures warily and rarely into the Sahara, which is the realm of a variety of nomadic peoples, and dominated by rebels, bandits, traffickers of all kinds, and, of course, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb." (Robert Fowler. A Season In Hell: My 130 Days In The Sahara With All Qaeda)

Sahara Desert Drugs Destroy Tuareg Society

"Thus the Sahara houses a complex netherworld of people operating outside and beyond any law. Gun runners bring weapons and ammunition of every description, mostly of Soviet—era origin and mostly from Sudan, Somalia, and Chad, to clients across the western Sahel. Drug traffickers are reportedly paid $40,000 by Colombia’s FARC rebels or their West African partners to run a shipment of cocaine from, say, Guinea- Bissau across the Sahara to the eastern Mediterranean littoral, from where it is taken into Europe’s soft underbelly or to the Arabian peninsula and the Gulf States.
Such vast sums of drug money are wreaking havoc within the traditional Tuareg leadership structure. The elders find it increasingly difficult to hold sway over, and can exert little discipline on, the flash kids with weapons and pockets full of cash. Absent the traditionally strong Tuareg cultural foundation and clan discipline, the kids are easier pickings for AQIM as the region drifts toward the anarchy of Somalia and the turmoil of Darfur, which, my jailers told me, was very
much their objective. "
(Robert Fowler. A Season In Hell: My 130 Days In The Sahara With All Qaeda)

Lucky To Be Kidnapped...?????

"From time to time, when we remarked on some aspect of our desert surroundings, our AQIM captors—usually Ibrahim or Omar One—would point out how fortunate we were to be touring the Sahara and ask if we were aware of the exorbitant prices European tourists and Saudi princes paid to see such sights. We usually just shrugged and stared them down and they grew tired of that play." (Robert Fowler. A Season In Hell: My 130 Days In The Sahara With All Qaeda)

Desert Beauty And Horror At Loss Of Freedim

"In its stark variety, the desert is as stunning as it is daunting. Unlike Louis, though, I had trouble appreciating beauty in such circumstances. Yes, the plethora of stars in clear air so very far from any light pollution was stunning. And it’s true that the many faces of the Sahara, from the high ridges of classic, shifting dunes standing across our route to the absolutely flat, almost pure white, horizon—less shimmering pans of the Malian desert, or the sharp, rugged, black and red stone mountains rearing out of the desert—some streaked laterally with white salt deposits —were all dramatically different, imposing, and not a little frightening in their harsh and unforgiving primordial vastness. To me, however, that all highlighted our lack of freedom and a terrifyingly uncertain future. Louis enjoyed the glorious sunsets but I had trouble seeing past the circumstances in which we were viewing them."
(Robert Fowler. A Season In Hell: My 130 Days In The Sahara With All Qaeda)

Stunning Desert...

"In its stark variety, the desert is as stunning as it is daunting." (Robert Fowler. A Season In Hell: My 130 Days In The Sahara With All Qaeda)

Honor All Of God's Creatures -Except Infidels?

"Omar One had been assiduous in teaching us about the need to honour all God’s creations, animate and inanimate. However, while all of Allah’s creatures were to be protected even if they could be used to sustain life, there were, as we suspected, exceptions, though they delicately omitted infidels from the list. Prominent among the exemptions were poisonous snakes, scorpions, and hyenas, which were to be dispatched on sight. Their fear of these things was contagious and neither their fatalism nor mine was sufficient to overcome it." (Robert Fowler. A Season In Hell: My 130 Days In The Sahara With All Qaeda)

Al Qaeda Kidnaping Realities.

"Finally, there was the largely unspoken yet constant threat of being physically mistreated, beaten, or tortured. There had been a few signs in the early days of their wanting to abuse us but they had not been repeated. What, though, if negotiations did not go their way or a sadist among them (and a few candidates had already identified themselves) simply decided to have a go? Would Jack's discipline prevail?

Without a doubt, my greatest and most debilitating concern was that one day we would be marched into a tent, required to kneel before the AQIM tableau of black flag and heavily armed masked men, and executed, probably beheaded, as the video camera rolled. It was a worry that never left me. Sometimes it was very present, sometimes more abstract, but it was always there. I knew with absolute certainty that their patience and fatalism could work both for and against us."

(Robert Fowler. A Season In Hell: My 130 Days In The Sahara With All Qaeda)

Sold To This Institution

"But the rich man--not to make any invidious comparison--is always sold to the institution which makes him rich." (Henry David Thoreau. Civil Disobedience.)

Some Thing Change Too Slow

"As for adopting the ways of the State has provided for remedying the evil, I know not of such ways. They take too much time, and a man's life will be gone. I have other affairs to attend to. I came into this world, not chiefly to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad. A man has not everything to do, but something; and because he cannot do everything, it is not necessary that he should be doing something wrong." (Henry David Thoreau. Civil Disobedience.)

Being Friction To Stop The Machine Of Injustice

"...... but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter—friction to stop the machine." (Henry David Thoreau. Civil Disobedience.)

The Institution Causes The Harm, Not Reforming Ideas

"Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? Men, generally, under such a government as this, think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the majority to alter them. They think that, if they should resist, the remedy would be worse than the evil. But it is the fault of the government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil.
It makes it worse. Why is it not more apt to anticipate and provide for reform? Why does it not cherish its wise minority? Why does it cry and resist before it is hurt? Why does it not encourage its citizens to put out its faults, and do better than it would have them? Why does it always crucify Christ and excommunicate Copernicus and Luther, and pronounce Washington and Franklin rebels?"
(Henry David Thoreau. Civil Disobedience.)

Action On "Right" Divides Churches And States

"Action from principle, the perception and the performance of right, changes things and relations; it is essentially revolutionary, and does not consist wholly with anything which was. It not only divided States and churches, it divides families; ay, it divides the individual, separating the diabolical in him from the divine." (Henry David Thoreau. Civil Disobedience.)